It does not do for any cowboy, however desperate, to go home to his parents with his clothes soaking wet. Such events often mean an enforced retirement for a day from the field of glory. "Whatcher doing?" screamed Peter Bailey. "That ain't fair!" We felt that he was right. This garden hose suddenly springing out of the Western prairie was a false note. Artistically it jarred. It was like bringing a school-teacher into fairyland. But we did not stop the stream. For once we saw the militant Peter, his fearless lieutenant, Rob Currier, and all the rest of the ever victorious army held in check. No feeling that we were violating the fitness of things could detract from the sweetness of the moment. If eternal defeat had not embittered us in the past, we might have been more artistic and less human on this occasion. But in an instant, and as by direct intervention of the gods, our retreat had been turned into triumph, and that we did not intend to relinquish. Woe, woe, to the vanquished! "Aw, that's a _great_ thing to do!" sneered Rob Currier. "You _can't_ do it!" shouted Joe Carter in a state of great excitement; "Indians don't have hose!" "That's all right," I replied, "these Indians have got some. They got it from a settler's cabin, or--or--or _somehow_. Anyhow, they've got it." "But 'tain't fair," reiterated Peter Bailey. "'Tain't fair for five of you to be always masserkerin' us," remarked my fellow Indian. Peter was disposed to bitterness. He did not enjoy having his military plans frustrated in such a manner. "You're only a couple of babies,--you're afraid to be masserkered," he said. Naturally, the babies invited him to come right on and do his massacring. "I will, if you'll turn off that hose,--I don't want to get all wet." "Course we won't turn it off, an' if you're afraid to come, why, you're beaten, an' you must surrender, an' be tomahawked, an' burned at the stake, an' have blazin' pine splinters stuck in your flesh. Will you do it?" They firmly declined to become parties to any such attractive proceedings. "Come on," said Joe Carter; "let 'em stay there and play with the hose. They don't know how to be Indians, anyway. We'll go back to the barn, and lasso buffaloes." "Come on," said Peter, and the whole band of cowboys departed. Then the victorious Indians, the two triumphant _Sigh-ux_, danced a short war-dance, and whooped two or three war-whoops,--so loud that Mr. Hawkins opened his gate, and came out to the sidewalk to see what was the matter. CHAPTER XIV WHEN MY SHIP COMES IN About the middle of the month my family went to spend a week or two in a cottage at a neighboring beach. I enjoyed being at the sea-side, but I was hard up for playmates. For a few days there was a boy in the cottage next ours, and he spent most of his time riding around the veranda on a velocipede. This made me feel that I needed a velocipede, too, and I suggested to my father that he supply my lack.