After the weapons had come “The Exterminators” held a session behind closed doors to see what was the best plan of attack, and decided that they would not wait for the Indians to begin the trouble, but would make war on them.  They decided that they would beat the bushes for Indians down in the river-bottom, while Stanley would sit at a certain point of vantage in a clump of willows, and as the Indians ran past him, he would pot them!

Stanley had consented to do this only after he had heard many tales of Indian treachery and cruelty to the settlers and their families!

The plan was carried out and would no doubt have been successful, but for the extreme scarcity of Indians in our valley.

All night long Stanley sat at his post, peering into the night, armed to the teeth, shivering with the cold wind that blew through the valley.  His teeth chattered with fright sometimes, too, as the bushes rustled behind him, and an inquisitive old cow who came nosing the willows never knew how near death she had been.  Meanwhile his traitorous companions went home and slept soundly and sweetly in their warm beds.

“And even after he found out that we were fooling him, he was not a bit sore,” said Pat.  “He tried to laugh!  That is what made me feel cheap—­he is too easy; it’s too much like taking candy from a kid.  And he was mighty square about it, too, and he never told Aunt Maggie how he got the cold, for he slipped into bed that morning and she didn’t know he was out.”

Another time the boys set him to gathering the puff-balls that grew in abundance in the hay meadow, assuring him that they were gopher-eggs and if placed under a hen would hatch out young gophers.

Stanley was wild with enthusiasm when he heard this and hastened to pack a box full to send home.  “They will be surprised,” he said.  Fortunately, Mrs. Corbett found out about this before the box was sent, and she had to tell him that the boys were only in fun.

When she told him that the boys had been just having sport there came over his face such a look of sadness and pain, such a deeply hurt look, that Mrs. Corbett went back to the barn and thrashed her sturdy young nephew, all over again.

When the matter came up for discussion again, Stanley implored her not to speak of it any more, and not to hold it against the boys.  “It was not their fault at all,” he said; “it all comes about on account of my being—­not quite right.  I am not quite like other boys, but when they play with me I forget it and I believe what they say.  There is—­something wrong with me,—­and it makes people want—­to have sport with me; but it is not their fault at all.”

“Well, they won’t have sport with you when I am round,” declared Mrs. Corbett stoutly.