of the tribe, had returned from a hunt, and Mrs. Antelope was frying for
him a nice buffalo steak--about as large as two big fists--over the
coals. Little Moccasin, who lived in the next street of tents, smelled
the feast, and concluded that he would have some of it. In the darkness
of the night he slowly and carefully crawled toward the spot, where
Mistress Antelope sat holding in one hand a long stick, at the end of
which the steak was frying. Little Moccasin watched her closely, and
seeing that she frequently placed her other hand upon the ground beside
her and leaned upon it for support, he soon formed a plan for making her
drop the steak.

He had once or twice in his life seen a pin, but he had never owned one,
and he could not have known what use is sometimes made of them by bad
white boys. He had noticed, however, that some of the leaves of the
larger varieties of the prickly-pear cactus-plant are covered with many
thorns, as long and as sharp as an ordinary pin.

So when Mrs. Antelope again sat down and looked at the meat to see if it
was done, he slyly placed half-a-dozen of the cactus leaves upon the
very spot of ground upon which Mrs. Antelope had before rested her left
hand.

Then the young mischief crawled noiselessly into the shade and waited
for his opportunity, which came immediately.

When the unsuspecting Mrs. Antelope again leaned upon the ground, and
felt the sharp points of the cactus leaves, she uttered a scream, and
dropped from her other hand the stick and the steak, thinking only of
relief from the sharp pain.

Then, on the instant, the young rascal seized the stick and tried to run
away with it. But Running Antelope caught him by his long hair, and gave
him a severe whipping, declaring that he was a good-for-nothing boy, and
calling him a "coffee-cooler" and a "squaw."

The other boys, hearing the rumpus, came running up to see the fun, and
they laughed and danced over poor Little Moccasin's distress. Often
afterward they called him "coffee-cooler"; which meant that he was
cowardly and faint-hearted, and that he preferred staying in camp around
the fire, drinking coffee, to taking part in the manly sports of hunting
and stealing expeditions.

The night after the whipping, Little Moccasin could not sleep. The
disgrace of the whipping and the name applied to him were too much for
his vanity. He even lost his appetite, and refused some very nice
prairie-dog stew which his mother offered h