It was this fear of the Indians being in the cave that made the lad apprehensive every time he gave utterance to his signals.  He believed they were as likely to reach the ears of the Apaches as those of Mickey, and his faith of the extraordinary shrewdness of those people was such that he did not doubt but that, by some means or other, they would learn the true signal with which to reply.  As yet, however, no such attempt had been made, so far as his ears informed him, but his misgivings were none the less on that account.  What was the use of their taking the trouble to answer when he was walking directly into their hands?  There was a cowering, shrinking sensation from his own noise, caused by the expectation that a half-dozen crouching figures would leap up and swoop down upon him.

The darkness remained impenetrable, and, as Fred toiled forward, he was continually recalling the words of Byron, which he had read frequently when at school, and had learned to recite for his father.  He found himself repeating them, and there was no doubt that he realized more vividly than do boys generally of his age the meaning of the author: 

            “The world was void: 
  The populous and powerful was a lump,
  Seasonless, herbless, treeless, manless, lifeless;
  A lump of death, a chaos of hard clay. 
  The rivers, lakes and ocean, all stood still,
  And nothing stirr’d within their silent depths.”

Such fancies as these were not calculated to make him feel particularly comfortable while carrying the torch.  Such a person in such a situation makes an especially inviting target of himself, and, although Fred dreaded to see it burn itself out, when the chances were that he was likely to be in sore need of the same, yet he had wrought himself up to such a pitch that he more than once meditated extinguishing it altogether, with the purpose of putting himself on an equality with those of his enemies who might be prowling in the night around him.

“I wonder whether Mickey would be more likely to hear my pistol than a shout or whistle?” he said, as he drew the weapon from his belt and held it up to inspect it in the light of the flaring torch.  “It seems to be all right, although there’s no telling how long since it has been loaded.  Here goes.”

With this, he pointed the muzzle toward the cavern and pulled the trigger.

The response was as prompt as though he had charged the chamber but a short time before, proving not only that the weapon was of the best quality, but that the ammunition was equally so, and the slight moisture that characterized the atmosphere of the cave had not been sufficient to injure the charge.  It seemed as if he had fired a cannon, the echoes rolling, doubling, and repeating on themselves in the most bewildering and terrifying fashion.

Fred could not understand how it was that such a pandemonium of sound could escape filling the subterranean world from one end to the other, and so he sat down on a ledge of rock to listen for some reply from his friend.