Going to where his torch was still burning in the sand, he drew it out and moved back toward his old camp-fire.

“Well, me laddy, how have you made out during me absince?  Have you—–­”

He paused and looked about him.

“Begorrah, but no laddy is here.  Can it be that he has strayed off, and started to Chiny so as to head me off?  I say!  Fred, me laddy, have ye—–­”

“Sh! sh!”

And as the hurried aspirate was uttered, the boy came running silently out of the darkness, with his hand raised in a warning way.

“What is it?” asked Mickey, in amazement; “have ye found another dead man?”

“No; he’s a live one!”

“What do yez mane?  Explain yerself.”

The lad pointed to the opening over their heads, and motioned to his friend not to draw too near the camp-fire.  There was danger in doing so.

“There’s somebody up there,” he added, “and they’re looking for us.”

“Are ye sure of that?” asked the Irishman, not a little excited at the news.  “It may be that Soot Simpson has found us.  Begorrah, if there is n’t any mistake about it, as me uncle remarked, when he heard that the ship with his wife on was lost at saa, then I’ll execute the Donnybrook jig in the highest style of the art.  What was it that aroused your suspicion that some jintleman was onmannerly enough to be paaping down on us?”

“I was sitting here watching you, or rather your torch, and all the time the gravel kept rattling down faster and faster, till I knowed there was something more than usual going on up there, and I sneaked away from the fire, where I could get a better look.  I went right under the place, and was about to see something worth seeing, when some dirt dropped plump into my eye, and I couldn’t see anything for a while.  After I had rubbed the grit out I took another look, and I know I saw something moving up there.”

“What did it look like?” asked Mickey, who was moving cautiously around, with his gaze fixed upon the same opening.

“I couldn’t tell, though I tried hard to get a glimpse.  It seemed to me that some one had a stick in his hand, and was beating around the edges of the opening, as though he wanted to knock the loose dirt off.  I could see the stick flirted about, and fancied I could see the hand that was holding it, though I could n’t be certain of that.”

“No; that’s a leetle too much, as me mither obsarved, when me brother Tim said that he and meself had got along a whole half day without fighting, and then she whaled us both for lying.  Ye couldn’t tell a man’s hand at that distance, but I see nothing of him, and I should like ye to tell me where he’s gone.”

“That is what puzzles me.  Maybe he is afraid that we will see him.”

Mickey was hardly disposed to accept such an explanation.  It seemed to him more likely that it was some wild animal mousing around the orifice, and displacing the dirt with his paws, although he couldn’t understand why an animal should be attracted by such a spot.