Francisco turned sharply around. Walter and the unwelcome visitor were just behind them, Walter evidently bent on quitting him.
"If I talked Indian you could not understand me," said Francisco, pausing squarely in front of the red-haired tormentor; "but if I knock you down Indian, then perhaps you will understand."
"Oh, boys, don't fight," began Nellie, in alarm. "Papa will never let us come out here again if you do. Please, boys."
"He dasn't fight. He's afraid. He had to promise he wouldn't. His priest won't let him, he won't. He's an old Catholic, he is."
"So are we Catholics," cried Walter, pausing and setting his feet squarely apart. "We _all_ are Catholics."
"Like that Indian?" scornfully inquired the other, pointing to Francisco, who now came, with flashing eyes, closer to Walter.
"Yes, like that Indian," Walter replied, unabashed. "Who's meddling with you? Get off here this minute, or I'll make you."
"Boys, boys," pleaded Nellie again, "please don't fight. Let him go."
"I've got as good a right here as any of you old Catholics," sneered their antagonist; but it was noticeable that he gradually backed away as he spoke.
Once more he made a repulsive face; then he began to sing, in a nasal voice:
"Indian, Indian, never die-- Yellow skin and mean eye, Black----"
He did not finish the stanza. Francisco sprang forward, seized him about the waist, and rolled him down the bank.
"There! Finish your song where no one can hear it but yourself," said the Indian, calmly returning to his companions. Shouts of anger, followed by whimpers of pain, came up from below.
"Oh, Francisco," exclaimed Nellie, "if you haven't hurt him very much, I think I am glad."
"Hurt him!" echoed Walter. "That wouldn't hurt a fly--such an easy setting-down as he got."
"I did not hurt him, and I would not. I was not so angry with him, as that he makes me tired. I do not like to see him where I am. He might have followed us for a long time else."
"But maybe he'll be waiting for us down there to fight," said Nellie.
"No, he will not," answered the Indian boy. "He is a coward. He will go off home as quickly as he can. And then, maybe, some day when I am passing where I can not see him, he will throw a stone. Oh, I know him very well. What did he say to you, Walter, when we walked away?"