Page:Thirty-One Years on the Plains and in the Mountains.djvu/588

458 hand and foot. They then drove a stake into the ground and tied Mike to it, and began to gather brush for the fire. This did not suit him a bit, but all he could do was to hurl an avalanche of words at them, which, of course, they did not understand and to which they paid no heed.

"Ah, ye dhurty divils, " said Mike. "Ye's have took me pistols both away from me. Ye's know I can't hurt ye's without me guns, so what's the use in ye's tyin' me like a hog, ye dhurty blackguards. Let me loose and Oi'll be afther lavin' ye's. Oi'll do it be the boots that hung on Chatham's Hill. I do belave they are goin' to burn me alive. O, ye bloody haythens; let me loose and Oi'll fight the pair of ye's if ye's have got me pistols."

The Indians by this time had the fire started, but Mike still retained his nerve, cussing the red fiends by all the powers in the Irish vocabulary.

Davis and I were pushing on with all possible speed in the direction of the place we expected to find Maloney's trail, when we heard two pistol shots in quick succession further up the canyon, so we put our horses down to their utmost in the direction from whence the sound of the shots came.

After running about two miles we came in sight of a small fire a short distance away that seemed to be but just kindled. We dashed up at full speed and found Mike tied to a stake and two Apaches piling brush on the fire. We fired at the Indians through the gathering darkness, but only killed one, and the other one made off about as fast as you ever saw an Indian go. Jim kicked the fire away from Mike and cut his bonds before he was burned to speak of. I asked him how he came