“It is strange that I could not find the opening when the wolf scampered straight to it.”
However, he did not stop to puzzle over the matter. It was sufficient to know and feel that he was back again in the busy, bustling world, saved from being buried in a living tomb.
An examination of the point where he had debouched from these Plutonian regions showed Fred that he was considerably below the general regions of the earth. He was in a sort of valley, surrounded by rocks and boulders, and the opening through which he had scrambled was situated sidewise, so that at a distance of ten feet it could not be seen. This accounted for the fact that none of the Indians knew any other means of ingress and egress excepting the opening in the roof of the cave. It was almost impossible to discover, except by accident or long continued and systematic search.
Fred’s next thought was regarding Mickey O’Rooney, and he questioned himself as to the best means of reaching him, and assisting him to the same remarkably good fortune which had attended himself. The immediate suggestion, naturally, was to re-enter the cave and, after hunting up his old friend, conduct Mickey to the outer world, but it required only brief deliberation to convince him of the utter folly of such an attempt. In the first place, should he re-enter the cave, he would be lost again, not knowing in what direction to turn to find his friend and entirely unable to communicate with him by signal, as had been their custom when separated and looking for each other. Should he venture away from the tunnel to renew his search, it was scarcely possible that he could find his way back again. He would not only lose Mickey, but he would lose himself, with not the remotest chance of finding his way into the outer world again. So it was clearly apparent that, having been delivered from prison, it would not do for him to go back under any circumstances. He must remain where he was, and whatever assistance he could render his friend, must be given from the outside. How was this to be done?
To begin with, he felt the necessity of getting out of the circumscribing valley and of taking his bearings. He wished to learn where the opening through which he had fallen was situated. It was no difficult matter to work his way upward until he found himself up on a level with the main plateau. There, his view, although broken and interrupted in many directions, was quite extended in others, and his eye roamed over a large extent of that broken section of the country. He was utterly unable to recognize anything he saw, but he was confident that he was no great distance from the spot for which he was searching. It was only through the entrance that he could hold communication with Mickey, whenever the way should be left clear for him to do so. But he was fully mindful of the necessity for caution in every movement.
It was not to be supposed that the Apaches, having struck what might be called a gold-mine, intended to abandon it at the very time the richest of results were promised. And so, after long deliberation, the boy decided upon the direction in which the opening lay, and he made toward a small peak from which, in case his calculations were correct, he knew he would see it. Strange to say, his reckoning was correct in this instance; and when he stealthily made his way to the elevation and looked down over the slope, he saw the clump of bushes covering the “skylight,” not more than a hundred yards distant.
He saw something else, which was not quite so pleasant. Six Apache warriors were guarding the same entrance.
“I wonder if they think Mickey expects to make a jump up through there!” was the thought which came to Fred, as he peered down upon the savages, and counted them over several times.“I don’t see what they are to gain by waiting there, unless they mean to go down pretty soon.”
He could not be too careful in the vicinity of such characters, and, stretching out flat upon his face, he peeped over the top, taking the precaution first to remove his cap, and then to permit no more of his head than was indispensable to appear above the surface. The six redskins were lounging in as many different lazy attitudes. One seemed sound asleep, with his face turned to the ground, and looking like a warrior that had fallen from some balloon, and, striking on his stomach, lay just as he was flattened out. Another was half-sitting and half-reclining, smoking a pipe with a very long stem. His face was directly toward Fred, who noticed that his eyes were cast downward, as though he were gazing into the bowl of his pipe, while Fred could plainly see the ugly lips, as they parted at intervals and emitted their pulls in a fashion as indolent as that of some wealthy Turk. A third was seated a little further off, examining his rifle, which he had probably injured in some way, and which occupied his attention to the exclusion of everything else.
The bushes surrounding the opening had been torn away, although it was difficult to conceive what the Indians expected to accomplish by such an act, as it only served to make them plainer targets to the Irishman, whenever he chose to crack away from below.
The remaining trio of Apaches were occupied in some way with the cavern. They were stretched out upon the ground, with their heads close to the orifice, down which they seemed to be peering, and doing something, the nature of which the lad could not even guess.
“That don’t look as though they had caught Mickey,” he muttered, with a feeling of inexpressible relief;“for, if they had, they wouldn’t be loafing around there.”
Nothing of their horses could be seen, although he knew they must have a number of them somewhere in the neighborhood. An Apache or Comanche without his mustang would be like a soldier in battle without weapons.
“I’d like to find them,” thought Fred, lowering his head, and looking back of him. “I’d take one and start all the others away, and then there would be fun.”
The lad had it in his power to take an important step toward his return to his friends. Nothing was more likely than that a little search through the immediate neighborhood would discover the mustangs of his enemies, which, as a matter of course, were unguarded, the owners anticipating no trouble from any such source. Mounted upon the fleetest of prairie rangers, it would not require long to reach the open country, when he could speed away homeward.
