Long-Hair, who was not joining in the dance and song, turned when he heard these taunting words, and mistaking whence they came, went to Beverley's side and kicked him again and again.
Oncle Jazon heard the loud blows, and considered the incident a remarkably good joke.
"He, he, he!" he snickered, as soon as Long-Hair walked away again. "I does the talkin' an' somebody else gits the thumpin'! He, he, he! I always was devilish lucky. Them kicks was good solid jolts, wasn't they, Lieutenant? Sounded like they was. He, he, he!"
Beverley gave no heed to Oncle Jazon's exasperating pleasantry; but Kenton, sorely chafing under the pressure of his bonds, could not refrain from making retort in kind.
"I'd give ye one poundin' that ye'd remember, Emile Jazon, if I could get to ye, ye old twisted-face, peeled-headed, crooked-mouthed, aggravatin' scamp!" he exclaimed, not thinking how high his naturally strong voice was lifted. "I can stand any fool but a damn fool!"
Long-Hair heard the concluding epithet and understood its meaning. Moreover, he thought himself the target at which it was so energetically launched. Wherefore he promptly turned back and gave Kenton a kicking that made his body resound not unlike a drum.
And here it was that Oncle Jazon overreached himself. He was so delighted at Kenton's luck that he broke forth giggling and thereby drew against his own ribs a considerable improvement of Long-Hair's pedal applications.
"Ventrebleu!" whined the old man, when the Indian had gone away again. "Holy Mary! Jee-ru-sa-lem! They's nary bone o' me left 'at's not splintered as fine as toothpickers! S'pose yer satisfied now, ain't ye, Si Kenton? Ef ye ain't I'm shore to satisfy ye the fust time I git a chance at ye, ye blab-mouthed eejit!"
Before this conversation was ended a rain began to fall, and it rapidly thickened from a desultory shower to a roaring downpour that effectually quenched not only the fires around which the savages were dancing, but the enthusiasm of the dancers as well. During the rest of the afternoon and all night long the fall was incessant, accompanied by a cold, panting, wailing southwest wind.
Beverley lay on the ground, face upward, the rawhide strings torturing his limbs, the chill of cold water searching his bones. He could see nothing but the dim, strange canopy of flying rain, against which the bare boughs of the scrub oaks were vaguely outlined; he could hear nothing but the cry of the wind and the swash of the water which fell upon him and ran under him, bubbling and gurgling as if fiendishly exultant.