Mickey scratched his head in his old quizzical way.
“The same luck befell the spalpeens and mesilf. I first got on their thrack, and then they got on mine, so we’ll call that square, as Mike Harrigan did when he went back the second night and took the other goat so as to make a pair.”
“That was nigh onto a bad fix when yer pitched into that cave, and couldn’t find the way out till the wolf showed the younker; but it wasn’t so bad as yer think, ’cause I’d been sure to find yer war thar. I know the way in and out of it, and I could have got into it and fetched you out, but yer war lucky ’nough not to need me.”
“How was it that ye were so long turning up arter we separated?”
“Wal, Lone Wolf and his braves rode so fast that it was a good while afore I cotched up, and found that he hadn’t the younker with him. Then, in course, I turned back and found that yer had flopped so much, off and on yer trail, that there was a good deal of trouble to keep track of yer.”
“Where did ye first catch the light of Mickey O’Rooney’s illegant and expressive countenance?”
“I saw yer stop to camp this morning a good ways up the pass, whar yer cooked yer piece of antelope meat, and swallowed enough to last yer for a week.”
“It was you that shot the grizzly bear just as he was going to kill me?” inquired Fred, with a pleased look in the scarred face of the scout, who smiled in turn as he answered:
“I have a ’spicion it war me and nobody else.”
“Why didn’t ye come forward and introduce yerself?” inquired Mickey, “it was all a mistake to think that we felt too proud to notice ye, even if ye ain’t as good-looking as meself.”