e no light, the dim
moving bulk of a patrol beyond the circle, all seemed to intensify the
darkness, and changed the current of his thoughts. He remembered what
Mr. Peyton had said of him when they first met. "Suthin of a pup, ain't
he?" Surely that meant something that was not bad! He crept back to the
couch again.

Lying there, still awake, he reflected that he wouldn't be a scout when
he grew up, but would be something like Mr. Peyton, and have a train
like this, and invite the Silsbees and Susy to accompany him. For this
purpose, he and Susy, early to-morrow morning, would get permission to
come in here and play at that game. This would familiarize him with the
details, so that he would be able at any time to take charge of it. He
was already an authority on the subject of Indians! He had once been
fired at--as an Indian. He would always carry a rifle like that hanging
from the hooks at the end of the wagon before him, and would eventually
slay many Indians and keep an account of them in a big book like that
on the desk. Susy would help him, having grown up a lady, and they would
both together issue provisions and rations from the door of the wagon to
the gathered crowds. He would be known as the "White Chief," his Indian
name being "Suthin of a Pup." He would have a circus van attached to
the train, in which he would occasionally perform. He would also have
artillery for protection. There would be a terrific engagement, and he
would rush into the wagon, heated and blackened with gunpowder; and
Susy would put down an account of it in a book, and Mrs. Peyton--for she
would be there in some vague capacity--would say, "Really, now, I don't
see but what we were very lucky in having such a boy as Clarence with
us. I begin to understand him better." And Harry, who, for purposes of
vague poetical retaliation, would also drop in at that moment, would
mutter and say, "He is certainly the son of Colonel Brant; dear me!" and
apologize. And his mother would come in also, in her coldest and most
indifferent manner, in a white ball dress, and start and say, "Good
gracious, how that boy has grown! I am sorry I did not see more of
him when he was young." Yet even in the midst of this came a confusing
numbness, and then the side of the wagon seemed to melt away, and he
drifted out again alone into the empty desolate plain from which even
the sleeping Susy had vanished, and he was left deserted and forgotten.
Then all was quiet in th