anking, laughing good-naturedly; "I guess I will cut it short
by riding one of their boys pig-a-back."

So he picked out a young Indian with his roving eye, one perhaps
sixteen years old, and, darting upon him, lifted the Indian boy up in
powerful arms and carried him around the fiery circle. The young brave
struggled in vain. Nanking clinched his big fingers around the Indian
and dandled him like a baby. The effect upon the Indians in the
circle was exciting; they seized their spears, stopped their singing,
and rushed upon their guest with apparent or assumed fury.

"_Ha! herfe!_" cried Nanking, "I have changed the monotony of this
game, anyhow!"

At this moment an old Indian woman, the mother of the boy whom Nanking
had desired to amuse, threw herself between the upraised spears and
the laughing widow's son. She shouted something very earnestly, and
then stretched herself at Nanking's feet. All the other Indians also
flung themselves down in fear or revulsion of feeling, and some
crawled in another minute to where the burning coals were strewn over
the sward, and with their fingers or with tree-boughs returned these
coals to the fire, while others quenched the fire itself with water
from the torrent. Nanking had never lost his temper. He put the young
Indian down and kissed him, and shook hands with one after another,
who only rose as he approached them with a kind countenance. They
unbound his hands and overwhelmed him with attentions and professions,
and placed their fingers on their foreheads significantly, still
looking at him.

"Well," exclaimed Nanking, "I hope they also don't take me for a big
idiot! No, they do not. It is only a part of the queer game."

It was now growing late in the day, and Nanking wanted some food. The
Susquehannocks produced nuts, venison, fish, hominy, and succotash.
Their formerly savage countenances beamed confidence and
consideration. Nanking expressed his wishes by signs. He wanted a
great, long-legged, long-winged bird, a stork, to carry back alive to
New Amstel. The Indian chiefs conferred, and finally replied, by signs
and assurances, that they had such a bird, but that it would take two
whole days to procure one.

"Very well," thought Nanking, "I may as well stay here until I get it,
and not return home like a fool. My mother will trust in God, if not
in Saint Nicholas, and I trust in both. Elsje will not forget me at
any time!"

All the next day Nanking played ball and