“Let me kaap hold of your flipper, so that I can prevint your drifting away. Now tell me, my laddy, how did you get here?”
“I come down the same way that you did.”
“Through the skylight up there? It’s a handy way of going downstairs, the only trouble being that it’s sometimes inconvanient to stop so suddint like. Did n’t you obsarve the opening till you stepped into it?”
“I didn’t see it then. I was near it, asleep, and when I woke up in the night I crawled in under the bushes to shelter myself, when I went through into the cave. How was it you followed?”
“I was sarching for ye, as I’ve been doing for the last two days and more. I obsarved the hole, for I had the daylight to help me, and I crawled up to take a paap down to see who lived there, when I must have gone too fur, as me uncle obsarved after he had been hung in a joke, and the ground crumbled beneath me, and I slid in. But let me ax you again, are ye much acquainted in these parts? You know I’m a stranger.”
“I never was here before. I’ve looked around all I can, but haven’t been able to find how big the cave is. There’s a small waterfall, and the stream comes in and goes out somewhere, and there is one rent, at least, so deep that I don’t believe it has any bottom. I’ve learned that much, and that’s all.”
“That’s considerable for a laddy like you. Are you hungry?”
“You’d better believe I am.”
“Why had I better belave it?” asked Mickey, with an assumption of gravity that it was impossible for him to feel. “If ye give me your word of honor, I’ll belave you, because I’ve been hungry myself, and know how it goes. I have some lunch wid me, and if ye don’t faal above ating with common folks, we’ll sup together.”
“I am so glad,” responded Fred, who was indeed in need of something substantial. “I feel weak and hollow.”
“Ye shall have your fill; take the word of an Irishman for that. Would you like to smoke?”
“You know I never smoke, Mickey.”
“I did n’t ax ye that question, but if ye doesn’t feel inclined to do the same, I’ll indulge myself a little.”
The speaker had been preparing his pipe and tobacco while they were talking, and, as he uttered the last words, he twitched the match against the bowl, and immediately began drawing at it.
As the volumes of smoke issuing from his mouth showed that the flame had done its duty, he held the match aloft, and looked down in the smiling, upturned face of the lad, scrutinizing the handsome countenance, as long as the tiny bit of pine held out.
“Yes, it’s your own lovely self, as Barney McDougan’s wife obsarved, when he came home drunk, with one eye punched out and his head cracked. Do ye know that while I was surveying your swate face I saw something behind ye?”
“No. What was it?” demanded Fred, with a start and shudder, looking back in the darkness.
“Oh! it was nothing that will harm ye: I think there be some bits of wood there that kin be availed of in the way of kindling a fire, and that’s what I misses more than anything else, as me mither used to say when she couldn’t find the whisky-bottle. Bestir yourself, me laddy, and assist me in getting together some scraps.”
The Irishman was not mistaken in his supposition. Groping around, they found quite a quantity of sticks and bits of wood. All of these were dry, and the best kind of kindling stuff that could be obtained. Mickey was never without his knife, and he whittled several of these until sure they would take the flame from a match when he made the essay.
The fire caught readily, and, carefully nursed, it spread until it roared and crackled like an old-fashioned camp-fire. As it rose higher and higher, and the heavy gloom was penetrated and lit up by the vivifying rays, Mickey and Fred used their eyes to the best of their ability.
The cave seemed to stretch away into fathomless darkness in every direction, excepting one, which was toward the waterfall or cascade. This appeared to be at one side, instead of running through the centre. The dark walls could be seen on the other side of the stream, and the gleam and glitter of the water, for some distance both above and below the plunge.
“Do you obsarve anything new?” asked Mickey.
“Nothing more than what I told you,” replied Fred, supposing he referred to the extent of the cavern.
“I have larned something,” said the man, significantly.
“What’s that?”
“Somebody’s been here ahead of us.”
“How do you know that?”
“I’ve got the proof. Will you note that, right there before your eyes?”
