Thus invited, the boy went over the narration, already known, giving the full particulars of his adventures, from the morning he opened his eyes and found himself in the camp of the Apaches in the mountains; to the hour when he slipped through from the upper earth into the cave below.  Mickey listened with great interest, frequently interrupting and expressing his surprise and gratitude at the good fortune which seemed to succeed bad fortune in every case.

“You sometimes read of laddies like you gettin out of the claws of these spalpeens, but you don’t often see it, though you’ve been lucky enough to get out.”

“Now, Mickey, tell me how it was that you came to get on my track.”

“Well, you see, I got back to New Bosting shortly after the rumpus.  I would have been in time enough to have had a hand in the wind-up, if it hadn’t been that I got into a little circus of my own.  Me and a couple of Apaches tried the game of cracking each other’s heads, that was spun out longer than we meant, and so, as I was obsarving, when I rode into town, the fun was all over.  I found Misther Simpson just gettin’ ready to take your trail, and he axed me to do the same, and I was mighty glad to do it.  I was desirous of bringing along your horse Hurricane, for you to ride when we should get you, but Soot would n’t hear of it.  He said the horse would only be a bother, and if we should lay hands onto you, either of our horses was strong enough to take you, so we left the crature behind.”

“Did you have any trouble in following us?”

“Not at first; a hundred red spalpeens riding over the prairie can’t any more hide their trail than an Irishman can save himself from cracking a head when he is invited to do so.  We galloped along, without ever scarcely looking at the ground.  You know I’ve larned something of the perarie business since we came West, and that was the kind of trail I could have follered wid both eyes shut and me hands handcuffed, and, knowing as we naaded to hurry, we put our mustangs to their best paces.”

“How was it that you didn’t overtake us?”

“You had too much of a start; but when we struck the camp in the mountains—­that is, where Lone Wolf and his spalpeens took their breakfast—­we wasn’t a great way behind ’em.  We swung along at a good pace, Soot trying to time ourselves so that we’d strike ’em ’bout dark, when he ca’c’lated there’d be a good chance to work in on ’em.”

“How was it you failed?’

“We’d worked that thing as nice as anything you ever heard tell on, if Lone Wolf hadn’t played a trick on us.  We had n’t gone far on the trail among the mountains, when we found that the spalpeens had separated into two parties—­three in one, and something like a hundred in the other.”

“And you did not know which had charge of me?”