e."

"All right. You can hold the three straws; long one is
Woodpecker--that's his head with a bit of red flannel to prevent
mistakes; the middle-sized thin one is me; and the short fat one is
you. Now let them drop. Sudden death and no try over."

The straws fell, and the two boys gave a yell as Hawkeye's fate
pointed straight to the Burns homestead.

"Oh, get out; that's no good. We'll take the other end," he said
angrily, and persisted in going the opposite way.

"Now we all got to go straight till we find something, and meet here
again when that streak of sunlight gets around in the teepee to that
pole."

As the sunstreak, which was their Indian clock, travelled just about
one pole for two hours, this gave about four hours for adventures.

Sam and Yan had been back some minutes, and now Guy, having recovered
his composure, bothered not to wipe the stolen sugar from his lips,
but broke out eagerly:

"Say, fellers, I bet I'm the bully boy. I bet you I--"

"Silence!" roared Woodpecker. "You come last."

"All right; I don't care. I bet I win over all of you. I bet a million
dollars I do."

"Go ahead, Chief Woodpecker-settin'-on-the-edge."

So Sam began:

"I pulls on my boots" [he went barefooted half the time]. "Oh, I tell
you I know when to wear my boots--an' I set out following my straw
line straight out. I don't take no back track. _I'm_ not scared
of the front trail," and he turned his little slit eyes sadly on Guy,
"and I kep' right on, and when I came to the dry bed of the creek it
didn't turn _me_; no, not a dozen rods; and I kept right till I
came to a Wasp's nest, and I turned and went round that coz it's
cruel to go blundering into a nest of a lot of poor innocent little
Wasps--and I kep' on, till I heard a low growl, and I looked up and
didn't see a thing. Then the growling got louder, and I seen it was a
hungry Chipmunk roaring at me and jest getting ready to spring. Then
when I got out my bonearrer he says to me, he says, as bold as brass
'Is your name Woodpecker?' Now that scared me, and so I told a lie--my
very first. I says, says I. 'No,' says I. 'I'm Hawkeye.' Well, you
should 'a seen him. He just turned pale; every stripe on his back
faded _when I said that name_, and he made for a hollow log and
got in. Now I was mad, and tried to get him out, but when I'd run to
one end he'd run to the other, so we ran up and down till I had a
deep-worn trail alongside the log, an' he had a deep-worn