The boys had made war bonnets after the “really truly” Indian style learned from Caleb.  White Turkey tail-feathers and white Goose wing-feathers dyed black at the tips made good Eagle feathers.  Some wisps of red-dyed horsehair from an old harness tassel; strips of red flannel from an old shirt, and some scraps of sheepskin supplied the remaining raw material.  Caleb took an increasing interest, and helped them not only to make the bonnet, but also to decide on what things should count coup and what grand coup.  Sam had a number of feathers for shooting, diving, “massacreeing the Whites,” and his grand tufted feathers for felling the pine and shooting the Cat-Owl.

Among other things, Yan had counted coup for trailing.  The Deer hunt had been made still more real by having the “Deer-boy” wear a pair of sandals made from old boots; on the sole of each they put two lines of hobnails in V shape, pointing forward.  These made hooflike marks wherever the Deer went.  One of the difficulties with the corn was that it gave no clue to the direction or doubling of the trail, but the sandals met the trouble, and with a very little corn to help they had an ideal trail.  All became very expert, and could follow fast a very slight track, but Yan continued the best, for what he lacked in eyesight he more than made up in patience and observation.  He already had a grand coup for finding and shooting the Deer in the heart, that time, at first shot before the others came up even, and had won six other grand coups—­one for swimming 200 yards in five minutes, one for walking four measured miles in one hour, one for running 100 yards in twelve seconds, one for knowing 100 wild plants, one for knowing 100 birds, and the one for shooting the Horned Owl.

Guy had several good coups, chiefly for eyesight.  He could see “the papoose on the squaws back,” and in the Deer hunt he had several times won coups that came near being called grand coup, but so far fate was against him, and even old Caleb, who was partial to him, could not fairly vote him a grand coup.

“What is it that the Injuns most likes in a man:  I mean, what would they druther have, Caleb?” asked Sappy one day, confidently expecting to have his keen eyesight praised.

“Bravery,” was the reply.  “They don’t care what a man is if he’s brave.  That’s their greatest thing—­that is, if the feller has the stuff to back it up.  An’ it ain’t confined to Injuns; I tell you there ain’t anything that anybody goes on so much.  Some men pretends to think one thing the best of all, an’ some another, but come right down to it, what every man, woman an’ child in the country loves an’ worships is pluck, clear grit, well backed up.”

“Well, I tell you,” said Guy, boiling up with enthusiasm at this glorification of grit, “I ain’t scared o’ nothin’.”

“Wall, how’d you like to fight Yan there?”