All the boys came crowding around to see what the matter was, and the men came, too, and pretty soon some one found an arrow in the grass, and then they knew that it was a stray arrow that had hit Jim Leonard on the side of the foot, after missing one of the dimes that was stuck in the ground. It was blunt, and it had not hurt him that anybody could see, except rubbed the skin off a little on the ankle-bone. But Jim Leonard began to limp away towards home, and now, as the Indians had all gone back to their boats, and the fellows had nothing else to do, they went along with him.
Archy Hawkins held him up on one side, and Hen Billard on the other, and Archy said, “I tell you, when I heard Jim yell, I thought it was a real Indian,” and Hen said:
“I thought it was the scalp-halloo.”
Archy said, “The way I came to think it was a real Indian was that a real Indian never makes any noise when he’s hurt,” and Hen said:
“I thought it was the scalp-halloo, because Jim was stooping over as if he was tearing the scalp off of a white man. He’s been practising, you know.”
“Well, practice makes perfect. I reckon if Jim hasn’t got so far that he would smile when you scalped him, or just laugh if you shot an arrow through him, or would let you stick a hook into him, and pull him up to the top of a pole, it’s because he’s begun at the other end. I’ll bet he could eat himself full of dog stew, and lay around three days without stirring.”
Jim Leonard thought the fellows had come along to pity him and help him; but when he heard Archy Hawkins say that, and Hen Billard began to splutter and choke with the laugh he was holding in, he flung them off and began to fight at them with his fists, and strike right and left blindly. He broke out crying, and then the fellows made a ring around him and danced and mocked him.
“Hey, Jim, what’d you do if they pulled your hair out?”
“Jimmy, oh, Jim! Would you hollo much louder if they tomahawked you?”
“Show your uncle how to dance till you drop, Jim.”