Page:Hugh Pendexter--Tiberius Smith.djvu/304

 'Any millinery display of white feathers will mean an immediate clinic. Tread on his heels a bit.'

"This command seemed to me to lend itself to funereal environments, but I obeyed, and would have been brained instanter if Tib had not stepped in between and in the traders' lingo called a halt. Although the chief stayed his hatchet arm he jumped enthusiastically up and down several times in an ecstasy of pique and knocked one of his body-guard senseless with the flat of his axe. The fellow would have received the edge, only the blade caught in an overhanging creeper. Tib smiled in approbation, and to further show his approval gave the prostrate warrior a hearty kick.

"But Mr. Scraws did not possess a reputation for being thoughtfully and exquisitely cruel for nothing, and after a short session of storm-signals his merry face was distorted into a smile, and he clapped us both on the shoulder amiably and indulged in spasmodic chucklings.

"‘You've done the trick,' I remarked, admiringly. But the face Tib turned on me was puckered with apprehension.

"‘I fear you are in error, my child,' he protested. 'When Brother Feeney laughs way down in his stomach there's something stirring for the spectators. We had him dubious at first; now he has decided just what he's going to do and it tickles him. And,