But, in the face of Mickey’s assurance to the contrary, he did not feel altogether easy about the Apaches he had left at the cave.  His humanity had prevented him from depriving them of means of escape, and although he was inclined to believe that they were not likely to climb the lasso until many hours should elapse, there could be no certainty about it.  They might do so within an hour after the departure of the man and boy.

It was this reflection that caused Mickey to act with something of his natural rashness.  He felt that he could not afford to wait to fight the thing out on scientific principles, so he determined, since he was so close, to force it to an issue without delay.  Accordingly, he prepared himself to charge.

“I’ve been too kind already in giving ye warnings,” he added, gathering himself for the effort, “and if your indifference causes your ruin, it’s your own fault, as the bull remarked when he come down on a butt agin the engine.”

Compressing his lips, Mickey made his start, forcing out a few words, as he would shoot bullets on the way.

“Nobody but a spalpeen of a coward would keep out of sight when he saw a head coming down on him in such tempting style as mine.  I can’t understand how he could.”

In his furious hunt for antagonists, the belligerent fellow did not think of looking upon the ground.  He made the blunder of Captain John Smith, of the Jamestown Colony, who, in retreating from Powhatan’s warriors, became mired, with the eventual result of making Pocahontas famous, and securing an infinite number of namesakes of the captain himself.

Mickey O’Rooney had scarcely begun his charge when his feet came into violent collision with a body upon the ground, and he turned a complete somersault over it.

“Be the powers! but that’s a dirty thrick!” he exclaimed, gathering himself up as hurriedly as possible, and recovering very speedily from his natural bewilderment.  “A man who drops in the ring without a blow is always ruled out, and be that token ye’re not entitled to the respect of illegant gintlemen.”

During the utterance of these words the Irishman had carefully returned, boiling over with indignation and fight, and at this juncture he discovered the obstruction which had brought him to grief.

So far as appearances went, there was no Indian nearer than the cave.  It was his own horse that had made the noise which first alarmed him.  While the equine was stretched upon the ground, peacefully sleeping, his bumptious owner, in charging over his body, had stumbled and fallen.

Mickey was thrown “all in a heap” for a minute or two, when he found how the case stood, and then he laughed to himself as he fully appreciated the situation.

“Well, well, well, I feel as chape as Jerry McConnell when he hugged and kissed a gal for two hours, one evening, and found it was his wife, and she felt chaaper yet, for she thought all the time that it was Mickey O’Shaughnessy.  I suppose me old swateheart,” he added, as he stooped down and patted the head of his horse, “that ye’ve been living so high here for two or three days that ye’re too fat to be good for anything.  Come, up wid ye, ye old spalpeen!”