Thus they argued. A half hour went by, and the band inside the tent was making loud music as a youth darted up to them, out of breath with running.
"Come on," cried Young Joe, softly. "I've got the wagon over back in the grove, and some ropes, and some cloth. Come and take a look."
To look was to yield. The sleeping, snoring figure of the great chief, Red Bull, gave no signs of suspicious dreams when, some moments later, a band of boys approached noiselessly the place where he lay. The moment could not have been timed more opportunely for success. The circus was about breaking up for the night, and the great tent was buzzing and resounding with noise.
A half dozen figures suddenly sprang forward upon the slumbering chieftain. The arms of the dread Red Bull, seized respectively by Jack Harvey and Tom Harris, were quickly bound behind him. A light rope, wound securely about his ankles by George Warren, and made fast in sailor fashion, rendered him further helpless; while, at the same time, a long strip of cloth, procured by Young Joe for the purpose, and swathed about his head, stifled his roars of rage and fright. Red Bull, the great Indian chief, the terror of the plains, was most assuredly a captive—an astounded and helpless Indian, if ever there was one.
Borne on the sturdy shoulders of his pale-face captors, Red Bull, bound and swathed, uttering smothered ejaculations through the cloth, was conveyed to the waiting wagon and driven away.
A little less than an hour from this time there arrived at the shore of Mill Stream a strange party, the strangest beyond all doubt that had come down to these shores since the days when the forefathers of circus chiefs had skimmed its waters in their birch canoes, carrying their captives not to pretended but to real torture.
Two canoes, brought down from an old shed, were launched now and floated close to shore. Into one of these was carried the helpless and enraged Red Bull, where he was propped up against a thwart. In front of him, on guard, squatted Little Tim. Jack Harvey and Henry Burns took their places, respectively, at stern and bow, equipped with paddles. The second canoe was hastily filled with the four others. They made a heavy load for each canoe, and brought them down low in the water.
"Easy now," cautioned Tom Harris, as the party started forth. "We're well down to the gunwales. No monkeying, or we'll upset."
They proceeded carefully and silently up stream, with the moon coming up over the still water to light them on their way.
A mile and a half up the stream, they paused where a shabby structure of rough boards, eked out with odds and ends of shingle stuff, with a rusty funnel protruding from the roof, showed a little back from shore, on a cleared spot amid some trees.