As he spoke, he pointed to the kindling-wood, or fuel, of which they had collected considerable, while there was plenty more visible around them. Fred was not sure that he understood him, so he still looked questioningly toward him.
“Wood doesn’t grow in such places as this, no more than ye can find praties sprouting out of the side of a tea kettle; but then it might have been pitched down the hole above, or got drifted into it without anybody helping, if it wasn’t for the fact that there’s been a camp-fire here before.”
“How do you make that out, Mickey?”
The Irishman stooped down and picked up one of the pieces of wood, which was waiting to be thrown upon the camp fire. Holding it out, he showed that the end was charred.
“That isn’t the only stick that’s built after the same shtyle, showing that this isn’t the first camp-fire that was got up in these parts. There’s been gintlemen here before today, and they must have had some way of coming and going that we haven’t diskivered as yet.”
There seemed nothing unlikely in this supposition of Mickey’s, who picked up his rifle from where he had left it lying on the ground, and stared inquiringly around in the gloom.
“I wonder whether there be any wild animals prowling around?”
“I don’t think that could be; for there couldn’t many of them fall through that hole that let us in, and if they did, they would soon die.”
“That minds me that you hinted something about feeling the cravings of hunger, and I signified to you that I had something for ye about my clothes; and so I have, if it isn’t lost.”
As he spoke, he drew from beneath his waistcoat a package, carefully wrapped about with an ordinary newspaper. Gently drawing the covering aside, he displayed a half-dozen pieces of deer-meat, cooked to a turn.
“Will ye take some?” he asked, handing one to Fred, who could scarcely conceal his craving eagerness, as he began masticating it.
“How comes it that you have that by you?”
“I ginerally goes prepared for the most desprit emargencies, as me mither used to remark when she stowed the whisky-bottle away wid the lunch she was takin’ with her. It was about the middle of yisterday afternoon that I fetched down a deer that was browsing on the bank of a small stream that I raiched, and, as a matter of coorse, I made my dinner on him. I tried to lay in enough stock to last me for a week—that is, under my waistband—but I hadn’t the room; so I sliced up several pieces, rather overcooked ’em, so as to make ’em handy to carry, and then wrapped ’em up in the paper.”
“It’s a common-sense arrangement,” added Mickey. “I had the time and the chance to do it, and it was likely to happen that, when I wanted the next meal, I wouldn’t have the same opportunity, remembering which I did as I said, and the result is, I’ve brought your dinner to you.”
CHAPTER XXVII
A Subterranean Camp-Fire
There is no sauce like hunger, and after Fred Munson’s experience of partial starvation, and nausea from the wild berries which he had eaten, the venison was as luscious as could be. It seemed to him that he had never tasted of anything he could compare to it.
“Fred, me laddy, tell me all that has happened to you since we met—not that, aither, but since Lone Wolf snapped you up on his mustang, and ran away wid you. I wasn’t about the city when the Apaches made their call, being off on a hunt, as you will remember, so I didn’t see all the sport, but I hear
d the same from Misther Simpson.”
Thus invited, the boy went over the narration, already known, giving the full particulars of his adventures, from the morning he opened his eyes and found himself in the camp of the Apaches in the mountains; to the hour when he slipped through from the upper earth into the cave below. Mickey listened with great interest, frequently interrupting and expressing his surprise and gratitude at the good fortune which seemed to succeed bad fortune in every case.
“You sometimes read of laddies like you gettin out of the claws of these spalpeens, but you don’t often see it, though you’ve been lucky enough to get out.”
“Now, Mickey, tell me how it was that you came to get on my track.”
“Well, you see, I got back to New Bosting shortly after the rumpus. I would have been in time enough to have had a hand in the wind-up, if it hadn’t been that I got into a little circus of my own. Me and a couple of Apaches tried the game of cracking each other’s heads, that was spun out longer than we meant, and so, as I was obsarving, when I rode into town, the fun was all over. I found Misther Simpson just gettin’ ready to take your trail, and he axed me to do the same, and I was mighty glad to do it. I was desirous of bringing along your horse Hurricane, for you to ride when we should get you, but Soot would n’t hear of it. He said the horse would only be a bother, and if we should lay hands onto you, either of our horses was strong enough to take you, so we left the crature behind.”
