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 blankets off our beds, and look slippy, can't you?" It is wonderful how like an Indian you can make yourself with blankets and feathers and coloured scarves. Of course none of the children happened to have long black hair, but there was a lot of black calico that had been bought to cover school-books with. They cut strips of this into a sort of fine fringe, and fastened it round their heads with the amber-coloured ribbons off the girls' Sunday dresses. Then they stuck turkeys' feathers in the ribbons. The calico looked very like long black hair, especially when the strips began to curl up a bit. "But our faces," said Anthea, "they're not at all the right colour. We're all rather pale, and I'm sure I don't know why, but Cyril is the colour of putty." "I'm not," said Cyril.