bootable partition, can it be not the first?

[Sumleilmus]

Does a Mountain Lion boot partition have to be the first partition on a volume with multiple partitions (for data, for example)?

I want to make a bootable backup partition on an external volume. It is easy to make the new partition be the second partition, but difficult to make it be the first partition.

If I clone a bootable installation of OS X 10.8.2 onto something like the follow (NOT actual output from diskutil list):

/dev/disk2
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUID_partition_scheme *1.0 TB disk2
1: EFI 209.7 MB disk2s1
2: Apple_HFS BigData 893.1 GB disk2s2
3: Apple_HFS NewBootableMtnLion 120.41 GB disk2s3
4: Apple_HFS SmallData 106.7 GB disk2s4

Will it be bootable?

[DeltaMac]

I have a hard drive here, with 11 partitions.
8 are bootable, everything from Leopard to Mountain Lion.
I have all installers from Leopard to MountainLion, on dedicated partitions.
I have a bootable ML system, by chance on partition 5
The Mountain Lion installer is on partition 10
All partitions boot just fine (assuming that the Mac itself will boot to that range between 10.5 and 10.8 )
That's a USB only drive
Here's the actual diskutil list from my "other" external firewire HD:

/dev/disk2
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: Apple_partition_scheme *1.0 TB disk2
1: Apple_partition_map 32.3 KB disk2s1
2: Apple_HFS BootTiger 15.0 GB disk2s3
3: Apple_HFS BootLeopard 25.0 GB disk2s5
4: Apple_HFS Tiger Install 5.0 GB disk2s7
5: Apple_HFS Leopard Install 10.0 GB disk2s9
6: Apple_HFS Snow Leopard Install 10.0 GB disk2s11
7: Apple_HFS Storage 467.3 GB disk2s13
8: Apple_HFS TheAbysss 231.2 GB disk2s15
9: Apple_HFS BootLion 113.1 GB disk2s17
10: Apple_HFS OS X Mountain Lion I... 5.6 GB disk2s19
11: Apple_HFS BootMountLion 107.4 GB disk2s21
12: Apple_HFS OS X Lion Install Di... 9.1 GB disk2s23

Notice it's NOT GUID. I can boot all Macs that can boot from Firewire with something from Tiger to Mountain Lion, all from the same hard drive.
"Boot.." partitions are installed systems.
''...Install..." partitions are OS X installers.
And, No, you can't install ML on an Apple Partition Map. That's a clone from another installed system. And, it's very bootable from that hard drive. You'll notice that Mountain Lion is on slice 21 (or partition 11 - I don't claim to fully understand this stuff ! ) - and it boots just fine!
I hope that answers your question.

[Sumleilmus]

Gosh, I always enjoy your replies. This one is wonderfully over the top.

Don't tempt me to pose questions whose answers I don't really seek, just for the surprise of…

Thanks. I'm cloning to an easy to create second partition as I key this.