He could tie a lot of curious knots in a string. He could make a
wonderful birdy warble, and he spoke a language that he called Tutnee.
Yan was interested in all, but especially the last. He teased and
bribed till he was admitted to the secret. It consisted in spelling
every word, leaving the five vowels as they are, but doubling each
consonant and putting a "u" between. Thus "b" became "bub," "d" "dud,"
"m" "mum," and so forth, except that "c" was "suk," "h" "hash," "x"
"zux," and "w" "wak."

The sample given by the new boy, "sus-hash-u-tut u-pup yak-o-u-rur
mum-o-u-tut-hash," was said to be a mode of enjoining silence.

This language was "awful useful," the new boy said, to keep the other
fellows from knowing what you were saying, which it certainly did. Yan
practised hard at it and within a few weeks was an adept. He could
handle the uncouth sentences better than his teacher, and he was
singularly successful in throwing in accents and guttural tones that
imparted a delightfully savage flavour, and he rejoiced in jabbering
away to the new boy in the presence of others so that he might bask in
the mystified look on the faces of those who were not skilled in the
tongue of the Tutnees.

He made himself a bow and arrows. They were badly made and he could
hit nothing with them, but he felt so like an Indian when he drew the
arrow to its head, that it was another pleasure.

He made a number of arrows with hoop-iron heads, these he could
file at home in the woodshed. The heads were jagged and barbed and
double-barbed. These arrows were frightful-looking things. They seemed
positively devilish in their ferocity, and were proportionately
gratifying. These he called his "war arrows," and would send one into
a tree and watch it shiver, then grunt "Ugh, heap good," and rejoice
in the squirming of the imaginary foe he had pierced.

He found a piece of sheepskin and made of it a pair of very poor
moccasins. He ground an old castaway putty knife into a scalping
knife; the notch in it for breaking glass was an annoying defect until
he remembered that some Indians decorate their weapons with a notch
for each enemy it has killed, and this, therefore, might do duty as a
kill-tally. He made a sheath for the knife out of scraps of leather
left off the moccasins. Some water-colours, acquired by a school swap,
and a bit of broken mirror held in a split stick, were necessary parts
of his Indian toilet. His face during the process of ma