funny," said Laddie. "Maybe he knows some new
riddles."

"Maybe he does," laughed Daddy Bunker. "You can try him if you like.
Yes, go along to the house, if you wish, and if Bill Johnson asks you
why, say Uncle Fred sent Red Feather to be fed."

"Come on!" called Russ to Laddie. "We'll go back to the house and talk
some more to the Indian."

Laddie and Russ reached the house just as Red Feather arrived, for he
walked slowly.

"So you're hungry, eh?" asked Bill Johnson, when the Indian had spoken
to him. "Well, I guess I can feed you. Where did you come from, and
where are you going?"

The Indian waved his hand toward the west, as if to say he had come from
that direction, but where he was going he did not tell. Bill tried to
talk to him in two or three different Indian dialects, but Red Feather
shook his head.

He knew a little English, and his own talk, and that was all. But, every
now and then, as he ate, he looked up at Laddie and Russ, who sat near,
and said:

"You got more papoose?"

"I guess he wants to see the rest of you little Bunkers!" said Bill
Johnson. "Maybe he heard there were several children here, and he wants
to see all of you. Some Indians like children more than others. Yes, we
have more papooses, Red Feather, though these are the biggest," and he
pointed to Russ and Laddie.

"No got um so high?" asked the Indian, and he held his hand about a foot
over the head of Russ. "Got papoose so big?"

"No, none of the six little Bunkers is as big as that," explained Bill
Johnson. "Russ is the biggest. But what's the matter with your foot?" he
asked Red Feather, for the Indian limped badly when he walked.

The Indian spoke something in his own language and pointed to his foot.

"It's swelled," said Bill. "Reckon you must have cut it on a stone.
Well, you sit down in the shade, and when Hank Nelson comes in I'll have
him look at it. Hank's a sort of doctor among the cowboys," Bill
explained to Laddie and Russ.

While the Indian was resting in the shade, Laddie and Russ ran to tell
their mother and the other little Bunkers about him.

"Is he a _real_, wild Indian?" asked Rose.

"He's _real_, but he isn't _wild_," Russ answered. "I like him. He likes
children, too, 'cause he's always talking about a papoose. Papoose is
Indian for baby," he told his sister.

The other little Bunkers gathered around Red Feather, as he sat outside
the cook-house, and he smiled at the children. He seemed to want