"Yes, an' we'll name you Biting Tiger, an' I'll be Big Thunder, an' Nellie can be Moon-face, just as it was in the book."
For some moments the boys sat in silent bliss. Then after a time a serious doubt crept into Biting Tiger's heart, and he asked,
"But what will we do for things to eat?"
"Things to eat?" echoed Eddie. "Chiefs don't bother about such things; they just send the squaws out to get it, 'cause that's what squaws are for."
"My! but won't mother be scared when she finds out that she got an Injun to hold the baby?" said Charley, thinking with delight that in his mother's fear he should be more than repaid for all the trouble the little fellow had caused him. "But then she won't be so awfully frightened, for he ain't got anything to scalp if you wanted to do it."
"We can wait till he grows, an' then scalp him 'most every day," said Eddie, consolingly.
Then came the question of how they were to get away, for, valiant chiefs as they were, they could hardly drop the baby on the floor and run.
"I'll tell you what we can do," said Eddie. "I'll go home an' get some ropes to tie Nellie with, an' then I'll go for the grasshoppers. When you hear me holler you send Nellie over, an' put the baby in the cradle, and come over lickety-split, so's to hold the squaw's mouth if she sets up a yell."
Big Thunder started for his mother's clothes-line and some grasshoppers, while Biting Tiger sat holding the baby as quietly as if he had never thought of being an Indian.
Surely there never were two chiefs on the eve of starting in the Indian business so fortunate as these two were, for in a short time after Big Thunder's departure Mrs. Harnden took the baby, and Nellie seated herself on the door-step to play with her doll.