As he sprang to the ground, he pulled the beautiful Apache blanket from the back of the mustang that had served him so well.  Dragging that with him, the two hurried to the right, making for a wooded crevice between the rocks, which seemingly offered a chance for them to climb to the surface above, if, in the order of things, they should gain the opportunity to do so.  Mickey O’Rooney, as a matter of course, took the lead and in a twinkling he was among the gnarled and twisted saplings, the interlacing vines, and the rolling stones and rattling gravel.  As soon as he had secured a foothold, he reached out his hand to help his young friend.

“Never mind me.  I can keep along behind you.  Go as fast as you can.”

“Let me have the blanket,” said Mickey, drawing it from his grasp.  “Now come ahead, for we have got to go it like monkeys.”

He turned and bent to his task with the recklessness of despair, for, even in that dreadful crisis, he thought more of the little fellow than he did of himself.  If he could have been assured of his safety, he would have been ready to wheel about and meet his score or more of foes, and fight them single-handed, as Leonidas and his band did at Thermopylae.  But the fate of the two was linked together, and, sink or swim, it must be fulfilled in company.

The narrow, wooded ravine, in which they had taken enforced refuge, was only three or four feet in width, the bottom sloping irregularly upward, at an angle of forty five degrees.  So long as this continued, so long could they maintain their laboring ascent to the top.  Mickey had strong hopes that, with the advantage of the start, they might reach that point far enough in advance of their pursuers to secure some other concealment that would serve them till nightfall, when they could steal out and try their chances again.

The saplings growing at every inclination afforded them much assistance, as they were able to seize hold with one or both hands, and thus help themselves along.  But the vines in many places were of a peculiar running nature and they frequently caught their feet and stumbled; but they were instantly up and at it again.  All at once Mickey, who was scarcely an arm’s length in advance, halted so abruptly that Fred ran plump against him.

“Why don’t you go on?” asked the panting lad.

“I can’t.  Here’s the end.”

So it was, indeed.  While pressing forward with undiminished effort, the Irishman found himself suddenly confronted with a solid, perpendicular wall of rock.  The narrow chasm, or fissure, terminated.

It was like a fugitive, his heart beating high with hope, checked in his flight by the obtrusion of the Great Chinese Wall across his path.  Mickey looked upward.  As he stood, he could, with outstretched arms, touch the wall on his right and left, and kick the one in front—­the only open route being in the rear, which was commanded by the Apache party.  As he did so, he saw, through the interstices of the interweaving, straggling branches, the clear, blue sky, with the edge of the fissure fully forty feet above his head.  His first hope was that some of the saplings around him were lofty enough to permit him to use them as a ladder; but the tallest did not approach within a half dozen yards of the top.  They were shut in on every hand.