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.