, their bows and arrows held
uncertainly. They came down the hill, fifteen or twenty, taking a long
time, and stopping every few yards. The milk-cans clashed, and Jones
thought he felt the boy's strokes weakening. "Die Wacht am Rhein" was
finished, and now it was "'Ha-ve you seen my Flora pass this way?'"
"Y'u mustn't play out, kid," said Jones, very gently. "Indeed y'u
mustn't;" and he at once resumed his song. The silent Apaches had now
reached the bottom of the hill. They stood some twenty yards away, and
Cumnor had a good chance to see his first Indians. He saw them move, and
the color and slim shape of their bodies, their thin arms, and their
long, black hair. It went through his mind that if he had no more
clothes on than that, dancing would come easier. His boots were growing
heavy to lift, and his overalls seemed to wrap his sinews in wet,
strangling thongs. He wondered how long he had been keeping this up. The
legs of the Apaches were free, with light moccasins only half-way to the
thigh, slenderly held up by strings from the waist. Cumnor envied their
unencumbered steps as he saw them again walk nearer to where he was
dancing. It was long since he had eaten, and he noticed a singing
dulness in his brain, and became frightened at his thoughts, which were
running and melting into one fixed idea. This idea was to take off his
boots, and offer to trade them for a pair of moccasins. It terrified
him--this endless, molten rush of thoughts; he could see them coming in
different shapes from different places in his head, but they all joined
immediately, and always formed the same fixed idea. He ground his teeth
to master this encroaching inebriation of his will and judgment. He
clashed his can more loudly to wake him to reality, which he still could
recognize and appreciate. For a time he found it a good plan to listen
to what Specimen Jones was singing, and tell himself the name of the
song, if he knew it. At present it was "Yankee Doodle," to which Jones
was fitting words of his own. These ran, "Now I'm going to try a bluff.
And mind you do what I do"; and then again, over and over. Cumnor waited
for the word "bluff"; for it was hard and heavy, and fell into his
thoughts, and stopped them for a moment. The dance was so long now he
had forgotten about that. A numbness had been spreading through his
legs, and he was glad to feel a sharp pain in the sole of his foot. It
was a piece of gravel that had somehow worked its wa