"Poor little codger!" The Colonel stood an instant, skillet in hand staring.
"What's that he's got round his neck?" said the Boy, moving nearer.
Kaviak, seeing the keen look menacing his treasure, lifted a shrunken yellow hand and clasped tight the dirty shapeless object suspended from a raw-hide necklace.
Nicholas seemed to hesitate to divest him of this sole remaining possession.
"You must get him to give it up," said Father Wills, "and burn it."
Kaviak flatly declined to fall in with as much as he understood of this arrangement.
"What is it, anyway?" the Boy pursued.
"His amulet, I suppose." As Father Wills proceeded to enforce his order, and pulled the leather string over the child's head, Kaviak rent the air with shrieks and coughs. He seemed to say as well as he could, "I can do without my parki and my mucklucks, but I'll take my death without my amulet."
Mac insinuated himself brusquely between the victim and his persecutors. He took the dirty object away from the priest with scant ceremony, in spite of the whisper, "Infection!" and gave it back to the wrathful owner.
"You talk his language, don't you?" Mac demanded of Nicholas.