Every few minutes he would remember that he was a pesky redskin, and pick up his stick rifle and tiptoe to the mouth of the cave to rubber for the scouts of the hated paleface. Now and then he would let out a war-whoop that made Old Hank the Trapper shiver. That boy had Bill terrorized from the start.
Red Chief, says I to the kid, would you like to go home?
Aw, what for? says he. I dont have any fun at home. I hate to go to school. I like to camp out. You wont take me back home again, Snake-eye, will you?
Not right away, says I. Well stay here in the cave a while.
All right! says he. Thatll be fine. I never had such fun in all my life.
We went to bed about eleven oclock. We spread down some wide blankets and quilts and put Red Chief between us. We werent afraid hed run away. He kept us awake for three hours, jumping up and reaching for his rifle and screeching: Hist! pard, in mine and Bills ears, as the fancied crackle of a twig or the rustle of a leaf revealed to his young imagination the stealthy approach of the outlaw band. At last, I fell into a troubled sleep, and dreamed that I had been kidnapped and chained to a tree by a ferocious pirate with red hair.
Just at daybreak, I was awakened by a series of awful screams from Bill. They werent yells, or howls, or shouts, or whoops, or yawps, such as youd expect from a manly set of vocal organs they were simply indecent, terrifying, humiliating screams, such as women emit when they see ghosts or caterpillars. Its an awful thing to hear a strong, desperate, fat man scream incontinently in a cave at daybreak.
I jumped up to see what the matter was. Red Chief was sitting on Bills chest, with one hand twined in Bills hair. In the other he had the sharp case-knife we used for slicing bacon; and he was industriously and realistically trying to take Bills scalp, according to the sentence that had been pronounced upon him the evening before.
I got the knife away from the kid and made him lie down again. But, from that moment, Bills spirit was broken. He laid down on his side of the bed, but he never closed an eye again in sleep as long as that boy was with us. I dozed off for a while, but along toward sun-up I remembered that Red Chief had said I was to be burned at the stake at the rising of the sun. I wasnt nervous or afraid; but I sat up and lit my pipe and leaned against a rock.
What you getting up so soon for, Sam? asked Bill.
Me? says I. Oh, I got a kind of a pain in my shoulder. I thought sitting up would rest it.
Youre a liar! says Bill. Youre afraid. You was to be burned at sunrise, and you was afraid hed do it. And he would, too, if he could find a match. Aint it awful, Sam? Do you think anybody will pay out money to get a little imp like that back home?
Sure, said I. A rowdy kid like that is just the kind that parents dote on. Now, you and the Chief get up and cook breakfast, while I go up on the top of this mountain and reconnoitre.
I went up on the peak of the little mountain and ran my eye over the contiguous vicinity. Over toward Summit I expected to see the sturdy yeomanry of the village armed with scythes and pitchforks beating the countryside for the dastardly kidnappers. But what I saw was a peaceful landscape dotted with one man ploughing with a dun mule. Nobody was dragging the creek; no couriers dashed hither and yon, bringing tidings of no news to the distracted parents. There was a sylvan attitude of somnolent sleepiness pervading that section of the external outward surface of Alabama that lay exposed to my view. Perhaps, says I to myself, it has not yet been discovered that the wolves have borne away the tender lambkin from the fold. Heaven help the wolves! says I, and I went down the mountain to breakfast.
When I got to the cave I found Bill backed up against the side of it, breathing hard, and the boy threatening to smash him with a rock half as big as a cocoanut.
He put a red-hot boiled potato down my back, explained Bill, and then mashed it with his foot; and I boxed his ears. Have you got a gun about you, Sam?
I took the rock away from the boy and kind of patched up the argument. Ill fix you, says the kid to Bill. No man ever yet struck the Red Chief but what he got paid for it. You better beware!
After breakfast the kid takes a piece of leather with strings wrapped around it out of his pocket and goes outside the cave unwinding it.
Whats he up to now? says Bill, anxiously. You dont think hell run away, do you, Sam?
No fear of it, says I. He dont seem to be much of a home body. But weve got to fix up some plan about the ransom. There dont seem to be much excitement around Summit on account of his disappearance; but maybe they havent realized yet that hes gone. His folks may think hes spending the night with Aunt Jane or one of the neighbours. Anyhow, hell be missed to-day. To-night we must get a message to his father demanding the two thousand dollars for his return.
Just then we heard a kind of war-whoop, such as David[206] might have emitted when he knocked out the champion Goliath[207]. It was a sling that Red Chief had pulled out of his pocket, and he was whirling it around his head.