The Rival Campers Ashore; or, The Mystery of the MillSmith, Ruel Perley
Philosophy
The Rival Campers Ashore; or, The Mystery of the Mill
Smith, Ruel Perley
Boats and boating -- Juvenile fiction; Detective and mystery stories
A mile and a half up the stream, they paused where a shabby structure of
rough boards, eked out with odds and ends of shingle stuff, with a rusty
funnel protruding from the roof, showed a little back from shore, on a
cleared spot amid some trees.
"Here's the camp," cried Harvey; and they grounded the canoes within its
shadow.
The chief, Red Bull, clearly not resigned to his fate, but squirming
helplessly, was conveyed up the bank and set down against a convenient
stump. The canoes were drawn on shore, and the party gathered about him.
"What are we going to do with him, anyway, now we've got him?" inquired
George Warren.
"Oh, he's got to be tried by a war council," said Henry Burns; "and all
of us are scouts, and we've got to tell how many pale-faces he's
scalped, and then he's got to be sentenced to be put to torture and
scalped and--and all that sort of thing. And then we'll dance around him
and--and then by and by--well, I suppose we'll have to let him go. I
don't know just how, but we'll arrange that. But we've got to have a
fire first, to make it a real war council."
They had one going shortly, down near the shore, and casting a weird
glare upon the scene.
After a preliminary dance about their captive, in which they lent colour
to the picture by brandishing war-clubs and improvised tomahawks, they
sat in solemn council on the chief.
"Fellow scouts," said Henry Burns, addressing his assembled followers,
"this is the great Indian chief, Magua, the dog of the Wyandots--"
"Whoopee!" yelled Little Tim, "that's him. He killed Un-cuss, didn't he,
Henry?"
"The brave scout has spoken well," replied Henry Burns. "This is the
cruel dog of the Wyandots; slayer of the brave Uncas; shot at by
Hawkeye, the friend of the Delawares--"
"I thought you said he killed him--in the book," cried Little Tim.
"Shut up, Tim," said Joe Warren.
"He's alive again," declared Henry Burns, solemnly. "He was only
wounded.
"Here is the cruel Huron," continued Henry Burns, "delivered into our
hands by that daring scout who knows no fear."
Little Tim grinned joyously at this praise from his leader.
"What shall we do with our captive?" solemnly inquired Henry Burns.
"Shall we show mercy to the slayer of the brave Uncas? Shall we be women
and let him go, to roam the forests and ravage the homes of our
settlers, or shall he be put to death?"
"He must die," growled Scout Harvey. "The daring leader has spoken well.
Is it not so, men?"
The doom of Red Bull, otherwise Magua, the dog of the Wyandots, was
declared.
The death of the captive followed swiftly--in pantomime--the brave
scouts, under the leadership of Henry Burns, performing a series of
dances about the helpless one, accomplishing his end with imaginary
tomahawk blows.
"Now he must be scalped," said Henry Burns. "What say you, men, shall we
cast the lot to see who takes the scalp of Magua, the great chief of the
Hurons?"
It was done. The short stick was drawn by Little Tim--to his
inexpressible joy.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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