Here he at once began the preparations for broiling it. The antelope had been of goodly size and he had cut out the most luscious portions, so as to avoid carrying back any waste material. He had a great deal more than both could eat, it is true, but it was a commendable custom with the Irishman to lay in a stock against emergencies that were likely to arise.
While thus employed, it would have been impossible for Mickey to hold his tongue.
“Begorrah, but it was queer, was the same, the way I came to cotch this gintleman. I hunted him a little ways, when he made a big jump, and I thought had got a long ways off, but when I came to folly him, I found he had cornered himself among the rocks, where there was no show of getting out, except by coming back on me. The minute I showed mesilf, he made a rush for me arms, just as all the purty gals in Tipperary used to do when I came along the street. An antelope can’t do much, but I don’t care about their coming down on me in that style, and so I pulled up and let drive. He was right on me when I pulled trigger, and he made one big jump that carried him clear over my head, and landed him stone dead on the other side.”
“That was a good shot, but not as good as when you brought down the grizzly bear at my heels.”
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 carcass.”
“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.”