“Do your folks keep cows?” he asked.

“No, we buy milk,” said Terry.

“Gee!  Then what about the butter?  Maybe your ma needs it for dinner!”

“No, she doesn’t!” cried Alice.  “There’s stacks of it!  I can have all the butter I want.”

“Well, I’m mighty glad of it!” said Billy.  “I didn’t just think.  I’m afraid we’ve greased our clothes, too.”

“That’s no difference,” said Terry.  “We can play what we please in these things.”

“Well, we ought to be all dirty, and bloody, and have feathers on us to be real Indians,” said Billy.

Alice tried a handful of dirt on her sleeve and it streaked beautifully.  Instantly all of them began smearing themselves.

“If we only had feathers,” lamented Billy.

Terry disappeared and shortly returned from the garage with a feather duster.  Billy fell on it with a shriek.  Around each one’s head he firmly tied a twisted handkerchief, and stuck inside it a row of stiffly upstanding feathers.

“Now, if we just only had some pokeberries to paint us red, we’d be real, for sure enough Indians, and we could go on the warpath and fight all the other tribes and burn a lot of them at the stake.”

Alice sidled up to him.  “Would huckleberries do?” she asked softly.

“Yes!” shouted Terry, wild with excitement.  “Anything that’s a colour.”

Alice made another trip to the refrigerator.  Billy crushed the berries in his hands and smeared and streaked all their faces liberally.

“Now are we ready?” asked Alice.

Billy collapsed.  “I forgot the ponies!  You got to ride ponies to go on the warpath!”

“You ain’t neither!” contradicted Terry.  “It’s the very latest style to go on the warpath in a motor.  Everybody does!  They go everywhere in them.  They are much faster and better than any old ponies.”

Billy gave one genuine whoop.  “Can we take your motor?”

Terry hesitated.

“I suppose you are too little to run it?” said Billy.

“I am not!” flashed Terry.  “I know how to start and stop it, and I drive lots for Stephens.  It is hard to turn over the engine when you start.”

“I’ll turn it,” volunteered Billy.  “I’m strong as anything.”

“Maybe it will start without.  If Stephens has just been running it, sometimes it will.  Come on, let’s try.”

Billy straightened up, lifted his chin and cried:  “Houpe!  Houpe!  Houpe!”

The little O’Mores stared in amazement.

“Why don’t you come on and whoop?” demanded Billy.  “Don’t you know how?  You are great Indians!  You got to whoop before you go on the warpath.  You ought to kill a bat, too, and see if the wind is right.  But maybe the engine won’t run if we wait to do that.  You can whoop, anyway.  All together now!”

They did whoop, and after several efforts the cry satisfied Billy, so he led the way to the big motor, and took the front seat with Terry.  Alice and Little Brother climbed into the back.