's dodging the dishwashing again," suggested the Woodpecker.

"No, he isn't," said the Second Chief. "I believe he's going to bring
his folks to see him in his triumph."

"That's so. Let's chip right in and make it an everlasting old
blowout--kind of a new date in history. You'll hear me lie like sixty
to help him out."

"Good enough. I'm with you. You go and get your folks. I'll go after
old Caleb, and we'll fix it up to call him 'Hawkeye' and give him his
_grand coup_ feather all at once."

"'Feard my folks and Caleb wouldn't mix," replied Sam, "but I believe
for a splurge like this Guy'd ruther have my folks. You see, Da has
the mortgage on their place."

So it was agreed Sam was to go for his mother, while Yan was to
prepare the Eagle feather and skin the Woodchuck.

It was not "as big as a bear," but it was a very large Woodchuck, and
Yan was as much elated over the victory as any of them. He still had
an hour or more before four o'clock, and eager to make Guy's triumph
as Indian as possible, he cut off all the Woodchuck's claws, then
strung them on a string, with a peeled and pithed Elder twig an inch
long between each two. Some of the claws were very, very small, but
the intention was there to make a Grizzly-claw necklace.

Guy made for home as fast as he could go. His father hailed him as he
neared the garden and evidently had plans of servitude, but Guy
darted into the dining-room-living-room-bedroom-kitchen-room, which
constituted nine-tenths of the house.

"Oh, Maw, you just ought to seen me; you just want to come this
afternoon--I'm the Jim Dandy of the hull Tribe, an they're going to
make me Head Chief. I killed that whaling old Woodchuck that pooty
nigh killed Paw. They couldn't do a thing without me--them fellers in
camp. They tried an' tried more'n a thousand times to get that old
Woodchuck--yes, I bet they tried a million times, an' I just waited
till they was tired and give up, then I says, 'Now, I'll show you
how.' First I had to point him out. Them fellers is no good to see
things. Then I says, 'Now, Sam and Yan, you fellers stay here, an'
just to show how easy it is when you know how, I'll leave all my
bosenarrers behind an' go with nothing.' Wall, there they stood an'
watched me, an' I s-n-e-a-k-e-d round the fence an' c-r-a-w-l-e-d in
the clover just like an Injun till I got between him an' his hole, and
then I hollers and he come a-snortin' an' a-chatterin' his teeth at
me to chaw me up