“I could almost swear that a feller wouldn't have to go more than twenty feet before he'd strike daylight,” mused Mickey, as he folded his arms and looked thoughtfully at the misty relief of the surrounding darkness; “and it would n't take much more to persuade me to make the dive and try it.” As Mickey stood there, contemplating as best he could the darkly flowing stream, and debating the matter with himself, he was on the very eve of making the attempt fully half a dozen times. It seemed to him that he could not fail, and yet there was something in the project which held him back. The stream at that point flowed quite rapidly, and the strongest swimmer, after venturing a few feet under water, would be utterly unable to return. Once started, there would be no turning back, so he concluded not to make the decisive trial just yet. “The day is pretty nearly ended, and I will drame over it. I told me laddy that that was my favorite way of getting out of such a scrape, and I'll thry it. If there's no plan that presints itself by to-morrow, then I'll thry it then or the day after.” 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.”