Before he could reap the reward of all this labor, Fred recovered.
Whipping out his revolver as before, he shoved it directly into his face,
and said: "You ain't wanted here, and you'd better leave mighty quick!"

The warrior made a clutch at the weapon so close to him, but his
exhaustion caused a miscalculation, and he failed altogether. He was
supporting himself at this moment by one hand, and he acted as if the
single effort to secure the pistol was to decide the whole thing. He
failed in that, and gave up.

Instead of letting go and going to the bottom in one plunge, he began
sliding downward, his head vanishing from sight almost as suddenly as if
the lasso had been cut. It is generally easier to go down than up hill,
and the work of twenty minutes was undone in a twinkling. A rattling
_descendo_, and the Apache was down the rope again, standing at the bottom
of the cave, and Fred was again master of the situation.

"Goodness!" exclaimed the lad, when he realized this gratifying state of
affairs, "I had no idea that that was an Indian; but I ought to have
suspected it when I called to him and he didn't make any answer. That
stops that little sort of thing; but I don't know when Mickey is going to
get a chance at the rope."

The lad was disheartened by this great disappointment, for it looked very
much as if the redskins would guard all approaches to the lower end of the
lasso, and his friend be shut out from all participation in the chance
that he was so confident was placed at his disposal.

"I don't know what they can do with the rope," thought the lad, as he