We
took him up to the cave and I 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 tail-feathers 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.
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