oys, and
ran and got their arrows for them, and everything; and if the Indians
could only have stayed until the Fourth, which was pretty near now, they
would have thought it was the greatest thing that ever happened. Jim
Leonard said they belonged to a tribe that had been against the British in
the last war, and were the friends of the Long Knives, as they called the
Americans. He said that he read it in a book; and he hunted round for Pony
Baker, and when he found him he said: "Come here, Pony; I want to tell you
something."

[Illustration: "REAL INDIANS, IN BLANKETS, WITH BOWS AND ARROWS"]

Any other time all the other fellows would have crowded around and wanted
to know what it was, but now they were so much taken up with the Indians
that none of them minded him, and so he got a good chance at Pony alone.
Pony was afraid that Jim Leonard wanted him to run off with the Indians,
and this was just what he did want.

He said: "You ought to get a blanket and stain your face and hands with
walnut juice, and then no one could tell you from the rest of the tribe,
and you could go out with them where they're going and hunt buffaloes.
It's the greatest chance there ever was. They'll adopt you into the tribe,
maybe, as soon as the canal-boats leave, or as quick as they can get to a
place where they can pull your hair out and wash you in the canal. I tell
you, if I was in your place, I'd do it, Pony."

Pony did not know what to say. He hated to tell Jim Leonard that he had
pretty nearly given up the notion of running off for the present, or until
his father and mother did something more to make him do it.

Ever since the boys failed so in trying to get Piccolo to hook his
father's boat for Pony to run off in, things had been going better with
Pony at home. His mother did not stop him from half so many things as she
used to do, and lately his father had got to being very good to him: let
him lie in bed in the morning, and did not seem to notice when he stayed
out with the boys at night, telling stories on the front steps, or playing
hide-and-go-whoop, or anything. They seemed to be a great deal taken up
with each other and not to mind so much what Pony was doing.

His mother let him go in swimming whenever he asked her, and did not make
him promise to keep out of the deep water. She said she would see, when he
coaxed her for five cents to get powder for the Fourth, and she let him
have one of the boys to spend the night with