“Did you have any trouble in following us?”
“Not at first; a hundred red spalpeens riding over the prairie can’t any more hide their trail than an Irishman can save himself from cracking a head when he is invited to do so. We galloped along, without ever scarcely looking at the ground. You know I’ve larned something of the perarie business since we came West, and that was the kind of trail I could have follered wid both eyes shut and me hands handcuffed, and, knowing as we naaded to hurry, we put our mustangs to their best paces.”
“How was it that you didn’t overtake us?”
“You had too much of a start; but when we struck the camp in the mountains—that is, where Lone Wolf and his spalpeens took their breakfast—we wasn’t a great way behind ’em. We swung along at a good pace, Soot trying to time ourselves so that we’d strike ’em ’bout dark, when he ca’c’lated there’d be a good chance to work in on ’em.”
“How was it you failed?’
“We’d worked that thing as nice as anything you ever heard tell on, if Lone Wolf hadn’t played a trick on us. We had n’t gone far on the trail among the mountains, when we found that the spalpeens had separated into two parties—three in one, and something like a hundred in the other.”
“And you did not know which had charge of me?”
“There couldn’t be any sartinty about it, and the best we could do was to make a guess. Soot got off his mustang and crawled round on his hands and knees, running his fingers over the ground, and looking down as careful like as me mither used to do with my head when she obsarved me scratching it more industrious than usual. He did n’t say much, and arter a time he came back to where his mustang was waitin’, and, leanin’ agin the beast, looked up in my face, and axed me which party I thought you was in. I said the thray, of course, and that was the rason why they had gone off by themselves.”
“You were right, then, of course.”
“Yes, and when I answered, Soot, he just laughed kind o’ soft like, and said that that was the very rason why he did not believe you was with the thray. He remarked that Lone Wolf was a mighty sharp old spalpeen. He knowed that Soot would be coming on his trail, and he divided up his party so as to bother him. Anybody would be apt to think just the same as I did—that the boy would be sent to the Injun town in charge of the little party, while the others went on to hatch up some deviltry. Lone Wolf knowed enough to do that, and he had therefore kept the laddy with the big company, meaning that his old friend, the scout, should go on a fool’s errand.
“That’s the way Soot rasoned, you see, and that’s where he missed it altogether. He wasn’t ready for both of us to take the one trail, so it was agreed that we should also divide into two parties—he going after the big company and I after the small one, he figuring out that, by so doing, he would get all the heavy work to do, and I would n’t any, and there is where he missed it bad. There wasn’t any way that we could fix it so that we could come together again, so the understanding was that each was to go on his own hook, and get back to New Bosting the best way we could, and if there was n’t any New Bosting to go to, why, we was to keep on till we reached Fort Severn, which, you know is about fifty miles beyant.
“You understand, I was just as sartin’ that I was on your trail as Soot was that he was gainin’ on ye; so we both worked our purtiest. I’ve been studyin’ up this trailin’ business ever since we struck this side of the Mississippi, and I’d calculated that I’d larned something ’bout such things. I belave I could hang to the tracks of them three horsemen till I cotched up to ’em, and nothing could throw me off; but it was n’t long before I begun to get things mixed. The trail bothered me, and at last I was stunned altogether. I begun to think that maybe Soot was right, after all, and the best thing I could do was to turn round and cut for home; but I kept the thing up till I struck a trail that led up into the mountains, which I concluded was made by one of the spalpeens in toting you off on his shoulders. That looked, too, as if the Ingin’ settlement was somewhere not far off, and I begun to think ag’in that Soot was wrong and I right. I kept the thing up till night, when I had n’t diskivered the first sign, and not only that, but had lost the trail, and gone astray myself.”
