emanded access to his person.

"Is he a commissioner? If so, say that the red man is rapidly passing
to the happy hunting-grounds of his fathers, and now desires only
peace, blankets, and ammunition; obtain the latter and then scalp the
commissioner."

"But it is only a youth who asks an interview."

"Does he look like an insurance agent? If so, say that I have already
policies in three Hartford companies. Meanwhile prepare the stake, and
see that the squaws are ready with their implements of torture."

The youth was admitted; he was evidently only half the age of the Boy
Chief. As he entered the wigwam and stood revealed to his host they
both started. In another moment they were locked in each other's arms.

"Jenky, old boy!"

"Bromley, old fel!"

B. F. Jenkins, for such was the name of the Boy Chief, was the first to
recover his calmness. Turning to his warriors he said, proudly--

"Let my children retire while I speak to the agent of our Great Father
in Washington. Hereafter no latch keys will be provided for the
wigwams of the warriors. The practice of late hours must be
discouraged."

"How!" said the warriors, and instantly retired.

"Whisper," said Jenkins, drawing his friend aside; "I am known here
only as the Boy Chief of the 'Pigeon toes.'"

"And I," said Bromley Chitterlings, proudly, "am known everywhere as
the Pirate Prodigy--the Boy Avenger of the Patagonian Coast."

"But how came you here?"

"Listen! My pirate brig, the 'Lively Mermaid,' now lies at Meiggs's
Wharf in San Francisco, disguised as a Mendocino lumber vessel. My
pirate crew accompanied me here in a palace car from San Francisco."

"It must have been expensive," said the prudent Jenkins.

"It was, but they defrayed it by a collection from the other
passengers--you understand, an enforced collection. The papers will be
full of it to-morrow. Do you take the 'New York Sun'?"

"No; I dislike their Indian policy. But why are you here?"

"Hear me, Jenk! 'Tis a long and a sad story. The lovely Eliza J.
Sniffen, who fled with me from Doemville, was seized by her parents and
torn from my arms at New Rochelle. Reduced to poverty by the breaking
of the savings bank of which he was president,--a failure to which I
largely contributed, and the profits of which I enjoyed,--I have since
ascertained that Eliza Jane Sniffen was forced to become a
schoolmistress, departed to take charge of a seminary in Colorado, and
since the