“I thought it was a book peddler.”
“Why is my brother’s heart sore against the book peddler?” asked Mushymush.
“Because,” said the Boy Chief fiercely, “I am again without my regular dime novel—and I thought he might have one in his pack. Hear me, Mushymush. The United States mails no longer bring me my ‘Young America’ or my ‘Boys’ and Girls’ Weekly.’ I find it impossible, even with my fastest scouts, to keep up with the rear of General Howard, and replenish my literature from the sutler’s wagon. Without a dime novel or a ‘Young America,’ how am I to keep up this Injin business?”
Mushymush remained in meditation a single moment. Then she looked up proudly.
“My brother has spoken. It is well. He shall have his dime novel. He shall know the kind of hairpin his sister Mushymush is.”
And she arose and gamboled lightly as the fawn out of his presence.
In two hours she returned. In one hand she held three small flaxen scalps, in the other “The Boy Marauder,” complete in one volume, price ten cents.
“Three palefaced children,” she gasped, “were reading it in the tail-end of an emigrant wagon. I crept up to them softly. Their parents are still unaware of the accident,” and she sank helpless at his feet.
“Noble girl!” said the Boy Chief, gazing proudly on her prostrate form; “and these are the people that a military despotism expects to subdue!”