But to do this required the abandonment of his friend, Mickey O’Rooney, who would not have been within the cavern at that minute but for his efforts to rescue him from the same prison. It was hard to tell in what way the lad expected to benefit him by staying, and yet nothing would have persuaded him to do otherwise.
“I may get a chance to do something for him, and if I should be gone and never see him again, I should blame myself forever. So I’ll wait here and watch.”
The three redskins on the edge of the opening remained occupied with something, but the curiosity of the lad continued unsatisfied until one of them raised up and moved backward several steps. Then Fred saw that he had a lasso in his hand, and was drawing it up from the cave. He pulled it up with one hand, while he caught and looped it with the other, until he had nearly a score of the coils in his grasp. This could not have been the cord which held the blanket when the shot of Mickey O’Rooney cut it and let the bundle drop, for that was much smaller, while this was sufficient to bear a weight of several hundred pounds, it having been used to lasso the fleet-footed and powerful mustangs of the prairies.
“They’ve been fishing with it,” concluded the youngster; “but I don’t believe that Mickey would bite. What are they going to do now?”
After drawing up the rope, the whole half dozen Apaches seemed to become very attentive. They gathered in a group and began discussing matters in their earnest fashion, gesticulating and grunting so loud that Fred distinctly heard them from where he lay. This discussion, however, speedily resulted in action.
Another of the blankets already described was very artistically doubled and folded into the resemblance of a man, and then the lasso was attached to it. The Apaches experimented with it for several minutes before putting it to the test, but at last everything was satisfactory, and it was launched. The aborigines seemed to comprehend what the trouble was with the other, and they avoided repeating the error.
When they began cauti
ously lowering the bundle, the six gathered as close to the margin as was prudent to await the result. Their interest was intense, for they had mapped out their programme, and much depended upon the result of this venture. But among the half dozen there was no one who was more nervously interested than Fred Munson, who felt that the fate of Mickey O’Rooney was trembling in the balance.
CHAPTER V
Mining and Countermining
Fred expected every moment to catch the dull crack of the rifle from the subterranean regions as a signal that Mickey O’Rooney had neither closed his eyes to the impending peril, nor had given way to despair at the trying position in which he was placed. But the stillness remained unbroken, while the lasso was steadily paid out by the dusky hands of the swarthy warrior, whose motions were closely watched by the others.
Lower and lower it descended as the coils lying at his knees were steadily unwound, until the disturbed lad was certain the bottom of the cavern was nearly reached, and still all was silent as the tomb.
“I’m sure I would hear his gun if he fired it,” he said, worried and distressed by what was taking place before his eyes; “and if I did not, I could tell by the way they acted whenever he pulled trigger. What can he be doing?”
The lad thought it possible that his friend was absent in some distant part of the cave hunting for him, and was, therefore, totally unaware of the flank movement that was under way. It could not be that he was still asleep; he had no fears on that score. It might be, too, that the Irishman had arrived at the conclusion that the situation had grown so desperate as to warrant him in the dernier resorte he had fixed upon. If such was the case, then, as Mickey himself might have said, “the jig was up.”
Two or three coils still remained upon the ground when the Apache stopped lowering the lasso, and, looking in the faces of his companions, said something.
“It has either reached the bottom of the cave, or else Mickey has fired at it,” said Fred, who became more excited than ever.
He had caught no sound resembling a shot, and he concluded that it must be the former, as was really the case. In a few seconds the Indian began drawing up the lasso again, and a short time thereafter the roll of blanket was brought to the surface. It was carefully examined by all the group. The dirt on it proved that it had rested on the bottom of the cave, but there were no marks to show that it had received any attention at the hands of any one there.
There were grunts of pleasure, as this fact was gathered by the redskins. The experiments had been satisfactory and they were prepared to venture upon the more dangerous and decisive one—the one which they intended should bring matters to a focus.
Fred was in doubt what this plan was to be until he saw the blanket unfolded and as carefully wrapped around the form of one of the Apaches, encasing him from head to foot. Great pains were taken to hide his head and feet from view, the warrior lying upon his back, and suffering himself to be “done up” with as much thoroughness as if he were a choice sample of dry-goods. Viewed from a disinterested stand-point, the wonder was how he was to breathe in such wrappings.
“They have tried the blanket, and finding that was not disturbed, they’re going to send down one of their number, thinking that if Mickey does see it he’ll believe it is the same blanket, and won’t fire at it, because he didn’t fire at the other.”
It looked very venturesome upon the part of the warrior thus to enter the lion’s den. But while, as a rule, the Indians of the Southwest are treacherous and cowardly, there are occasional instances in which they show an intrepidity equal to that of the most daring white scouts.
When everything was arranged to the satisfaction of all, three of the most stalwart Apaches braced themselves, with the lasso grasped between them, while a fourth carefully piloted the body over the edge of the opening, and began slowly lowering it to the bottom.
The bravest man, placed in the position of the enwrapped redskin could not have avoided some tremor, when he knew that he was hanging in midair, in plain view of the rifleman who had separated the thong which supported the blanket in the first attempt. The Indian must have experienced strange emotions; but if he did, he gave no evidence. He remained as passive as a log, his purpose being to imitate the appearance of the first bundle.
