“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.”

“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.”