They cut off the
bottoms of old man Wilkins's feet, and stood him on an
ant-hill--.
In a minute or so, though, my wits gets to work.
"Why ain't the shack burned?" I asks myself, "and why is the hoss
and the mule tied all so peaceful to the corral?"
It didn't take long for a man who knows Injins to answer THOSE
conundrums. The whole thing was a trap--for me--and I'd walked
into it, chuckle-headed as a prairie-dog!
With that I makes a run outside--by now it was dark--and listens.
Sure enough, I hears hosses. So I makes a rapid sneak back over
the trail.
Everything seemed all right till I got up to the rim-rock. Then
I heard more hosses--ahead of me. And when I looked back I could
see some Injuns already at the shack, and starting to build a
fire outside.
In a tight fix, a man is pretty apt to get scared till all hope
is gone. Then he is pretty apt to get cool and calm. That was
my case. I couldn't go ahead--there was those hosses coming
along the trail. I couldn't go back--there was those Injins
building the fire. So I skirmished around till I got a bright
star right over the trail head, and I trained old Meat-in-the-
pot to bear on that star, and I made up my mind that when the
star was darkened I'd turn loose.
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