“Yes, yes, so we will,” cried Molly.
And the gay little party hurried forth to feed the young squaws, and buy some of the curious specimens of rocks they had brought to sell.
Paul seized the opportunity to take a “snap-shot” at the dusky damsels. Kirke purchased of them several bits of colored stone for his cabinet, and remarked later to Paul that if those squaws couldn’t speak English, they could tell a nickel from a dime with their eyes shut.
This meeting with the Indians was a pleasant experience to The Happy Six,—a much pleasanter one than that which Kirke was doomed to pass through on the morning they entered New York.
Kirke’s experience occurred in this wise: The night before they reached New York he and Paul occupied a section at the front of the sleeping-car next the door, Paul having the lower and Kirke the upper berth.
After undressing, Kirke had rolled all his clothes together into a bundle, which he placed at the foot of his berth, where he might lay his hands on it in the morning; for he meant to be up early to see whatever was to be seen.
But when he opened his eyes at sunrise, the bundle had mysteriously disappeared.
“Paul has hidden it for a joke,” was his first thought; and he leaned over the edge of his berth, and in an explosive whisper charged his comrade with the theft.
“Taken your clothes? No; what did I want of your clothes?” answered sleepy Paul, a little cross at being roused from a pleasant dream. “Why don’t you ring for the porter?”
There was no mistaking the honesty of Paul’s tone. Kirke began to be nervous. He pressed the electric bell by his window, and the colored porter presently appeared.