n in a frankly puzzled tone. "They
must be angels unaware, that's all I can say."

CHAPTER VIII

THE SHOE BEGINS TO PINCH

"Tramp, tramp, tramp, the bugs are marching,
Up and down the tents they go,
Some are brown and some are black,
But of each there is no lack,
And the Daddy-long-legs they go marching too!"

So sang Sahwah as she tidied up her tent after Morning Sing. It was war
on bugs and spiders this morning; war to the knife, or rather, to the
broom. Usually there was no time between Morning Sing and tent
inspection to do more than give the place a swift tidying up; to sweep
the floor and straighten up the beds and set the table in order. Bugs
and spiders did not count against one in tent inspection, being looked
upon as circumstances over which one had no control; hence no one ever
bothered about them. But that morning Sahwah, lying awake waiting for
the rising bugle to blow, saw a round-bellied, jolly-looking little bug
crawling leisurely along the floor, dragging a tiny seed of grain with
him, and looking for all the world like the father of a family bringing
a loaf of bread home for breakfast. As she watched it traveling along a
crack in the board floor, a very large, fierce-looking bug appeared on
the scene, fell upon the smaller one, killed and half devoured it, and
then made off triumphantly with the seed the other had been carrying.

"No you don't!" shouted Sahwah aloud, waking Agony out of a sound sleep.

"What's the matter?" yawned Agony.

Sahwah laughed a little foolishly. "It was nothing; only a bug," she
explained. "I'm sorry I wakened you, Agony. You see, I was watching a
cute little bug carrying a seed across the floor, and a bigger bug came
along and took it away from him. I won't stand for anything like that
here in Gitchee-Gummee. We all play fair here, and nobody takes any
plums that belong to someone else."

She rose in her wrath, reached for her shoe, and made short work of the
unethical despoiler.

Agony made no comment. The words, _we all play fair here, and nobody
takes any plums that belong to someone else_, pierced her bosom like
barbed arrows. She lay so still that Sahwah thought she had dropped off
to sleep again, and crept quietly back to bed so as not to disturb her a
second time. Like the tiger, however, who, once having tasted blood, is
consumed with the lust of killing, Sahwah, having squashed one bug,
itched to do the same with all the others in the t