I jumped up to see what the matter was.Red Chief was sitting on Bill's chest, with one hand twined in Bill's hair.In the other he had the sharp case-knife we used for slicing, bacon; and he was industriously and realistically trying to take Bill's scalp, according to the sentence that had been pronounced upon him the evening before.
I got the knife away from the kid and made him lie down again.But, from that moment, Bill's spirit was broken.He laid down on his side of the bed, but he never closed an eye again in sleep as long as that boy was with us.
I dozed off for a while, but along toward sun-up I remem-bered that Red Chief had said I was to be burned at the stake at the rising of the sun.I wasn't nervous or afraid;but I sat up and lit my pipe and leaned against a rock.
"What you getting up so soon for, Sam?" asked Bill.
"Me?" says I."Oh, I got a kind of a pain in my shoulder.I thought sitting up would rest it.""You're a liar!" says Bill."You're afraid.You was to be burned at sunrise, and you was afraid he'd do it.And he would, too, if he could find a match.
Ain't it awful, Sam? Do you think anybody will pay out money to get a little imp like that back home?""Sure," said I."A rowdy kid like that is just the kind that parents dote on.Now, you and the Chief get up and cook breakfast, while I go up on the top of this mountain and reconnoitre."I went up on the peak of the little mountain and ran my eye over the contiguous vicinity.Over toward Summit Iexpected to see the sturdy yeomanry of the village armed with scythes and pitchforks beating the countryside for the dastardly kidnappers.But what I saw was a peaceful landscape dotted with one man ploughing with a dun mule.Nobody was dragging the creek; no couriers dashed hither and yon, bringing tidings of no news to the distracted parents.There was a sylvan attitude of somnolent sleepiness pervading that section of the external outward surface of Alabama that lay exposed to my view.
"Perhaps," says I to myself, "it has not yet been discov-ered that the wolves have home away the tender lambkin from the fold.Heaven help the wolves!" says I, and Iwent down the mountain to breakfast.
When I got to the cave I found Bill backed up against the side of it, breathing hard, and the boy threatening to smash him with a rock half as big as a cocoanut.
"He put a red-hot boiled potato down my back,"explained Bill, "and the mashed it with his foot; and I boxed his ears.Have you got a gun about you, Sam?
I took the rock away from the boy and kind of patched up the argument."I'll fix you," says the kid to Bill.
"No man ever yet struck the Red Chief but what he got paid for it.You better beware!"After breakfast the kid takes a piece of leather with strings wrapped around it out of his pocket and goes out-side the cave unwinding it.
"What's he up to now?" says Bill, anxiously."You don't think he'll run away, do you, Sam?""No fear of it," says I."He don't seem to be much of a home body.But we've got to fix up some plan about the ransom.There don't seem to be much excitement around Summit on account of his disappearance; but maybe they haven't realized yet that he's gone.His folks may think he's spending the night with Aunt Jane or one of the neighbours.Anyhow, he'll be missed to-day.
To-night we must get a message to his father demanding the two thousand dollars for his return."Just then we heard a kind Of war-whoop, such as David might have emitted when he knocked out the champion Goliath.It was a sling that Red Chief had pulled out of his pocket, and he was whirling it around his head.
I dodged, and heard a heavy thud and a kind of a sigh from Bill, like a horse gives out when you take his saddle off.A niggerhead rock the size of an egg had caught Bill just behind his left ear.He loosened himself all over and fell in the fire across the frying pan of hot water for washing the dishes.I dragged him out and poured cold water on his head for half an hour.
By and by, Bill sits up and feels behind his ear and says: "Sam, do you know who my favourite Biblical character is?""Take it easy," says I."You'll come to your senses presently.""King Herod," says he."You won't go away and leave me here alone, will you, Sam?"I went out and caught that boy and shook him until his freckles rattled.
"If you don't behave," says I, "I'll take you straight home.Now, are you going to be good, or not?""I was only funning," says he sullenly."I didn't mean to hurt Old Hank.But what did he hit me for?
"I'll behave, Snake-eye, if you won't send me home, and if you'll let me play the Black Scout to-day.""I don't know the game," says I."That's for you and Mr.Bill to decide.He's your playmate for the day.
I'm going away for a while, on business.Now, you come in and make friends with him and say you are sorry for hurting him, or home you go, at once."I made him and Bill shake hands, and then I took Bill aside and told him I was going to Poplar Cove, a little village three miles from the cave, and find out what Icould about how the kidnapping had been regarded in Summit.Also, I thought it best to send a peremptory letter to old man Dorset that day, demanding the ransom and dictating how it should be paid.
