Why did the Boy Chief turn pale, and clutch at the tent-pole for support? Why, indeed!
"Eliza J. Sniffen," gasped Jenkins, "aged fourteen, red-haired, with a slight tendency to strabismus?"
"The same."
"Heaven help me! She died by my mandate!"
"Traitor!" shrieked Chitterlings, rushing at Jenkins with a drawn poniard.
But a figure interposed. The slight girlish form of Mushymush with outstretched hands stood between the exasperated Pirate Prodigy and the Boy Chief.
"Forbear," she said sternly to Chitterlings; "you know not what you do."
The two youths paused.
"Hear me," she said rapidly. "When captured in a confectioner's shop at New Rochelle, E. J. Sniffen was taken back to poverty. She resolved to become a schoolmistress. Hearing of an opening in the West, she proceeded to Colorado to take exclusive charge of the pensionnat of Mad. Choflie, late of Paris. On the way thither she was captured by the emissaries of the Boy Chief—"
"In consummation of a fatal vow I made never to spare educational instructors," interrupted Jenkins.