“I have no wish to kill you, you unspeakable young miscreant, but I think I ought to thrash you,” I answered, for, though greatly relieved at the turn things had taken, I was excessively annoyed at having experienced all those sensations of blood-curdling horror for nothing. “We were only playing at Whites and Reds,” he pleaded. I then made him sit down and tell me all about this singular game. None of the boys lived very near, he said; some of them came a distance of several leagues, and they had selected this locality for their sports on account of its seclusion, for they did not like to be found out. Their game was a mimic war of Whites and Reds, manoeuvres, surprises, skirmishes, throat-cutting, and all. I pitied the young patriot at the last, for he had sprained his ankle badly and could scarcely walk, and so assisted him to the spot where his horse was hidden; then, having helped him to mount and given him a cigarette, for which he had the impudence to ask me, I laughingly bade him good-bye. I went back to look for my own horse after that, beginning to feel very much amused at the whole thing; but, alas! my steed was gone. The young scoundrels had stolen him, to revenge themselves on me, I suppose, for disturbing them; and to relieve me from all doubt in the matter they left two bits of rag, one white and the other red, attached to the branch I had fastened the bridle to. For some time I wandered about the wood, and even shouted aloud in the wild hope that the young fiends were not going to carry things so far as to leave me without a horse in that solitary place. Nothing could I see or hear of them, however, and as it was getting late and I wasbecoming desperately hungry and thirsty, I resolved to go in search of some habitation.