Bottles always aroused the thirst of Indians. A bulky squaw threw herself between an officer and the giver of the wine. She demanded "firewater."
"Go along," cried the indignant officer. "This is not firewater. You can't get drunk on this," and he retreated with his present.
The squaw imagined that one long orgy gurgled in that bottle. She snatched it from him and rushed through the groups near by. As she ran she slipped the bottle into the cloth wrappings which held the pappoose on her back. Ducking down among her friends, she came up in another place and stood with her hands folded, looking as innocent as any squaw could.
No one could tell her from the others except the scarecrow whom Doby was watching. With his eyes on Doby's face, he slipped a ready hand about the pappoose and lifted the bottle out. The squaw, whose heart and mind and nerves were all entwined about that one thing, felt it go. She gave a grunt and lunged at the man.
Away he scampered. She pounded after him. There was the cry, "Stop thief!" And the crowd, who had only a vague idea of what it was all about, galloped through the town in his wake.
Still clinging to his bucket, Doby leaped the gap between his boat and the shore and caught up with the others just as the people, now grown angry, had made the man a prisoner. The squaw was also taken in custody. The marshal held the bottle. A dignified gentleman, the only unruffled person in town, was saying in a quiet voice, "Bring them into my house."
Although this gentleman's house was only fourteen feet by twenty, it had, since the beginning of the settlement, been used as a county clerk's office, a post-office, and a court-house. Its owner, John Francis Dufour, had been given most of the town's positions of trust.
The house filled with the principal actors in the play. The mob, who could not see or hear what was happening, stood outside and yelled: "Put 'em in jail! Give 'em the whipping-post!" The Indians stood in sullen rage.
Doby had never seen a mob before. It made him think of Pontius Pilate, and he was filled with worry.