They cared less for abusive songs, however, than for the horns that blared in their faces, and two “Indians” who danced about them, brandishing tomahawks. When Lewis and Moses caught sight of these pseudo-savages they made ready for trouble.
CHAPTER XIII
“VIVE NAPOLEON!”
The boys had never seen anything like this before—such horrible heads and faces—or heard such a din. The tightly-muzzled “Napoleon” rose on his haunches, rolling his eyes wildly round. Accustomed to play with the arksmen, he was not much afraid of anybody; but now he attempted to bolt. The boys held him with difficulty.
They still thought that it was probably “fun.” But when those two “redskins” rushed toward them with tomahawks they were alarmed, the whoops were so ugly, the hatchets looked so wicked! Out came Moses’ old dueling pistol, which—like a boy—he had taken with him under his deerskin smock.
Lewis’ hands were so wound in the bear’s chain that he could not draw his; but Wistar, with his heavy bag of mammoth back-bones, gave one “Indian” a “smash” over the head that felled him.
Fortunately for Moses, trouble with the hair-trigger resulted in his discharging the pistol harmlessly into the ground.
But the fracas now began in earnest, and it might have ended badly for our young Kaintocks had not a loud laugh been heard and a high-pitched but powerful voice bawled in a queer mixture of Spanish and French: “Paz! Paz, mes enfants! Paz, mes petits!”—“Peace! Peace, my children!”
This timely outcry came from a veranda close at hand, where a stout old priest in a brown gown, and a tall, dark man, wearing a military cloak, stood watching the revelers. Immediately the former came through the throng, stretching out his arms, pushing them all aside as if they were in very truth his “children.” His big, kind face shone in the torchlight like a benevolent gargoyle, and his voice was as oil on angry waves.