absolute labor, so precipitous was the ground and so frequent were his
detours. He had accomplished nothing. When he expected to find himself in
the immediate vicinity of the campfire, there were no signs of it, and the
loudest shout he could make to his friend brought no reply.

This fact filled the mind of Fred with a hundred misgivings. He had given
up the belief that it was possible for Mickey to remain asleep all this
time. He was sure the night had passed, and, great as was the capacity of
the Irishman in the way of slumber, he could not remain unconscious all
the time. And then nothing seemed more probable than that he was placed
for ever beyond the power of response. If a dozen Indians quietly let
themselves down through the opening during the darkness of the night, they
could easily discover the sleeping figure, and dispatch him before he
could make any kind of resistance.

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