said between two or three hours, and that she would wake her up, if Molly hadn’t told her before closing her eyes that if she dared to disturb her before her nap was finished, she’d break the old lady’s head.  Knowing the delicate relations that existed betwaan us, she suggested that I should arouse her, she being afraid that she would sleep so long that she would starve to death before she awoke.  I wanted to come at the matter gintly, so I took a straw and tickled Molly’s nose.  She snorted a little, and rubbed it with her fist, but didn’t open her eyes.  I’d undertook the job, however, and I was bound to do it, or die.  So I wiggled at her nostrils, and she made a yell and a jump, and was wide awake.  I don’t mind me all that took place just then.  Things was kind of confused, and, when Molly lit on me, I thought the cabin had tumbled in.  My senses came back arter a while, and when I got my head bandaged up, I wint home to dream over it.”

“And what was your dream?” asked Fred.

“In my slumbers, I saw both my loves going for each other like a couple of Kilkenny cats, until there was nothing of aither lift.  I took that as a sign that naither of ’em was interested for me, and so I give them up, sneaking off and sailing for Ameriky before they learned my intintions.”

CHAPTER XXXI AN EXCHANGE OF SHOTS

Mickey proposed to act upon his own suggestion, which was to go to sleep as soon as the day ended and discuss the many different plans during his slumbers.  He had a strong hope that the right one could be hit upon by this method.  Somehow or other, his thoughts were fixed upon the stream, where it disappeared under the rocks, and, leaving Fred by the camp-fire, he relit his torch and went off to make another survey.

The lad watched the star-like point of light flickering in the gloom as his friend moved along, holding the torch over his head.  It seemed to the watcher that when it paused they were separated by nearly a half mile.  The light had an odd way of vanishing and remaining invisible for several minutes that made him think that some accident had befallen the bearer, or that the light had gone out altogether; but after a time it would reappear, dancing about in a way to show that the bearer was not idle in his researches.

Mickey O’Rooney was indeed active.  After making his way to the point he was seeking, he shied off to the right, and approached the chasm, down which Fred had lost his rifle.  As he stood on the edge of the rent in the fathomless darkness, he loosened a boulder with his foot, and as it toppled over, listened for the result.  The way was so narrow that it bounded like a ball from side to side, and the Irishman heard it as it went lower and lower, until at last the strained ear could detect nothing more.  There was no sound that came to him to show that it had reached the bottom.