was to come. Back
of the women and children were warriors and old men, their faces relaxed
into holiday expressions. Toward the river end of the gauntlet were
stationed the youngest, the most vigorous, the most fun-loving of the
women, and the larger boys, with only a negligible sprinkling of really
little children. Every woman and child in the two rows was armed with a
savage-looking whip of willow, hickory, or even green brier, and the
still more savage intention of using these whips to the utmost extent of
their speed and accuracy in striking.

Upon a signal Andramark darted forward and was lost in a whistling
smother. It was as if an untrimmed hedge had suddenly gone mad.
Andramark made the best of a bad business, guarded his face and the top
of his head with his arms, ran swiftly, but not too swiftly, and kept
his eyes out for feet that were thrust forward to trip him.

A dozen feet ahead he saw a pair of little moccasins that were familiar
to him. As he passed them he looked into their owner's face, and
wondered why, of all the little girls in the village, Tassel Top alone
did not use her whip on him.

At last, half blinded, lurching as he ran, he came to the edge of the
bluff, and dived, almost without a splash, into the deep, fresh water.
The cold of it stung his overheated, bleeding body like a swarm of wild
bees, and it is possible that when he reached the Canoe Beach the water
in his eyes was not all fresh. Here, however, smiling chiefs and
warriors surrounded the stoic, and welcomed him to their number with
kind words and grunts of approval. And then, because he that had been
but a moment before a naked child was now a naked man, and no fit
spectacle for women and children, they formed a bright-colored moving
screen about him and conducted him to the great council-lodge. There
they eased his wounds with pleasant greases, and dressed him in softest
buckskin, and gave him just as much food as it was safe for him to
eat--a couple of quail eggs and a little dish of corn and freshwater
mussels baked.

And after that they sent him home armed with a big stick. And there was
his mother, squatting on the floor of their lodge, with her back bared
in readiness for a good beating. But Andramark closed the lodge-flaps,
and dropped his big stick, and began to blubber and sob. And his mother
leaped up and caught him in her arms; and then--once a mother, always
tactful--she began to howl and yell, just as if she were ac