e so that
they could hardly get their hands on it. All at once they heard him call
out from around the corner of the barn, where he had gone to steal up on
them, when it was their turn to be settlers: "Aw, now, Jake Milrace, that
ain't fair! I'm an Indian, now. You let go my hair."

"Who's touchin' your old hair?" Jake shouted back, from the inside of the
barn. "You must be crazy. Hurry up, if you're ever goin' to attack us. I
want to get out in the rain, myself, awhile."

Frank was outside, pretending to be at work in the field, and waiting for
the Indians to creep on him, and when Jake shouted for Dave to hurry, he
looked over his shoulder and saw a white figure, naked like his own, flit
round the left-hand corner of the barn. Then he had to stoop over, so that
Dave could tomahawk him easily, and he did not see anything more, but Jake
yelled from the barn: "Oh, you got that fellow with you, have you? Then
he's got to be settler next time. Come on, now. Oh, do hurry up!"

Frank raised his head to see the other boy, but there was only Dave Black,
coming round the right-hand corner of the barn.

"You're crazy yourself, Jake. There ain't nobody here but me and Frank."

"There is, too!" Jake retorted. "Or there was, half a second ago."

But Dave was busy stealing on Frank, who was bending over, pretending to
hoe, and after he had tomahawked Frank, he gave the scalp-halloo, and Jake
came running out of the barn, and had to be chased round it twice, so that
he could fall breathless on his own threshold, and be scalped in full
sight of his family. Then Dave pretended to be a war-party of Wyandots,
and he gathered up sticks, and pretended to set the barn on fire. By this
time Frank and Jake had come to life, and were Wyandots, too, and they all
joined hands and danced in front of the barn.

"There! There he is again!" shouted Jake. "Who's crazy _now_, I should
like to know?"

"Where? Where?" yelled both the other boys.

"There! Right in the barn door. Or he _was_, quarter of a second ago,"
said Jake, and they all dropped one another's hands, and rushed into the
barn and began to search it.

They could not find anybody, and Dave Black said: "Well, he's the quickest
feller! Must 'a' got up into the mow, and jumped out of the window, and
broke for the woods while we was lookin' down here. But if I get my hands
onto him, oncet!"

They all talked and shouted and quarrelled and laughed at once; but they
had to give the o