Page:Paine--J Archibauld McKaney collector of whiskers.djvu/170

   it with songs of rejoicing. And being grateful to the Red Whiskered King, I taught him how to chew. He took to it like a seaman to rum. And we'd pass the warm, starlit evenings clampin' our jaws on chunks of good old Bristol Navy and feel our hearts expand with love for our fellow men. He wasn't a neat chewer, being strange and uneducated, and he used to trickle some when he spit. He had hopes of bein' able to hit a knothole at ten feet, like me, but he was a mere apprentice, so to speak.

"We went to bed in the dark on that fatal night after an exciting round of target practice at the knothole, and I had no chance to warn him. At daylight he strode forth to meet the head men and petty officials of the tribe for a sacred pow-wow. The rays of the rising sun lit up his Heaven-descended whiskers like a bonfire of tar barrels.

"There was a wild roar from his followers. I heard the hell-raisin' racket and rushed to the scene. There was a streak of brown and another of gray runnin' halfway down his 152]