until the whole was a dingy “crushed strawberry” shade.  As Malcolm had emptied all the tubes of red paint in his Aunt Allison’s box, Keith had to content himself with some other colour.  He chose the different shades of green, squeezing the paint out on his plump little legs and arms, and rubbing it around with his fore finger until he was encircled with as many stripes as a zebra.  Although the day was warm for the early part of April, the sudden change from his customary clothes and spring flannels to nothing but the airy bathing suit and war-paint made him a trifle chilly; so he completed his costume by putting on a pair of scarlet bedroom slippers, edged with dark fur.

With the dropping of their civilised clothing, the boys seemed to have dropped all recollections of their professed knighthood, and acted like the little savages they looked.

“We’re going to shoot with your things awhile, Ginger,” shouted Keith, coming suddenly upon her with a whoop, and snatching her bow out of her hands.  “You are the squaw, so you have to do all the work.  Get down there now behind that rock and make a fire, while we go out and kill a deer.  You must build a wigwam, too, by the time we get back.  Hear me?  I’m a big chief!  ‘I am Famine—­Buckadawin!’ and I’ll make a living skeleton of you if you don’t hustle.”

Virginia was furious.  “I’ll not be a squaw!” she cried.  “And I’ll not build a fire or do anything else if you talk so rudely.  If you don’t give me back my bow and let me be a chief, too, I’ll—­I’ll get even with you, sir, in a way you won’t like.  I have short hair, and my clothes are more Indian than yours, and I can shoot better than either of you, anyhow!  So there!  Give me my bow.”

“What will you do if I won’t?” said Keith, teasingly, holding it behind him.

“I’ll go up to the barn and get a rope, and lasso you like I did that calf, and drag you all over the place!” cried Virginia, her eyes shining with fierce determination.

“She means it, Keith,” said Malcolm.  “She’ll do it sure, if you don’t stop teasing.  Oh, give it to her and come along, or it will be dark before we begin to play.”

Matters went on more smoothly after Malcolm’s efforts at peacemaking, and when it was decided that Ginger could be a brave, too, instead of a squaw, they were soon playing together as pleasantly as if they had found the happy hunting grounds.  The short afternoon waned fast, and the shadows were growing deep when they reached the last part of the game.  Ginger had been taken prisoner, and they were tying her to a tree, with her hands bound securely behind her back.  She rather enjoyed this part of it, for she intended to show them how brave she could be.

“Now we’ll sit around the council fire and decide how to torture her,” said Malcolm, when the captive was securely tied.  But the fire was out and they had no matches.  The lot fell on Malcolm to run up to the house and get some.