proceeding in a straight line. He would appear on his right, where he
would stare at the advancing torch until it was quite close, when he would
scamper off to the left, and go through the same performance.

"He knows the route better than I do, so I won't try to disturb him,"
reflected the boy as he followed up his advantage, with high hopes of
discovering the secret which was so important to himself and friend. "I
won't crowd him too hard, either, for I may scare him off the track and
fail."

The wolf was evidently a prey to curiosity--the same propensity which has
caused the death of many bipeds and quadrupeds. The action of the torch
puzzled him, no doubt. He had seen fire before, and probably had been
burnt--so he knew enough to give it a wide berth; but it is doubtful
whether he ever saw a flaring torch held over the head of a boy and
solemnly bearing down upon him.

Fred's absorbing interest in the whole affair made him wholly unmindful of
the distance he was traveling. He had already advanced several hundred
yards, and had no idea that he was so far away from his slumbering friend.
The fact was that the singular cave was only one among a thousand similar
ones found among the wilds of the West and Southwest. Its breadth was not
great, but the distance which it ran back into the mountains was amazing.

The wolf was leading the lad a long distance from the camp, and, what was
more important (and which fact, unfortunately, Fred had failed to notice),
the route was anything but a direct one. It could not have been more
sinuous or winding. The course of the cavern, in reality, was as winding
as that of the ravine in which he had effected his escape from the
Apaches, and from which it seemed he had irrevocably strayed. Had he