"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!"

The mustang recognized the voice of his master, and obeyed as promptly as
a child, coming upon his feet with the nimbleness of a racer, and ready to