“She certainly is old enough to be,” replied the mermaid. “And to speak of that being her own hair!” she said, as she rearranged with characteristic grace, a comb, and a small hand-mirror, her own luxuriant tresses. “If I couldn’t afford any other clothes, I might wear a switch, too!” hissed the Amazonian queen. “I suppose you don’t dye it on account of the salt water? But perhaps you prefer green, dear?” “A little salt water might improve your own complexion, love.” “Fishwoman!” screamed the Amazonian queen. “Bloomerite!” shrieked the mermaid. In another instant they had seized each other. “Mutiny! Overboard with them!” cried the Pirate Prodigy, rising to the occasion, and casting aside all human affection in the peril of the moment. A plank was brought and the two women placed upon it. “After you, dear,” said the mermaid significantly to the Amazonian queen; “you’re the oldest.” “Thank you!” said the Amazonian queen, stepping back. “Fish is always served first.” Stung by the insult, with a wild scream of rage the mermaid grappled her in her arms and leaped into the sea. As the waters closed over them forever, the Pirate Prodigy sprung to his feet. “Up with the black flag, and bear away for New London,” he shouted in trumpet-like tones. “Ha! ha! Once more the Rover is free!” Indeed it was too true. In that fatal moment he had again loosed himself from the trammels of human feeling and was once more the Boy Avenger. CHAPTER III Again I must ask my young readers to mount my hippogriff and hie with me to the almost inaccessible heights of the Rocky Mountains. There, for years, a band of wild and untamable savages, known as the Pigeon Feet, had resisted the blankets and Bibles of civilization. For years the trails leading to their camp were marked by the bones of teamsters and broken wagons, and the trees were decked with the dying scalp-locks of women and children. The boldest of military leaders hesitated to attack them in their fortresses, and prudently left the scalping-knives, rifles, powder, and shot provided by a paternal government for their welfare lying on the ground a few miles from their encampment, with the request that they were not to be used until the military had safely retired. Hitherto, save an occasional incursion into the territory of the Knock-knees, a rival tribe, they had limited their depredations to the vicinity.