This gentle intimation from Mickey that he preferred to ride was promptly answered by the scout to the effect that his own mustang was some distance away in the wood, but he was unable to locate either of theirs, which they abandoned at the time they took such hurried refuge in the narrow ravine.

“But what become of all the craturs?” persisted Mickey, who was anything but satisfied at this plodding along.  “Lone Wolf and his spalpeens did not ride away upon their horses.”

“No, but yer may skulp me if any of ’em are big enough fools to leave their animals where there seems to be any danger of other folks layin’ hands on ’em.  When the rest of his band come over arter him, as they s’posed in answer to their signal, they took mighty good care not to leave their hosses where thar war any chance for the Kiowas to put their claws onto ’em.  They rode off up the pass till they could reach a place whar the brutes could climb up and jine thar owners.”

“Then I’m to consider the question settled,” responded Mickey, “and we’re to tramp all the way to New Bosting, ef the place is still standing.  Av coorse we can do the same, which I take to be three or four thousand miles, provided we have the time to do it and ain’t disturbed.”

Sut, after permitting his friend to hold this opinion for a time, corrected it in his own way.

“Thar ain’t no use of tryin’ to reach home on foot, any more than thar is of climbing up that wall with yer toes.  Arter we strike camp, we’ll stop long enough to eat two or three bufflers, and rest, and while yer at that sort of biz, I’ll ’light out, and scare up something in the way of hoss flish.  Thar’s plenty of it in this part of the world, and a man needn’t hunt long to find it.  Are ye satisfied Mickey?”

The Irishman could not feel otherwise, and he expressed his profound obligations to the scout for the invaluable services he had already rendered them.

“Lone Wolf knows me,” said Sut, making a rather sudden turn in the conversation.  “Me and him have had some tough scrimmages years ago, as I was tellin’ that ar Barnwell, or Big Fowl, rather, that has had the charge of starting the place called New Boston.  I’ve got ’nough scars to remember him by, and he carries a few that he got from me.  I have a style of sliding his warriors under, when I run a-foul of ’em, that Lone Wolf understands, and he’s larned long ago who it was that wiped out them two varmints that he sent out to look around arter me.  Halloa! here we air!”

As he spoke, he reached a break in the continuity of the wall to which they had been clinging.  The opening was somewhat similar to that into which Mickey and Fred had been driven in such a hurry, except that it was broader and the slope seemed more gradual.

Simpson turned abruptly to the left, and they began clambering upward.  It took a considerable time to reach the level, and when they did so the scout led them back to the edge of the pass, which wound along fifty or a hundred feet below them.