“I don’t see any thing particularly smart in what he did,” said Harry, “unless it may have been that he got hold of a bottle of whisky before you did. I suppose it takes a smart man to do that.”
Old Robsart looked down upon the impudent lad, with one of his most patronizing grins. He felt that he was a sharp one, and he liked him all the better for it.
“It’s a pity we hadn’t you there,” he said; “if we had, things would have gone different, but nobody was around as cute as you.”
“Let us hear how the trial resulted, and I beg pardon for my ill manners.”
“Wal, Colonel Stebbins was a big, fat, jolly chap, and he see’d the fun ahead. So he had the red-skin fotched up afore him, and he read a paper full of big-sounding words, that I don’t b’l’eve he understood himself; but when he got through he told the varmint that he was accused of running away with a boat that belonged to the United States, and he axed him what he had got to say in his defense.
“The red-skin give a hiccup or two, and then said he didn’t run away with the boat at all. That he got into it to take a nap, and when he woke up, he found it had run away with him, and he thought the Great Father of the red-men in Washington orter send him some presents for the outrage he had suffered.
“Wal, when he said that, thar was a screech through the camp, that almost lifted the ha’r off my head and Colonel Stebbins shook so hard, that the top of the barrel he was sittin’ on broke through, and droppin’ a couple of feet down into it, he got wedged so fast he couldn’t get out. While two or three of his officers was tryin’ to pull him and the barrel apart, the Injin gave the hoops a whack with his tomahawk, that made the staves fly apart, and let him out ag’in.
“When things had got sobered down a little, the colonel put him on his trial for stealing a bottle of whisky, and I’ll be shot ef he didn’t deny it right squar’, and then ax the officer to prove it on him. Who see’d him do it? Whar was the man? He axed him to be fotched. That was another stunner, and all Colonel Stebbins could do, when he got over laughin’, was to ax the red-skin, whar he got the liquor that made him drunk, and that all could smell on him that minute. With another hiccup, he said that wasn’t nobody’s business, and he’d see ’em all hanged fust, and then he turned round and axed the colonel whar he got the whisky that he got drunk on.
“That turned the laugh on him, and fur fifteen minutes, the other officers rolled over on the ground, and the colonel had to hold his sides to keep from bu’stin’. When he got things kind of quieted down, he told the red-skin that the charges wa’n’t sustained and he might go; but afore he left camp, the officers gave him a half-dozen blankets, a new rifle, ammunition, beads, trinkets till he could hardly carry ’em all. You see he had got the best of ’em all so well, that they liked him, and war willing to do any thing in the world for him.”
“And was that the last you heard of him?” asked Little Rifle.