“The Injun didn’t come, and he didn’t come till I got mad at him, too.  How was I to know that he finished up my idee by fallin’ over, further down?  So I fumed and I fussed, and I yearned inside of me to get square with somebody.  And at last my chance come.

“Afternoon, hot and clear as usual.  Percy asleep under a rock, and then, horses’ footsteps!  I jumped for the edge, and, boys, for a minute my sight give out.  It wasn’t Injuns; it was a lot of Uncle Sam’s durned soldiers.  I never expected to be so glad to see a soldier; I thought I despised ’em.

“I looked at ’em for a full half minute, thinking,’ God bless old Percy’s blistered nose, he’s safe!’ and then I done what I hadn’t orter did out of that, desire to get even.  I slid down the mountain and whanged away over their heads.  It was like pokin’ your finger in a hornets’ nest.  Up comes them soldiers, workin’ the finest of Injun sneaks up the hill.  If there ever was a grand sight in Nature it’s a two-hundred-pound soldier entirely concealed by a rock twice the size of my fist.

“Y-a-as, here they come; and I flitted my red handkercher like it was a ‘Pache’s head-dress, leadin’ ’em on to where Percy was.  I got there first and crawled into a cave where I could watch.  I looked at Percy, sleeping, remarkin’ ‘whooo-whisssh!’ at regular intervals, his little baby face surrounded by his white handkercher, his little fat hands folded on his little fat stomach, and I could scarcely wait for the time when them soldiers’ eyes should fall upon their treacherous, fierce, and implackibble foe.

“The lieutenant was a kid, just gradooated—­one of the kind that thinks it’s glorious to get killed and read about it in the papers.  He led his men into the simple quiet of our camp, crouched and tur’ble, a gun in each hand . . . and there was the United States army and there was the sleepin’ Percy, face to face!

“‘What . . . !’ says the lieutenant, falling back ten foot.  ’What . . . !’ says he, falling back twenty feet and losin’ his voice.  ’What . . . !’says he, gatherin’himself; ’what is this?

“And then I come out of the cave and rolled on the ground.

“The lieutenant walked over and patted me on the back with a rifle-butt.

“‘What d’ye mean, you s-c-c-coundrel!’ he says.  ’Stop that laughing or I’ll shoot the pair of you!’

“I come to quick when I heard that.  ‘Look a’ here, young feller,’ I says, ’you can beat me as much as you feel like, but if you make a crooked play at Percy I’ll wrap you up in your diploma and send you home to your ma.’

“It just happened their half-breed scout knew me.

“‘I wouldn’t rile Mr. Scraggs, Lieutenant,’ says he; ’it’s bad luck.’

“Of course there was more talk, but the lieutenant was a good enough kid, and when he see all the boys laughin’ he give in and smiled himself.

“‘Well, you long-legged statue of melancholy,’ says he, ’I suppose I’ll have to let it go, but I’ll shoot you, sure as there is shootin’, if you ever play a trick like that on me again.  What kind of a fool are you to stay here in the middle of an outbreak, anyhow?  Now wake up your friend and come with us.’