Part 11 (1/2)

Mickey O'Rooney was particularly busy just then with his culinary operations, and he stared at the lad with an expression of comical amazement that made the young fellow laugh.

”Begorrah, why don't ye talk sinse?” added Mickey, impatiently. ”I've heard Soot Simpson say that if ye only put your shot in the right spot, ye don't want but one of 'em to trip the biggest grizzly that ever navigated.

I was going to obsarve that ye had been mighty lucky to send in your two pistol-shots just where they settled the business, though I s'pose the haythen was so close on ye whin ye fired that ye almost shoved the weapon into his carca.s.s.”

”I shot him, Mickey, before I fairly started to run, but he didn't mind it any more than if I spit in his face. It was your own shot that did the business.”

”Me own shot!” repeated Mickey, still staring with an astonished expression. ”I never fired any shot at the baste, and never saw him till a few minutes ago, when I was coming this way.”

It was Fred Munson's turn to be astonished, and he asked, in his amazed, wondering way:

”Who, then, fired the shot that killed him? I didn't.”

”I thought ye did the same, for it was not mesilf.”

The lad was more puzzled than ever. He saw that Mickey was in earnest, and was telling him the truth, and each, in fact, understood that _he_ had been under a misapprehension as to who had slain the grizzly bear.

”The beast was right on me,” continued Fred, ”and I didn't think there was any chance for me, when I heard the crack of a rifle from the bushes, and, looking back, saw that the bear was down on the ground, making his last kick.”

Mickey let the meat scorch, while he stopped to scratch his head, as was his custom when he was in a mental fog.

”Begorrah, but that is queer, as me mither used to obsarve when she found she had not been desaved by belaving what we childer told her. There was somebody who was kind enough to knock over the grizzly at the most convanient season for ye, and then he doesn't choose to send over his card wid his post-office address on.”

”Who do you think it was, Mickey?”

”It must have been some red spalpeen that took pity on ye. Who knows but it was Lone Wolf himself?”

Both looked about them in a scared, inquiring way, but could see nothing of their unknown friend or enemy, as the case might be.

”I tell you, Mickey, that it makes me feel as if we ought to get out of here.”

”Ye're right, and we'll just swally some of this stuff, and then we'll 'light out.”

He tossed the lad a goodly-sized piece of meat, which, if anything, was overdone. Both ate more rapidly than was consistent with hygiene, their eyes continually wandering over the rocks and heights around them, in quest of their seemingly ever-present enemies, the Apaches. It required but a few moments for them to, complete their dinner. Mickey, in accordance with his custom, carefully folded up what was left, and, taking a drink from the stream which ran near at hand, they sprang upon the backs of their mustangs, and headed westward in the direction of New Boston, provided such a settlement was still in existence by the grace of Lone Wolf, leader of the Apaches.

”Now,” said Mickey, whose spirits seemed to rise when he found himself astride of his trusty mustang again, ”if we don't have any bad luck, we ought to be out of the mountains by dark.”

”And after that?”

”Then a good long ride across the prairie, and we'll be back again wid the folks.”

”How glad I am that father isn't there, that he staid at Fort Aubray, for when he comes along in a few weeks, he won't know anything about this trouble till I tell him the whole story myself, and then it will be too late for him to worry.”

”Yes, I'm glad it's so, for it saams if I had a spalpeen of a son off wid Lone Wolf, among the mountains, I'd feel as bad as if he'd gone in swimming where the water was over his head. And then it will be so nice to sit down and tell the ould gintleman about it, and have him lambaste ye 'cause you wasn't more respictful to Lone Wolf. All them things are cheerful, and make the occasion very plisant. Begorrah, I should like to know where that old redskin is, for Soot Simpson tells me that he is the greatest redskin down in this part of the world. He's the spalpeen that robbed a government train and made himself a big blanket out of the new greenbaeks that he stole. Soot says that there isn't room on his lodge-pole for half the scalps that he has taken. Bad luck to the spalpeen, he will peel the topknot from the head of a lovely woman, or swaat child, such as I used to be, as quick as he would from the crown of a man of my size. He's an old riprobate, is the same, and Soot says he can niver die resigned and at pace with all mankind till he shoots him.”

”I'll be very glad to keep out of his way, if he'll keep out of mine. I wonder why he didn't kill me when he had the chance, instead of keeping me so long.”

”I s'pose he meant to carry ye up where his little spalpeens live, and turn ye over to them for their amus.e.m.e.nt.”

”How could I amuse them?”