CHAPTER V.
THE INDIAN TRADES BACK.
The Club were tired that night, as indeed they were every night, and sought their blankets at an early hour. Uncle Dick had undisputed possession of the little Sibley tent that was pitched on one side of the fire; Frank, Perk, Walter, George and Bab bunked in the wagon; Archie and his two friends slept under a brush “lean-to” which they had erected for their own especial benefit; and the trappers passed the night wherever they happened to be sitting or lying when sleep overpowered them. On this particular night Dick and old Bob sat up and smoked after all the rest of the party had retired—indeed until they had all fallen asleep except Archie.
The latter thought as much of his new horse as he had thought of his first pair of skates, which he found in his stocking on a certain Christmas morning when he was about eight years old. For a week or two after those skates appeared he never went to bed without placing them on a chair close by, so that they would be the first things his eyes rested on when he awoke in the morning. He would have been glad to do the same by the horse, but as he could not, he contented himself with lying awake and thinking about him; and thus it happened that he overheard some conversation that was not intended for his ears, and which was the means of bringing him a hard fall and a jumping headache, which he had for an inseparable companion all the next day. The conversation referred to took place between the trappers. The camp had been quiet for an hour, and old Bob, supposing that everybody was asleep, removed his pipe from his mouth long enough to say:
“I’m sorry the leetle ’un gin them blankets and things fur that speckled hoss, ’cause he’s sartin to be jest that much out of pocket!”
“I know it,” replied Dick.
“I was kinder in hopes you’d tell him,” continued Bob.
“I thought of it, but what good would it a done? The Injun in course sold him the hoss intendin’ to steal it agin, an’ we’d best let him take it now, an’ without makin’ no fuss about it, an’ without his hurtin’ the boy.”