"He was asleep and dreamed it."
"Very cautiously did I crawl out, and there I beheld fifty Lamanitish maidens—"
"Lamanites! Huh!"
"Fifty Lamanitish damsels, as I did start to say, wreathed with garlands and bedecked with golden circlets on their arms and ankles, making merry in the woods. Then they ceased from their sports and sat them down to picnic out of great hampers. They took out such viands! Ah me, I have not tasted cooked food in a twelve month! Who knows? I might have made myself known and been made much of among so many maidens; but I forebore, and came here to acquaint you with the fact."
A shout of laughter arose. "Come on, boys," volunteered one.
"But Lamanites!"
"I care not," decided Omner. "We are outcasts among our own people, and we dare not return to Lehi-Nephi. For my part, a Lamanite maid is good enough to cook my food and live in my tepee."
"Mine, too, if she be good looking. Omner, lead out."
As gaily as a crowd of school boys on a lark, they hurried through the woods. Others joined them on their way.
After the order of primitive man did they lie in wait for, and carry off, their mates. After the first panic, the girls, when they found the white-skinned men were inclined to be wooers, were nothing loth. So the camp was doubled that night, for the fifty of Omo's imagination had dwindled to twenty-four.