“We are assembled to avenge our wrongs upon the hated paleface,” the chief declared.  “It was long ago that the proud and haughty paleface got the bulge on the red man, and we have not been in the game to any great extent since then.  Every time we have held two pairs he has come in with one pair of sixes or a Winchester and raked the pot.  He has not given us any kind of a show for our white alley.  Whenever we seemed to be getting along fairly well and doing a little something, he has wrung in a cold deck on us and then shot us full of air holes, purely for the purpose of ventilation in case we objected.  Warriors, we have grown tired of being soaked in the neck.”

“That’s right,” nodded a savage, “unless we are soaked in the neck with fire water.”

“At last,” shouted the orator—­“at last we have arisen in our wrath and our war paint and we are out for scalps.  We have decided that the joy of the red man is fleeting.  To-night a flush mantles your dark cheeks, but to-morrow it will be a bobtail flush.  What have we to live for but vengeance on the white man and a little booze now and then?  Nothing!  Our squaws once were beautiful as the wild flowers of the prairie, but now the prize beauty of our tribe is Malt Extract Maria, whose nose is out of joint, whose eyes are skewed, whose teeth are covered with fine-cut tobacco, and who lost one of her ears last week by accidentally getting it into the mouth of her husband.

“My brothers, we are not built to weep.  It is not the way of the noble red man.  A few more summers and we will be no more.  We will have kicked the stuffing out of the bucket and wended our way up the golden stair.  But before we cough up the ghost it behooves us to strike one last blow at the hated paleface.  When we get a chance at a paleface it is our duty to do him, and do him bad.  Are you on?

“We have been successful in capturing a few of our hated foes, and they are bound and helpless near at hand.  Shall they be fricasseed, broiled, fried, or made into a potpie?  That is the question before the meeting, and I am ready to listen to others.  Let us hear from Squint-eyed Sausageface.”

“It doesn’t make a dit of bifference—­I mean a bit of difference to me how I have my paleface cooked,” said the one indicated as Squint-eyed Sausageface.  “Perhaps it would be well enough to cook them at the stake.”

“I think that would be the proper mode,” gravely declared another warrior; “for I have heard that they boast they are hot stuff.  They should not boast in vain.”

“Warriors,” said Hole-in-his-Face, “you have heard.  What have you to say?”

“So mote it be,” came solemnly from one.

“Yah! yah! yah!” yelled the others.

“That settles it, as the sugar remarked to the egg dropped into the coffee.  Prepare the torture stakes.”

There was a great bustle, and in a short time the stakes were prepared and driven into the ground, one of the savages hammering them down with a huge stick of wood.