The mustang walked along quite obediently, seeming to feel the load no more than if it was only one half as great.  But those animals are like their native masters—­cunning and treacherous, ready to take advantage of their riders whenever it happens to come in their way.

“Which is the raison I cautions ye to be riddy for a fall,” said Mickey, after referring to some of the peculiarities of these steeds of the Southwest.  “The minute he gits it into his head that we ain’t paying attention, he’ll rear up on his fore-feet, and walk along that way for half a mile.  Not having any saddle, we’ll have to slide over his neck, unless I can brace me feet agin his ears, and ride along standing straight up.”

The constant expectation of being flung over the head of a horse is not the most comforting sensation that one can have, and the lad clung fast to his friend in front, determined not to go, unless in his company.  Upon reaching the top of the ridge, the horse was reined up for a few minutes, as Mickey, like the mariner at sea, was desirous of taking an observation, so as to prevent himself going astray.

“Can you remember how you were placed?” asked the lad, after he had spent several minutes in the survey; “that is, do you know which way to go for the horse you left eating grass?”

“I was a little puzzled at first, as me father obsarved to the school-teacher when he said I had been a good boy, but I see how it is now.  It must have been that I got a little turned round when I was down in the basemint of these mountains, but I see how it is now.  Right yonder,” he added, pointing toward the Northwest, “is where I left my hoss, and there is where I hope I’ll find him again.”

“Is the road so that we can ride the mustang all the way there, or must we walk?”

“I remember I come right along some kind of a path, made by animals, after leaving the beast.  I s’pose it’s the route taken by the crathurs in going to the water, for there’s a splendid spring right there, and the path that I was just tilling you ’bout leads straight to it.”

“Then keep the horse from throwing us off, and we’re all right.  After we find your horse, Mickey, or don’t find him, what are we to do, then?”

“Set sail for New Boston.”

“But we can’t ride through these mountains, if we don’t find the pass.”

“And the same is what we’re going to do, barring that it hasn’t been lost yet.”

“Are you sure you know the way to it from where you left your horse?  I’ve been hunting for it for hours, but couldn’t any more tell where it was than the man in the moon.  What course would you have to take to reach it?”

“Right off yonder,” replied Mickey, pointing to the left.

“And I was sure that it was here,” said Fred, pointing his hand in nearly an opposite direction.

“Which the same is a good raison why you’re wrong.  When you git lost, and think you’re on the right way, ye may be sure that ye’re wrong; and after figuring the whole thing over, and getting sartin of the right coorse, all you’ve got to do is not to take it, and ye’re sartin of saving yerself.”