slouch--there isn't a boy in the troop, young or old, who can
take my measure on the ground--but if this fellow gave us a fair
specimen of an Indian's way of rough-and-tumble fighting, I don't want
to get hold of any more Indians.--He was a hard one, wasn't he?" said
Loring, appealing to his wounded comrade, who grunted out an emphatic
assent. "He didn't seem to be so very strong, but he was just a trifle
quicker than chain-lightning, and as slippery and wiry as--as--Why, an
eel isn't nowhere alongside of him."

"I wish I had whacked him over the head before he gave me this prod,"
said Carey, shaking his fist at the unconscious object of his wrath.
"It's my sword-arm too, and I'll just bet that the doctor won't let me
go on another scout for a month."

With Bob's aid the Indian was dragged into camp, and thrown down there
as if he had been a sack of corn. The fire was burning brightly (an
Indian builds a small fire and gets close to it, while a white man
builds a big one and backs away from it), the bodies of the slain
warriors had been dragged into the bushes out of sight, and their
weapons, saddles and bridles, which the troopers intended to carry back
to the fort with them as trophies of their prowess, had been collected
and deposited in a safe place.

George had been devoting himself to the boys, who did not seem to be at
all afraid, and were by no means so excited as he was. Their astonishing
courage called forth the unbounded admiration of the troopers, and the
pert answers they gave to the questions that were asked them made them
smile.

"Say, Bob, if you want to see what Texas boys are made of, come here,"
said George. "The older one answers to the name of Sheldon, and the
little fellow is Tommy. Sheldon says that if his brother had been a
little older and stronger the Indians never would have taken them to
their village, for they would have killed them and made their escape."

"Humph!" grunted Carey, whose wound seemed to put him in very bad humor.

"What makes you say that?" demanded Bob, turning upon him somewhat
sharply. "Don't you know that such things have been done before now?"

"By boys?" asked Carey.

"Yes, by boys," replied Bob.

"No, I don't know it," said the wounded trooper.

"It's a matter of history, any way," said George. "Two brothers, John
and Henry Johnson, aged respectively thirteen and eleven years of age,
were captured by two Delaware Indians on Short Creek, West Virginia, in
O