They must have journeyed fully a quarter of a mile in this fashion before Sut held up in the least.  During all this time, so far as Mickey could judge, nothing had been seen or heard of the Apaches, who, supposedly, would have guarded the outlet, in which the two had taken refuge, with a closeness that could not have permitted such an escape; but not one had been encountered.

It was a most extraordinary occurrence all through, and Mickey found it hard to understand how one man, skilled and brave though he was, could perform such a herculean task, for there could be no doubt that to him, under Providence, belonged the exclusive credit.  Of course it was Sut who had fired the shot that saved Fred from a terrible death by the grizzly bear, and his well aimed and opportune shots had done the fugitives inestimable service when they were crouching in the fissure and despairing of all hope.  But there must have been something back of all this.  The scout must have possessed a greater power, which had not become manifest to his friends as yet.

“Now yer can walk with more ease,” he said, as he dropped back beside his companions; “but, at the same time, don’t talk too loud.  Let us all keep as much in the shadder as we kin, for there may be other varmints around, and there’s no telling when you’re likely to run agin ’em.”

“But where are the spalpeens that shut us up in that split in the rocks?”

“They’re all behind us, every varmint of them, and thar they’re likely to stay for awhile; but, Mickey, I want yer to tell me what happened arter we parted among these mountains, and took different routes far the younker here.”

The Irishman related his experience in as brief a manner as possible, the scout listening with a great deal of interest, and asking a question or two.

“The luck was yer’s,” he said, when the narrator concluded, “of gettin’ on the right track, while I got on the wrong.”

Mickey scratched his head in his old quizzical way.

“The same luck befell the spalpeens and mesilf.  I first got on their thrack, and then they got on mine, so we’ll call that square, as Mike Harrigan did when he went back the second night and took the other goat so as to make a pair.”

“That was nigh onto a bad fix when yer pitched into that cave, and couldn’t find the way out till the wolf showed the younker; but it wasn’t so bad as yer think, ’cause I’d been sure to find yer war thar.  I know the way in and out of it, and I could have got into it and fetched you out, but yer war lucky ’nough not to need me.”

“How was it that ye were so long turning up arter we separated?”

“Wal, Lone Wolf and his braves rode so fast that it was a good while afore I cotched up, and found that he hadn’t the younker with him.  Then, in course, I turned back and found that yer had flopped so much, off and on yer trail, that there was a good deal of trouble to keep track of yer.”