“Will you buy me another note-book next time you go to Downey’s Dump?  I don’t know how much it will cost or I’d give you the money,” said Yan, praying mentally that it be not more than the five or ten cents which was all his capital.

“Shure; I’ll charge it up.  But ye needn’t wait till next week.  Thayer’s one back at the White settlement ye can have for nothin’.”

“Say, Mr. Raften,” Guy broke in, “I kin lick them all at Deer-hunting.”

Sam looked at Yan and Yan looked at Sam, then glanced at Guy, made some perfectly diabolical signs, seized each a long knife and sprung toward the Third War Chief, but he dodged behind Raften and commenced his usual “Now you let me ’lone—­”

Raften’s eye twinkled.  “Shure, I thought ye was all wan Tribe an’ paceable.”

“We’ve got to suppress crime,” retorted his son.

“Make him let me ’lone,” whimpered Sapwood.

“We’ll let ye off this time if ye find that Woodchuck.  It’s near two days since we’ve had a skirmish.”

“All right,” and he went.  Within five minutes he came running back, beckoning.  The boys got their bows and arrows, but fearing a trick they held back.  Guy dashed for his own weapons with unmistakable and reassuring zest; then all set out for the field.  Raften followed, after asking if it would be safe for him to come along.

The grizzly old Woodchuck was there feeding in a bunch of clover.  The boys sneaked under the fence, crawling through the grass in true Injun fashion, till the Woodchuck stood up to look around, then they lay still; when he went down they crawled again, and all got within forty yards.  Now the old fellow seemed suspicious, so Sam said, “Next time he feeds we all fire together.”  As soon, then, as the Woodchuck’s breast was replaced by the gray back, the boys got partly up and fired.  The arrows whizzed around Old Grizzly, but all missed, and he had scrambled to his hole before they could send a second volley.

“Hallo, why didn’t you hit him, Sappy?”

“I’ll bet I do next time.”

When they returned to Raften he received them with ridicule.

“But ye’r a poor lot o’ hunters.  Ye’d all starve if it wasn’t for the White settlement nearby.  Faith, if ye was rale Injun ye’d sit up all night at that hole till he come out in the morning:  then ye’d get him; an’ when ye get through with that one I’ve got another in the high pasture ye kin work on.”

So saying, he left them, and Sam called after him: 

“Say, Da; where’s that note-book for Yan?  He’s the Chief of the ‘coup-tally,’ and I reckon he’ll soon have a job an’ need his book.  I feel it in my bones.”

“I’ll lave it on yer bed.”  Which he did, and Yan and Sam had the pleasure of lifting it out of the window with a split stick.

XVI

How Yan Knew the Ducks Afar

One day as the great Woodpecker lay on his back in the shade he said in a tone of lofty command: