rtain envy of this
manifest favoritism. A fearful desire to continue their awful
experiments, instead of pursuing their piratical avocations, was taking
possession of them; but Polly, with one of the swift transitions of
childhood, immediately began to extemporize a house for the party at
the mouth of the tunnel, and, with parental foresight, gathered the
fragments of the squibs to build a fire for supper. That frugal meal,
consisting of half a ginger biscuit divided into five small portions,
each served on a chip of wood, and having a deliciously mysterious
flavor of gunpowder and smoke, was soon over. It was necessary after
this that the pirates should at once seek repose after a day of
adventure, which they did for the space of forty seconds in singularly
impossible attitudes and far too aggressive snoring. Indeed, Master
Hickory's almost upright pose, with tightly folded arms and darkly
frowning brows, was felt to be dramatic, but impossible for a longer
period. The brief interval enabled Polly to collect herself and to
look around her in her usual motherly fashion. Suddenly she started and
uttered a cry. In the excitement of the descent she had quite overlooked
her doll, and was now regarding it with round-eyed horror.

"Lady Mary's hair's gone!" she cried, convulsively grasping the Pirate
Hickory's legs.

Hickory at once recognized the battered doll under the aristocratic
title which Polly had long ago bestowed upon it. He stared at the bald
and battered head.

"Ha! ha!" he said hoarsely; "skelped by Injins!"

For an instant the delicious suggestion soothed the imaginative Polly.
But it was quickly dispelled by Wan Lee.

"Lady Maley's pigtail hangee top side hillee. Catchee on big quartz
stone allee same Polly; me go fetchee."

"No!" quickly shrieked the others. The prospect of being left in the
proximity of Wan Lee's evil spirit, without Wan Lee's exorcising power,
was anything but reassuring. "No, don't go!" Even Polly (dropping a
maternal tear on the bald head of Lady Mary) protested against this
breaking up of the little circle. "Go to bed!" she said authoritatively,
"and sleep till morning."

Thus admonished, the Pirates again retired. This time effectively; for,
worn by actual fatigue or soothed by the delicious coolness of the cave,
they gradually, one by one, succumbed to real slumber. Polly, withheld
from joining them by official and maternal responsibility, sat and
blinked at them affectionately