d head was exposed to view. It lay midway between
my feet, like a luminous ball, and I saw that it was the object of
diversion.

By degrees, the squaws drew nearer, until they were huddled up in a
thick crowd around the body of our comrade. At length one of them
stooped and touched the head, drawing back her fingers with a start and
a gesture, as though she had burned them.

This elicited fresh peals of laughter, and very soon all the women of
the village were around the Irishman, "scroodging" one another to get a
closer view. None of the rest of us were heeded, except to be liberally
trampled upon; and half a dozen big, heavy squaws were standing upon my
limbs, the better to see over one another's shoulders.

As there was no great stock of clothing to curtain the view, I could see
the Irishman's head gleaming like a meteor through the forest of ankles.

After a while the squaws grew less delicate in their touch; and catching
hold of the short, stiff bristles, endeavoured to pluck them out, all
the while screaming with laughter.

I was neither in the state of mind nor the attitude to enjoy a joke; but
there was a language in the back of Barney's head, an expression of
patient endurance, that would have drawn smiles from a gravedigger; and
Sanchez and the others were laughing aloud.

For a long time our comrade endured the infliction, and remained silent;
but at length it became too painful for his patience, and he began to
speak out.

"Arrah, now, girls," said he, in a tone of good-humoured intreaty, "will
yez be aizy? Did yez niver see rid hair afore?"

The squaws, on hearing the appeal, which of course they understood not,
only showed their white teeth in loud laughter.

"In trath, an' iv I had yez on the sod, at the owld Cove o' Cark beyant,
I cud show yez as much av it as 'ud contint ye for yer lives. Arrah,
now, keep aff me! Be the powers, ye're trampin' the toes aff me feet!
Ach! don't rug me! Holy Mother! will yez let me alone? Divil resave ye
for a set of--"

The tone in which the last words were uttered showed that O'Cork had at
length lost his temper; but this only increased the assiduity of his
tormentors, whose mirth now broke beyond bounds. They plucked him
harder than ever, yelling all the while; so that, although he continued
to scold, I could only hear him at intervals ejaculating: "Mother av
Moses!" "Tare-an-ages!" "Holy vistment!" and a variety of similar
exclamations.

This sc