ood-night kiss.

IV--THE LEATHERSKIN TRIBE

"Daddy!" said the elder boy. "Have you seen wild Indians?"

"Yes, boy."

"Have you ever scalped one?"

"Good gracious, no."

"Has one ever scalped you?" asked Dimples.

"Silly!" said Laddie. "If Daddy had been scalped he wouldn't have all
that hair on his head--unless perhaps it grew again!"

"He has none hair on the very top," said Dimples, hovering over the low
chair in which Daddy was sitting.

"They didn't scalp you, did they, Daddy?" asked Laddie, with some
anxiety.

"I expect Nature will scalp me some of these days."

Both boys were keenly interested. Nature presented itself as some rival
chief.

"When?" asked Dimples, eagerly, with the evident intention of being
present.

Daddy passed his fingers ruefully through his thinning locks. "Pretty
soon, I expect," said he.

"Oo!" said the three children. Laddie was resentful and defiant, but the
two younger ones were obviously delighted.

"But I say, Daddy, you said we should have an Indian game after tea. You
said it when you wanted us to be so quiet after breakfast. You promised,
you know."

It doesn't do to break a promise to children. Daddy rose somewhat
wearily from his comfortable chair and put his pipe on the mantelpiece.
First he held a conference in secret with Uncle Pat, the most ingenious
of playmates. Then he returned to the children. "Collect the tribe,"
said he. "There is a Council in a quarter of an hour in the big room.
Put on your Indian dresses and arm yourselves. The great Chief will be
there!"

Sure enough when he entered the big room a quarter of an hour later the
tribe of the Leatherskins had assembled. There were four of them, for
little rosy Cousin John from next door always came in for an Indian game.
They had all Indian dresses with high feathers and wooden clubs or
tomahawks. Daddy was in his usual untidy tweeds, but carried a rifle. He
was very serious when he entered the room, for one should be very serious
in a real good Indian game. Then he raised his rifle slowly over his
head in greeting and the four childish voices rang out in the war-cry. It
was a prolonged wolfish howl which Dimples had been known to offer to
teach elderly ladies in hotel corridors. "You can't be in our tribe
without it, you know. There is none body about. Now just try once if
you can do it." At this moment there are half-a-dozen elderly people
wandering about England who ha