Page 11 - The English Carnival 7

hitched the horse in the cedar brake. After dark I drove the buggy to the little village,
three miles away, where we had hired it, and walked back to the mountain.

Bill was pasting court-plaster over the scratches and bruises on his features. There
was a fire burning behind the big rock at the entrance of the cave, and the boy was

watching a pot of boiling coffee, with two buzzard tailfeathers stuck in his red hair.
He points a stick at me when I come up, and says:

“Ha! cursed paleface, do you dare to enter the camp of Red Chief, the terror of the
plains?”

“He’s all right now,” says Bill, rolling up his trousers and examining some bruises on
his shins. “We’re playing Indian. We’re making Buffalo Bill’s show look like magic-
lantern views of Palestine in the town hall. I’m Old Hank, the Trapper, Red Chief’s

captive, and I’m to be scalped at daybreak. By Geronimo! that kid can kick hard.”
Yes, sir, that boy seemed to be having the time of his life. The fun of camping out in

a cave had made him forget that he was a captive himself. He immediately christened
me Snake-eye, the Spy, and announced that, when his braves returned from the
warpath, I was to be broiled at the stake at the rising of the sun.

Then we had supper; and he filled his mouth full of bacon and bread and gravy, and
began to talk. He made a during-dinner speech something like this:

“I like this fine. I never camped out before; but I had a pet ‘possum once, and I
was nine last birthday. I hate to go to school. Rats ate up sixteen of Jimmy Talbot’s

aunt’s speckled hen’s eggs. Are there any real Indians in these woods? I want some
more gravy. Does the trees moving make the wind blow? We had five puppies. What
makes your nose so red, Hank? My father has lots of money. Are the stars hot? I
whipped Ed Walker twice, Saturday. I don’t like girls. You dassent catch toads unless
with a string. Do oxen make any noise? Why are oranges round? Have you got beds
to sleep on in this cave? Amos Murray has got six toes. A parrot can talk, but a

monkey or a fish can’t. How many does it take to make twelve?”

Every few minutes he would remember that he was a pesky redskin, and pick up his
stick rifle and tiptoe to the mouth of the cave to rubber for the scouts of the hated
paleface. Now and then he would let out a warwhoop that made Old Hank the
Trapper, shiver. That boy had Bill terrorized from the start.

“Red Chief,” says I to the kid, “would you like to go
home?”
What you Think?ou Think?
“Aw, what for?” says he. “I don’t ha ve any fun at home. What y Was the little boy
I hate to go to school. I like to camp out. You won’t take willing to go home?

me back home again, Snake-eye, will you?” Why/Why not ?

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The English Carnival–8