Page 12 - The English Carnival 7

“Not right away,” says I. “We’ll stay here in the cave a while.”

“All right!” says he. “That’ll be fine. I never had such fun in all my life.”

We went to bed about eleven o’clock. We spread down some wide blankets and quilts
and put Red Chief between us. We weren’t afraid he’d run away. He kept us awake
for three hours, jumping up and reaching for his rifle and screeching: “Hist! pard,” in
mine and Bill’s ears, as the fancied crackle of a twig or the rustle of a leaf revealed to

his young imagination the stealthy approach of the outlaw band. At last, I fell into a
troubled sleep, and dreamed that I had been kidnapped and chained to a tree by a
ferocious pirate with red hair.

Just at daybreak, I was awakened by a series of awful screams from Bill. They weren’t
yells, or howls, or shouts, or whoops, or yawps, such as you’d expect from a manly
set of vocal organs--they were simply indecent, terrifying,
humiliating screams, such as women emit when they see
What you Think?you Think?
ghosts or caterpillars. It’s an awful thing to hear a strong, What

desperate, fat man scream incontinently in a cave at What made Bill
scream ?
daybreak.
I jumped up to see what the matter was. Red Chief was sitting on Bill’s chest, with

one hand twined in Bill’s hair. In the other he had the sharp case-knife we used for
slicing bacon; and he was industriously and realistically trying to take Bill’s scalp,
according to the sentence that had been pronounced upon him the evening before.

I got the knife away from the kid and made him lie down again. But, from that
moment, Bill’s spirit was broken. He laid down on his side of the bed, but he never
closed an eye again in sleep as long as that boy was with us. I dozed off for a while,
but along toward sun-up I remembered that Red Chief had said I was to be burned at

the stake at the rising of the sun. I wasn’t nervous or afraid; but I sat up and lit my
pipe and leaned against a rock.

“What you getting up so soon for, Sam?” asked Bill.
“Me?” said I. “Oh, I got a kind of a pain in my shoulder. I thought sitting up would
rest it.”

“You’re a liar!” says Bill. “You’re afraid. You were to be burned at sunrise, and you
were afraid he’d do it. And he would, too, if he could find a match. Ain’t it awful,

Sam? Do you think anybody will pay out money to get a little imp like that back
home?”
“Sure,” said I. “A rowdy kid like that is just the kind that parents dote on. Now, you

and the Chief get up and cook breakfast, while I go up on the top of this mountain
and reconnoitre.”

I went up on the peak of the little mountain and ran my eye over the contiguous

10