He looked real crafty and half closed his eyes while he bobbed his head back and forth. “Sammy got gun—sure. Good gun.”
All of a sudden we remembered Plunk and Binney, and I jumped up and put my hands to my mouth to holler at them, but I happened to glance at Sammy, who looked like he was ready to jump and run, so I stopped and explained to him. He quieted down, and then I hollered. I had to holler two or three times before I got an answer, but after a while I could hear them hooting back at me. I told them to come on, and in about five minutes they came tearing up the hill. I guess they never expected to see us again, the way they looked. And surprised!—you never saw anything like it. They were a little sorry, too, that they hadn’t stayed. You see, nobody’d got hurt, and they might as well have had the credit for being brave. That’s the way with lots of folks. They can figure out after the time is passed what they ought to have done the week before.
Well, we held a meeting of the Ku Klux Klan right there, and voted Sammy our ward. Mark found out he was that. Indians, he said, were the wards of the nation, and ward meant somebody that was looked after and taken care of, so he guessed that’s what Sammy was to us. Sammy was agreeable, and grinned and grinned and bobbed his head and said “Sure, sure, sure” every little while.
It was getting about time for us to go home, so we left Sammy all the things to eat and as many dishes as we dared, and told him we’d be back to see him in a day or two and bring more grub. Then we shook hands all round, and off we went with the first real big secret we’d ever had, and I tell you we felt pretty important over it.
CHAPTER VIII
If we’d known what a trouble Sammy was going to be to us all through the winter, I guess we’d have been more careful about making him our ward. But we’d done it, and there was nothing for us but to stand by him—and he did have a monstrous appetite. After winter came on we pretty nearly had to feed him. He did get things to eat besides what we took him—chicken sometimes, I guess, and things like that. We never asked how he got them, and he never told us, but I don’t imagine it was best for folks in that neighborhood to leave things laying after dark.
We were afraid he’d freeze to death, but the cold never seemed to bother him. In the cave he had some old quilts and a piece of carpet he used to hang across the opening to shut out the wind. When he built a fire on the sand before the cave it was surprising how warm it got inside, and then he’d drop his curtain, and it seemed like the heat would stay for hours after the fire was gone.
Of course, he couldn’t stay in the cave all the time, and, though we cautioned him, he did go prowling around the country a good deal, even on the roads. Once or twice he was seen at night, and one farmer came lashing his horse into town with a story of being chased by a ghost twenty feet high with hair two yards long. We knew who the ghost was, all right, though we couldn’t see why Sammy chased the man. He told us it was just for fun. That’s the way he was, a regular little boy, and how he did love to play pranks! What with him sneaking around that section and with people missing things and catching glimpses of him in the darkness, the locality got a bad name. It doesn’t take long for a place to get a bad name; and, no matter how much folks don’t believe in ghosts, they’re ready to believe in something or other. I don’t believe in them, and Mark says there isn’t any such thing, but all the same there are times when the chills run all over you and you know there’s something that isn’t flesh and blood right behind you.
All that winter we lugged things to eat out to the cave, usually a couple of times a week, and when the drifts were high it was pretty hard work. But Sammy was always grateful, and when you come to think about what came later, and how valuable Sammy was to us, I shouldn’t wonder if he was worth more than our trouble.
During the winter Mr. Tidd worked harder than ever on his turbine, and before the last snow was off the ground he had his working model, or whatever he called it, about ready for a trial. He was excited and we were excited, but it was Mark that thought of something that gave us all a setback.