MOMENTS OF APPREHENSION.
As Grant drew near they saw he was regarding them with a half taunting expression on his bronzed face. In return they stared at him wonderingly, seeking to detect in his manner some symptoms of craziness.
“Dud-dinged if he don’t look all right,” muttered Phil Springer.
“I guess he’s got over it,” said Sile Crane.
Followed by Stone, the boy from Texas vaulted the back yard fence and came straight toward them.
“Well, how are the noble warriors and the desperate cattle rustlers this morning?” was his mocking inquiry. “You sure appear a trifle upset, gents. King Philip has a pale and languid look; Tecumpseh seems some disturbed, and I declare, Osceola is nervous. Girty, the renegade, has backed off, ready to take to his heels. I miss the familiar face of the chief of the cattle rustlers. Is it possible he has found himself indisposed this morning, which has compelled him to remain in bed? Take you all together, you’re a sure enough meaching-looking bunch.
“Survey them, Stone. Would you ever imagine these brave bucks possessed the hardihood to lay in wait, in superior numbers, under cover of darkness, and jump on a lone and unsuspecting person? Can you pick out among them the bloodthirsty redskins who would cruelly tie a captive to the stake and attempt to burn him alive? There they are—Cooper, Crane and Springer;—and there’s their disreputable accomplice, Rollins, otherwise known as Girty, the renegade. These others are the cattle rustlers, who rescued the unfortunate wretch from the Indians and bore him to their mountain rendezvous, where they threw him into a room with the bleaching bones of poor old Tanglefoot Bill. Is it any wonder they drove the victim of such cruel treatment clean batty? Is it any wonder that he chanted a doleful dirge, and rubbed powdered chalk on his face, and chewed soap until he could froth at the mouth? Such behavior on his part certainly indicated that he had gone plumb loony.”
He concluded with a burst of laughter that grated harshly on the ears of the deluded jokers, who were slowly beginning to understand that they had been fooled completely—that the joke was on them. The realization of this brought flushes of shame mounting to their faces.
“Well, I’ll be switched!” gasped Crane. “He’s a-givin’ us the laugh.”
Chipper Cooper pretended to look around on the ground. “Can anybody find a hole small enough for me to crawl into?” he muttered. “I want to get out of sight—quick.”