“What did it look like?” asked Mickey, who was moving cautiously around, with his gaze fixed upon the same opening. “I couldn't tell, though I tried hard to get a glimpse. It seemed to me that some one had a stick in his hand, and was beating around the edges of the opening, as though he wanted to knock the loose dirt off. I could see the stick flirted about, and fancied I could see the hand that was holding it, though I could n't be certain of that.” “No; that's a leetle too much, as me mither obsarved, when me brother Tim said that he and meself had got along a whole half day without fighting, and then she whaled us both for lying. Ye couldn't tell a man's hand at that distance, but I see nothing of him, and I should like ye to tell me where he's gone.” “That is what puzzles me. Maybe he is afraid that we will see him.” Mickey was hardly disposed to accept such an explanation. It seemed to him more likely that it was some wild animal mousing around the orifice, and displacing the dirt with his paws, although he couldn't understand why an animal should be attracted by such a spot. “It may be one of the spalpeens that got us into all this trouble,” he added, still circling slowly about, with his eyes fixed upon the opening. “Those Apaches are sharp-eyed, and perhaps one of their warriors has struck our trail, and tracked us to that spot. If it's the same, then I does n't see what he is to gain by fooling round up there. If he'd be kind 'nough to let a lasso down that we could climb up by, there'd be some sinse in the same, but---” To the horror of both, at that instant there was a flash at the opening over their heads, a dull report, and the bullet buried itself in the very centre of the camp-fire. “Begorrah, but that's what I call cheek, as Ned McGowan used to say when the folks axed him to pay his debts. While we are looking about, and axing ourselves whether there's anybody else at all around us, one of the spalpeens sinds his bullet down here, coming closer to us than is plaisant. Did ye obsarve him?” “I saw nothing but the flash. Do you think they could see us?” “Not where we are now. We're too far away from the light. They've seen the fire, and by that token they've concluded that we must be somewhere near it.” “But there was but one shot. Why not more?” “We'll get the rest of thern arter awhile. That's a sort of faaler, thrown out to see how we take it, as Larry O'Looligan used to say when he knocked a man down. Now, do ye stand aside, and I'll answer 'em.” “You'd better not,” protested Fred. “They can tell where we are by the flash of our guns.” “Whisht, now, can't we move? Kape back in the dark like.”