Philip stared at his new acquaintance in astonishment.
CHAPTER XL.
THE INDIAN HUNTER.
Philip had lived so long in a country village that he had never chanced to read any of those absorbing romances in which one boy, of tender years, proves himself a match for a dozen Indians, more or less, and, therefore, he was very much amazed at Henry Taylor’s avowal that he was going out West to kill Indians.
“What do you want to kill Indians for?” he asked, after an astonished pause.
Now it was Henry’s turn to be astonished.
“Every boy wants to kill Indians,” he answered, looking pityingly at our hero.
“What for? What good will it do?” asked Philip.
“It shows he’s brave,” answered his new friend. “Didn’t you ever read the story of ‘Bully Bill’; or, The Hero of the Plains’?”
“I never heard of it,” said Philip.
“You must have lived in the woods, then,” said Henry Taylor, rather contemptuously. “It’s a tip-top story. Bully Bill was only fourteen, and killed ever so many Indians—twenty or thirty, I guess—as well as a lot of lions and bears. Oh, he must have had lots of fun!”