The Cave in the Mountain | Page 4

said to himself, as he recovered the precious fagot and painfully climbed up out of the pit. "Maybe he thought I was killed, and went off to tell the rest of his friends, so that they can all have a feast over me. I must fire up the torch as soon as I can, for I'm likely to need it."
This did not prove a very difficult matter, on account of the fatness of the torch, which ignited readily, and quickly spread into the same thick, smoking flame as before. But Fred noted that it was about half burned up, and he could not expect it to hold out many hours longer, as it had already done good service.
"I wish I could see the wolf again," he said to himself, looking longingly around in the darkness, "for I believe he entered the cave somewhere near here, and it was a great pity that I had the accident just at the moment I was about to learn all about it."
He moved carefully about the cave, and soon found that he had reached the furtherest limit. Less than twenty feet away it terminated, the jagged walls shutting down, and offering an impassable barrier to any further progress in that direction.
All that he could do, after completing his search, was to turn back in quest of his friend Mickey. The belief that he was in the immediate neighborhood of the outlet delayed the lad's return until he could assure himself that it was impossible to find that for which he was hunting, and which had been the means of his wandering so far away from camp.
Fred occupied fully an hour in the search. Here and there he observed scratches upon the surface of the rocks in some places. He was confident that they had been made by the feet of the wolves; but in spite of these encouraging signs, he was baffled in his main purpose, and how the visitor made his way in and out of the cave remained an impenetrable mystery.
"Too bad, too bad!" he muttered, with a great sigh. "I shall have to give it up, after all. I only wish Mickey was here to help me. I will call to him, so that he will be sure to hear."
As has been intimated in another place, the two friends had a code of signals understood by both. When they were separated by quite a distance, and one wished to draw the other to him, he had a way of placing two of his fingers against his tongue, and emitting a shrill screech which might well be taken for the scream of a locomotive whistle, so loud and piercing was its character.
When the lad uttered his signal, he was startled by the result. A hundred echoes were awakened within the cavern, and the uproar fairly deafened him. It seemed to him that ten thousand little imps were perched all around the cavern, with their fingers thrust in their mouths, waiting for him to start the tumult, when they joined in, with an effect that was overwhelming and overpowering.
"Good gracious!" he gasped, "I never heard anything like that. I thought all the rocks were going to tumble down upon my head, and I believe some must have been loosened."
He looked apprehensively at the dark, jagged points overhead. But they were as grim and motionless as they had been during the many long years that had rolled over them.
"Mickey must have heard that, if he is anywhere within twenty miles," he concluded.
But, if such was the case, he sent back no answering signal, as was his invariable custom, when that of his friend reached him. Fred listened long and attentively, but caught no reply.
"I guess I'll have to try it again," he added, with a mingled laugh and shudder. "I think these walls can stand a little more such serenading."
He threw his whole soul in the effort, and the screeching whistle that he sent out was frightful, followed, as it was, by the innumerable echoes. It seemed as if the walls took up the wave of sound as if it were a foot-ball and hurled it back and forth, from side to side, and up and down, in furious sport. The dread of losing his torch alone prevented the lad from throwing it down and clapping his hands to his ears, to shut out the horrid din. Some of the distant echoes, coming in after the others were exhausted, gave an odd, dropping character to the volleys of sound.
Had the expected reply of Mickey been the same as the call to him, the lad would have been deceived thereby, for the echoes, as will be understood, were precisely the same as answering whistles, uttered in the same manner. But Fred understood that, if the