The lad hurriedly told him that an animal of some kind was lurking near them.  Mickey caught up his rifle, and demanded to know where he was.  In such darkness as enveloped them it was necessary that the eyes of the beast should be at a certain angle in order to become visible to the two watchers.  Both heard his light footsteps, and knew where the eyes were likely to be discerned.

“There he is!” exclaimed Fred, as he caught sight of the green, phosphorescent glitter of the two orbs, which is peculiar to the eyes of the feline species.

Mickey detected them at the same moment, and drew his rifle to his shoulder.  He kept the kneeling position, fearing that the target would vanish if he should wait until he could rise.  It is no easy thing for a hunter to take aim when he is utterly unable to detect the slightest portion of his weapon, and it was this fact which caused Mickey to delay his firing.  However, before he could make his aim any way satisfactory, a bright thought struck him, and he lowered his gun, carefully letting the hammer down upon the tube.

“Ain’t you going to fire?” asked the lad, who could not understand the delay.

“Whisht, now! would ye have me slay me best friend?”

“I don’t understand you, Mickey.”

“S’pose I’d shot the baste, whatever he is, that would be the end of him; but lave him alone, and he’ll show us the way out.”

“How can he do that?”

“Don’t you obsarve,” said the man, who haf got the theory all perfectly arranged in his mind, “that that creature couldn’t get into this cave without coming in some way?”

There was no gainsaying such logic as that, but Fred knew that his friend meant more than he said.

“Of course he couldn’t get in here without having some way of doing it.  But suppose he took the same means as we did?  How is that going to help us?”

But the Irishman was certain that such could not be the case.

“There ain’t any wild beasts as big fools as we was.  Ye couldnt git ’em to walk into such a hole, any more than ye could git an Irisman to gaze calmly upon a head without hitting it.  Ye can make up your mind that there’s some way leading into this cavern, which nobody knows anything about, excepting this wild creature, and, if we let him alone, he’ll go out again, showing us the path.”

“I should think if he knew the route some of the Indians would learn it.”

“So anybody would think; but the crayther has not given ’em the chance—­so how can they larn it?  If we play our cards right, me laddy, we’re sure to win.”

“What kind of an animal is it?”

They were all the time gazing at the point where the eyes were last seen, but the beast was continually shifting its position, so that the orbs were no longer visible.  The faint tipping of his feet upon the gravely earth was heard, and now and then the transient flash of his eyes, as he whisked back and forth, was caught, but all vanished again almost as soon as seen.  All that could be learned was, that whatever the species of the animal, he owned large eyes, and they were placed close together.  Neither of the two were sufficiently acquainted with the peculiarities of the different animals of the West to identify them by any slight peculiarities.