“Now, if Mickey let’s that go down without sending a bullet through it, he hasn’t got one half the sense that I think he has.”
Fred was hasty and impatient at the seeming success which marked everything that the red-skins undertook. He looked and listened for some evidence that the Irishman was “there;” but no dull, subterranean report told him of the fatal rifle-shot, while the three Apaches continued steadily lowering their comrade with as much coolness and deliberation as if not the slightest particle of danger threatened. Minute after minute passed, and the lad was in deep despair. It could not be, he was compelled to think, that Mickey O’Rooney was anywhere in the vicinity. He must be a long distance away, searching for his young friend, not knowing, and, perhaps, not caring about the Apaches. He might consider that, within the darkness of the cave, they all had an equal advantage, and he could hold his own against each and every one. There was no denying that the defender had a vast advantage over those who might come into his “castle,” provided he was really aware of their movements, but it was this doubt that caused the boy his uneasiness.
“He must be near the bottom,” he concluded, when this paying-out process had continued some minutes longer, and he thought he saw very little of the lasso left.
Such was the fact. Only a few seconds more passed, when there was a general loosening up on the part of the redskins, as in the case of men who have just finished a laborious job. They looked into each others faces, and there were guttural exclamations, as if they were congratulating themselves upon what had been accomplished.
“And, now, what next?” asked the disgusted watcher.“Good luck seems to go with everything they undertake, and I suppose they’ll bring Mickey up by the heels.”
But such was not the sequel, and probably not the expectation of the Apaches. They had succeeded in planting a man in the breach, and their purpose was to follow him, as they speedily proved. The behavior of the group around the opening showed that the Indians were holding communication with their ally below, probably by a system of signals with the lasso, such as the man in the diving-bell employs when below the surface. These, too, must have been satisfactory, for, in a very brief time thereafter, the decisive operations were taken up and continued.
There was considerable of the lasso still left above ground—more than Fred imagined—and this was secured about a jutting point in a rock near at hand. It was fixed so immovably that it could not fail. “I wonder if they mean to roll that thing in upon Mickey’s head, or what is it?”
They speedily showed what their intentions were. In less than a minute after the lasso was fastened, one of the Apaches caught hold of it and slid down through the opening so rapidly, that it looked as if he had lost his hold and dropped out of sight. A second did precisely the same thing; then a third, fourth and fifth, until only one warrior was left above ground.
“Oh! I hope he’ll go,” whispered Fred to himself; “and then I can do something big.”
But the Apaches had evidently concluded that it would be an imprudent arrangement not to leave any of their friends on guard—not because they expected any interference from outside parties, but to provide against accident. If the lasso should fail them at a critical moment, they would be in a bad predicament, cut off from all means of getting out, as the skylight was the only avenue known to them, while, if a comrade remained above, all such danger would be escaped. Their purpose had been to send the five warriors down into the cave to attend to the case of the parties there.
The redskins were now down below and the whole thing was put in shape for operations to begin. All that remained was to find their man, and Fred could not tell what the prospects of success were in that direction; but he was almost ready to believe
that they were all that the Indians could ask. The sixth Apache, who remained visible, took matters very comfortably. He stretched himself flat upon the ground, with his head hanging almost in the opening, so that he could catch every sound that came up from below. It was plain that he expected to be called upon to render important service, and he did not intend to let a signal escape him.
The hour that succeeded made little change in the situation. The action of this redskin showed that he occasionally received and sent messages—most probably by the subterranean telegraph—but he shifted his position very little. While he was thus engaged, Fred Munson was intently occupied with another scheme, and he had speedily wrought himself into a high pitch of excitement.
“I believe I can do it,” he muttered, more than once, as he revolved the desperate scheme in his mind; but, whatever his plan was, he waited in the hope that fortune would appear more propitious.
When the Apache had sat thus for some time, he changed his position. He had been lying with his side toward the lad, but now he sat up, with his back to him, and as close to the edge of the opening as was prudent, while he held the lasso in his hand, like the fisherman on the bank of a stream, who patiently waits and is sensitive to the slightest nibbling at the other end of his line.
He had scarcely settled himself in this position when Fred Munson changed his own. Rising from the ground where he had lain so long, he stepped over the ridge, and advanced directly toward the redskin, who harbored no suspicion that there was any of his race in his neighborhood. The plan the lad had resolved upon required nerve, resolution and quickness. He stepped as lightly as was consistent with speed until he had passed half the distance, when he began to slacken his gait and to proceed with greater caution than ever.
All depended upon his ability to keep from being heard or detected. Of course, he had no wish to engage in a fight with one of these fierce warriors, but he was prepared, even for that. His hand rested upon the hilt of his revolver, so that he could whip it out at an instant’s warning and discharge it, as he meant to do if necessary.
The Edward S. Ellis Megapack Page 282
