“I wonder whether he would keep mum if I should tip him the wink?” thought Mickey, who suffered the leaves in front of his face to close until there was just the smallest space through which he could watch his man.

The latter acted very much as if he suspected the proximity of the Irishman, even if he was not assured of it.  He continued looking directly at the point where the eyes of the white man peered out upon him, and by-and-by he raised his arm and pointed in the same direction, saying something at the same time to a couple of the warriors near him.

“Be the powers, if that doesn’t mane me, as me friend Larry O’Toole said when the judge axed for the biggest rascal in coort.  I’ll have to retire.”

At this juncture a strange occurrence took place.  Mickey O’Rooney was looking straight at the man, when he saw him fling up his arms, yell and pitch forward to the ground, while the group instantly scattered, as if a bombshell had dropped at their feet.

Just a second previous to this strange death, Mickey heard the report of a rifle, showing that the warrior had been shot by some one at quite a distance from the spot, which shot, at the game time, caused a temporary panic among the others.

“Well, well, now, if that doesn’t bate everything!” exclaimed the amazed Irishman.  “Just as I was thinking of raising my gun to give that spalpeen his walking-papers, up steps some gintleman and saves me the trouble; but who was the gintleman? is the question.”

The inexplicable occurrence naturally recalled Fred Munson’s adventure with the grizzly bear.  When he needed assistance most sorely, the shot was fired that saved his life.  Could it be that the same party had interfered in the present instance?  There was plenty of ground for speculation, and the Irishman was disposed to believe that the diversion came from some small party of Kiowas or Comanches, who had a special enmity against this company of Apaches, and who, being too weak to attack them, took this means of revenging themselves.

It was unsafe, however, to count upon the well-aimed shot as meant in the interest of the whites, although the one that brought down the grizzly bear could not have been meant for anything else than a direct help to the imperiled lad.  The Southwest has been noted for what are termed “triangular fights.”  A party of Americans have been driven at bay by an overwhelming number of Mexicans or greasers, who have suddenly found themselves attacked by a party of howling Comanches.  The latter have scattered the Mexicans like chaff, the Americans acting the part of spectators until the rout was complete, when the Comanches turned about and sailed into the Americans.  The Kiowas, Comanches, Apaches, Mexicans and Americans afforded just the elements for a complication of guerilla warfare, in which matters frequently became mixed to a wonderful degree.

The hand that had fired this shot against a mortal foe of Mickey O’Rooney might be turned against him the next hour.  Who could tell?