r, and in the hair were feathers!

Every child's mouth in the room opened, and stayed open. The pudding was
growing white and cold on their plates. No one could move.

Suddenly the feathered head was cautiously withdrawn, and the spell was
broken. I am sorry to say that Anthea's first words were very like a
girl.

"There, now!" she said. "I told you so!"

The pudding had now definitely ceased to charm. Hastily wrapping their
portions in a _Spectator_ of the week before the week before last, they
hid them behind the crinkled paper stove-ornament, and fled upstairs to
reconnoitre and to hold a hurried council.

"Pax," said Cyril handsomely when they reached their mother's bedroom.
"Panther, I'm sorry if I was a brute."

"All right," said Anthea; "but you see now!"

No further trace of Indians, however, could be discerned from the
windows.

"Well," said Robert, "what are we to do?"

"The only thing I can think of," said Anthea, who was now generally
admitted to be the heroine of the day, "is--if we dressed up as like
Indians as we can, and looked out of the windows, or even went out. They
might think we were the powerful leaders of a large neighbouring tribe,
and--and not do anything to us, you know, for fear of awful vengeance."

"But Eliza, and the cook?" said Jane.

"You forget--they can't notice anything," said Robert. "They wouldn't
notice anything out of the way, even if they were scalped or roasted at
a slow fire."

"But would they come right at sunset?"

"Of course. You can't be really scalped or burned to death without
noticing it, and you'd be sure to notice it next day, even if it escaped
your attention at the time," said Cyril. "I think Anthea's right, but we
shall want a most awful lot of feathers."

"I'll go down to the hen-house," said Robert. "There's one of the
turkeys in there--it's not very well. I could cut its feathers without
it minding much. It's very bad--doesn't seem to care what happens to it.
Get me the cutting-out scissors."

Earnest reconnoitring convinced them all that no Indians were in the
poultry-yard. Robert went. In five minutes he came back--pale, but with
many feathers.

"Look here," he said, "this is jolly serious. I cut off the feathers,
and when I turned to come out there was an Indian squinting at me from
under the old hen-coop. I just brandished the feathers and yelled, and
got away before he could get the coop off top of himself. Panther, get
the coloured blan