As the sun swung low the Chiefs assembled in Council.

The head Chief looked over the new Warrior, shook his head gravely and said emphatically:  “Too green to burn.  Your name is Sapwood.”

Protest was in vain.  “Sappy,” he was and had to be until he won a better name.  The peace pipe was smoked all round and he was proclaimed third War Chief of the Sanger Indians (the word War inserted by special request).

He was quite the most harmless member of the band and therefore took unusual pleasure in posing as the possessor of a perennial thirst for human heart-blood.  War-paint was his delight, and with its aid he was singularly successful in correcting his round and smiling face into a savage visage of revolting ferocity.  Paint was his hobby and his pride, but alas! how often it happens one’s deepest sorrow is in the midst of one’s greatest joy—­the deepest lake is the old crater on top of the highest mountain.  Sappy’s eyes were not the sinister black beads of the wily Red-man, but a washed-out blue.  His ragged, tow-coloured locks he could hide under wisps of horsehair, the paint itself redeemed his freckled skin, but there was no remedy for the white eyelashes and the pale, piggy, blue eyes.  He kept his sorrow to himself, however, for he knew that if the others got an inkling of his feelings on the subject his name would have been promptly changed to “Dolly” or “Birdy,” or some other equally horrible and un-Indian appellation.

XIV

The Quarrel

“Say, Yan, I saw a Blood-Robin this morning.”

“That’s a new one,” said Yan, in a tone of doubt.

“Well, it’s the purtiest bird in the country.”

“What?  A Humming-bird?”

“Na-aw-w-w.  They ain’t purty, only small.”

“Well, that shows what you know,” retorted Yan, “’for these exquisite winged gems are at once the most diminutive and brilliantly coloured of the whole feathered race.’” This phrase Yan had read some where and his overapt memory had seized on it.

“Pshaw!” said Sam.  “Sounds like a book, but I’ll bet I seen hundreds of Hummin’-birds round the Trumpet-vine and Bee-balm in the garden, an’ they weren’t a millionth part as purty as this.  Why, it’s just as red as blood, shines like fire and has black wings.  The old Witch says the Indians call it a War-bird ’cause when it flew along the trail there was sure going to be war, which is like enough, fur they wuz at it all the hull time.”

“Oh, I know,” said Yan.  “A Scarlet Tanager.  Where did you see it?”

“Why, it came from the trees, then alighted on the highest pole of the teepee.”

“Hope there isn’t going to be any war there, Sam.  I wish I had one to stuff.”

“Tried to get him for you, sonny, spite of the Rules.  Could ‘a’ done it, too, with a gun.  Had a shy at him with an arrow an’ I hain’t been bird or arrow since.  ’Twas my best arrow, too—­old Sure-Death.”