flour disappeared. About fifteen pounds of potatoes went into the pot and
from it into the openings of copper-colored faces. Nothing was left of
the elk but the bones.

"The party's mighty nigh over," Dud murmured. "Wonder what our guests aim
to do now."

"Can't we feed 'em anything more?" asked Bob anxiously.

"Not unless we finish cookin' the pockmarked gent for 'em. I'm kinda
hopin' old Colorow will have sabe enough not to wear his welcome out.
It'd make a ten-strike with me if he'd say 'Much obliged' an' hit the
trail."

Bob had not the heart to jest about the subject, and his attempt to back
up his companion's drunken playacting was a sad travesty. He did not know
much about Indians anyhow, and he was sick through and through with
apprehension. Would they finish by scalping their hosts, as Dud had
suggested early in the evening?

It was close to midnight when the clown of Colorow's party invented a new
and rib-tickling joke. Bob was stooping over the stove dishing up the
last remnants of the potatoes when this buck slipped up behind with the
carving-knife and gathered into his fist the boy's flaming topknot. He
let out a horrifying yell and brandished the knife.

In a panic of terror Bob collapsed to the floor. There was a moment when
the slapstick comedy grazed red tragedy. The pitiable condition of the
boy startled the Ute, who still clutched his hair. An embryonic idea was
finding birth in the drunken brain. In another moment it would have
developed into a well-defined lust to kill.

With one sweeping gesture Dud lifted a frying-pan from the red-hot stove
and clapped it against the rump of the jester. The redskin's head hit the
roof. His shriek of agony could have been heard half a mile. He clapped
hands to the afflicted part and did a humped-up dance of woe. The
carving-knife lay forgotten on the floor. It was quite certain that he
would take no pleasure in sitting down for some few days.

Again a series of spasms of turbulent mirth seized upon his friends. They
doubled up with glee. They wept tears of joy. They howled down his
anguish with approving acclaim while they did a double hop around him as
a vent to their enthusiasm. The biter had been bit. The joke had been
turned against the joker, and in the most primitive and direct way. This
was the most humorous event in the history of the Rio Blanco Utes. It was
destined to become the stock tribal joke.

Dud, now tremendously popular, joined in the