“Look here, driver,” said Frank, sternly, “I want your number.”

“Pwhat fer?”

“In case it may appear later on that you have received money at two separate and distinct times for doing the same piece of work.”

“Get oop!” yelled the driver.  “It’s ownly foolin’ Oi wur.”

So the hack rolled on its way, with the happy freshmen smoking and singing, while the captive sophs ground their teeth and railed at the bitter luck.

Inside the hack Dismal Jones, most hideously bedaubed, was smoking a cigarette and brandishing a wooden tomahawk at the same time, while he sat astride of Bruce Browning, who was on the floor.

“This is a sad and solemn occasion, paleface,” croaked Dismal.  “You have driven the noble red man from his ancestral halls, which were the dim aisles of the mighty forests; you have pushed him across the plains, and you have tried to crowd him off the earth into the Pacific Ocean.  Ugh!  You have pursued him with deadly firearms and still more deadly fire water.  You have been relentless in your hatred and your greed.  You have even been so unreasonable that whenever a poor red man has secured a few paleface scalps as trophies to hang in his wigwam you have taken your trusty rifles and gone forth with great fury and shot the poor Indian full of hard bullets.  You have done heap many things that you would not have done if you had not done so.  But now, poor, shivering dog of a paleface, the injured red man has arisen at last in his might.  If we are to perish, we are to perish; but before we perish, we will enjoy the gentle pleasure of roasting a few white men at the stake.  Ugh!  We have held a council of war, we have excavated the hatchet, we have smashed the pipe of peace to flinders, or something of the sort, and have struck out upon the war trail.”

“You act as if you had struck out,” growled one of the captives.

“That’s because he has had a few balls,” gurgled Browning.  “Talk about being burned at the stake!  That’s not torture after being obliged to inhale his breath.  My kingdom for some chloroform!  Will somebody please hit me on the head with a trip hammer and put me out of my misery?”

“Whither art thou bearing us, great chief?” asked one of the captives.

“We will bare you out yonder,” answered Dismal.  “At the stake you shall stand arrayed in the garments nature provided for you.”

“I don’t care for tea,” murmured Browning—­“not even for repartee.”

“This is worse than being roasted at the stake!” muttered a soph in a corner.  “It is severe punishment.”

“Help!” cried Dismal.  “Somebody take me out!  I can’t get ahead of these miserable palefaces.”

“You’ll get a head if I ever find a good chance to give it to you,” declared the voice of Puss Parker from the darkness.

Outside the painted savages were roaring: 

  “Farewell! farewell! farewell, my fairy fay! 
    Oh, I’m off to Louisiana
    For to see my Susy Anna,
  Singing ‘Polly-wolly-woodle’ all the day.”