“Just as I did,” Fred observed.
“I pushed my mustang ahead,” Mickey continued, “and he seemed to climb like a goat, but there was some places where I had to get off and help him. I struck a spot yesterday where there was the best of water and grass, and the place looked so inviting that I turned him loose, intending to lave him to rist till today. While he was there, I thought I might as well be taking observations around there, makin’ sartin’ to not get out of sight of the hoss, so I shouldn’t get lost from him.”
“And is he near by?”
“Not more than a mile away. I was pokin” round like a thaif in a pratie-patch, when I coom onto a small paice of soft airth, where, as sure as the sun shines, I seed your footprint. I knowed it by its smallness, and by the print of them odd-shaped nails in your heel. Well, you see, that just set me wild. I knowed at once that by some hook or crook you had give the spalpeens the slip, and was wandering round kind of lost like mysilf. So I started on the tracks, and followed them, till it got dark, as best I could, though they sometimes led me over the rocks and hard earth, in such a way that I could only guess at ’em. When night came, I was pretty near this spot, but I was puzzled. I could n’t tell where to look further, and I was afeared of gettin’ off altogether. So I contented mesilf wid shtrayin’ here and there, and now and then givin’ out the signal that you and me used to toot when we was off on hunts together. When this morning arriv’, I struck signs agin, and at last found that your track led toward these bushes, and thinks I to myself, thinks I, you’d crawled in there to take a snooze, and I hove ahead to wake you up, but I was too ambitious for me own good, as was the case when I proposed to Bridget O’Flannigan, and found that she had been already married to Tim McGubbins a twelvemonth, and had a pair of twins to boast of. I own it wasn’t a dignified and graceful way of coming downstairs, but I was down before I made up my mind.”
“Well, Mickey, we are here, and the great thing now is to get out. Can you tell any way?”
The Irishman took the matter very philosophically. It would seem that any one who had dropped down from the outer world as had he, would feel a trifle nervous; but he acted as if he had kindled his camp-fire on the prairie, with the certainty that no enemy was within a hundred miles.
When he and his young friend had eaten all they needed, there was still a goodly q
uantity left, which he folded up with as much care in the same piece of paper as though it were a tiara of diamonds.
“We won’t throw that away just yet. It’s one of them things that may come into use, as me mither used to say when she laid the brickbats within aisy raich, and looked very knowingly at her old man.”
After the completion of the meal, man and boy occupied themselves for some time in gathering fuel, for it was their purpose to keep the fire going continually, so long as they remained in the cave—that is, if the thing were possible. There was an immense quantity of wood; it had probably been thrown in from above, as coal is shoveled into the mouth of a furnace, and it must have been intended for the use of parties who had been in the cave before.
When they had gathered sufficiently to last them for a good while, Mickey lit his pipe, and they sat down by the fire to discuss the situation. The temperature was comfortable, there being no need of the flames to lessen the cold; but there was a certain tinge of dampness, natural to such a location, that made the fire grateful, not alone for its cheering, enlivening effect, but for its power in dissipating the slight peculiarity alluded to.
Seated thus the better portion of an hour was occupied by them in talking over the past and interchanging experiences, the substance of which had already been given. They were thus engaged when Mickey, who seemed to discover so much from specimens of the fuel which they had gathered, picked up another stick, which was charred at one end, and carefully scrutinized it, as though it contained an important sermon intended for his benefit.
CHAPTER XXVIII
The Exploring Tour
After gently tossing the stick in his hand, like one who endeavors to ascertain its weight, Mickey smelled of it, and finally bit his teeth into it, with a very satisfactory result.
“Now, that’s what I call lucky, as the old miser obsarved when he found he was going to save his dinner by dying in the forenoon. Do you mind that shtick—big enough to sarve as a respictable shillalah at Donnybrook Fair? Well, my laddy, that has done duty as a lantern in this very place.”
The Edward S. Ellis Megapack Page 276
