Elizabeth who paused to glance in at this stage of the proceedings was gratified by a sight of the four happy, earnest little faces, and the apparent innocuousness of the proceedings.
"We're havin' lots of fun, mother; we're playin' wagon!" Doris explained. "These are all my children; an' we're goin' west to live."
"Det-ap!" vociferated Richard, pulling manfully at the red lines decorated with bells, with which he restrained his restive steeds.
"Whoa!" and he applied the gad with spirit. "Dey's doin' fast, mudzer," he shouted.
"That's a nice play!" chanted Elizabeth; "only be careful of the whip, dear." Then she hurried up-stairs intent upon restoring immaculate order to the upper part of her house before luncheon.
The better part of an hour had passed before she remembered the children again; then a sound of terrific tumult from below gave wings to her feet.
The scene which met her astonished eyes was one of blood and carnage. The two boys, their faces horribly streaked with scarlet and yellow, their hair stuck full of feathers, had evidently fallen upon the peaceful settlers in their progress across the western plains, and were engaged in plunder and rapine; Richard, bound hand and foot with his scarlet lines, howled with abject terror, while Doris, wild-eyed and furious, fought for the protection of her family of dolls.
"You shan't touch my best doll; you horrid boy!" she shrieked. "I'll tell my--mother! I'll tell--my----"
"Give 'er here! I'm a big Injun an' I'm goin' to scalp every one of your children!" yelled Robbie Stanford. "Here you, Carroll! what you doin'? There's another kid a-hidin' under the chair--I mean the wagon! She'll scalp easy!"
"Why, children! What are you doing? Carroll, Robert! Stop this instant!"
"We're playing Indian!" panted Carroll, pausing to eye his mother disgustedly through his war-paint. "Doris oughtn't to have yelled so, an' Buddy's nothin' but a bawl-baby. We didn't hurt him a single bit."
"Jus' see what they did to my dolls!" wailed Doris. "Tore the hair off of ev'ry one of 'em!"
"Why, boys! I don't see what you were thinking of to spoil Doris' pretty dolls!"
"We was only scalpin' her children," volunteered the instigator of the crime, with a cheerful grin. "I c'n stick on the hair again, jus' as easy as anythin', if you'll give me the glue. I scalped our baby's doll an' my mother she stuck the hair on again with glue. 'Tain't hard to stick it on; an' we only broke one. We wouldn't 'ave done that, if Doris----"