"Oi'm not faling well at all, at all!" sighed Barney. "An' it's caught we are in a place where such craythurs be! Och, hone! Whoy didn't we shtay with th' profissor?" Old Solitary again flitted away, and they hastened along at his heels. Now he was silent of lip and silent of foot. He seemed more like a shadow than anything else. For more than an hour he led them forward with great swiftness, and then they came to a small stream. "You must cover your trail," said the old man. "Follow me." He stepped into the running water, walking along the bed of the stream. They did not hesitate to follow in his footsteps. Before long they came to where the stream fell splashing and tinkling down the mountain. "Up," said Old Solitary. It was a difficult climb, but the boys were young athletes, and they would have been ashamed to let the man with the white hair and beard climb where they could not go. The stream was left, and, clinging to the points of rock with hands and feet, the old man still mounted higher and higher. He seemed to know every inch of the way, which became more and more difficult for the lads. "Begorra!" gurgled Barney; "we'll nivver get down from here, Frankie, me jool." "Well, we'll have no call to kick, if the Danites do not get up to us." "Thot's right." "But I cannot help thinking of Miskel's words. She declared that we were hopelessly snared." "She may have troied to scare ye to death, lad." "Well, what Old Solitary has said about the Destroying Angels has not made me feel any easier." At last they came to a shelf of rock, along which they crept, inch by inch, clinging fast and feeling their way, with a blue void of night above and beneath them. All at once a black opening in the face of the bluff yawned before them, and they saw the man of the white hair and beard standing in the mouth of a cave. "This is my home," declared Old Solitary. "They have not dared attack me here, even though they know where to find me. They consider me harmless, but some day they shall know the difference. Uric Dugan shall know my power!" He turned and entered the cave, and, still trusting all to him, they felt their way along after him. CHAPTER XX. MOUTH OF THE CAVE. After a time, Old Solitary lighted a torch, and they were enabled to follow him with greater ease. He led them into a circular chamber, where there was a bed of grass and some rude furniture of his own manufacture. "This is my home," declared the strange man. "For the present, you are safe here; but there is no way of getting out of here without passing through territory where the Danites will be found." "Then we are still in the meshes," said Frank. "You are still in the very heart of Danite land." "If what you say is true, then we cannot be safe here, for those human beasts know we are somewhere in the net, and they will find us, no matter what our hiding place may be."