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‘You needn’t laugh; it’s true!’ he said solemnly.

‘Oh, of course!’ said Hilary; ‘but don’t come so near, or you’ll upset my glass of water.’ Hilary, too, was hopeless; he was reduced to his last cards now, and came in upon Mrs. Jolliffe as she sat at her writing-table. She looked up with a sweet, vague smile.

‘What is it now, dear boy?’ she asked. ‘I hope you are managing to amuse yourself.’

‘I think I ought to tell you,’ he said thickly, ‘that a tribe of Bogallala Indians are going to storm our encampment this evening.’

Perhaps Mrs. Jolliffe was getting a little bored with military topics. ‘Yes, yes,’ she said absently, ‘that will be very nice, I’m sure. Don’t be too late in coming in, there’s good boys.’

‘You don’t mind our being there?–there will be danger!’ he said with meaning.

‘Mind? Not in the very least, so long as you are enjoying yourself,’ she said kindly.

There went one card: he had but one more. ‘Could you let Corklett and George’ (they were the butler and page respectively) ‘come down to the camp about half-past eight? We should be so much safer if we had them with us.’

‘What are you thinking of, Clarence? We dine at eight, remember; how can I send either of them down then? You really must be reasonable.’

Clarence was by no means an ill-mannered boy in general, but fear made him insolent at this.

‘Of course, if you think your dinner is more important than us!’ he burst out hotly.

‘Clarence, I can’t allow you to speak to me in that way. It is ridiculous for you to expect me to alter my arrangements to suit your convenience,’ said Mrs. Jolliffe; ‘leave the room, or I shall be really angry with you. I don’t wish to hear any more–go.’

He went with a swelling heart, and in the garden he met Cecily. If he could only induce her to beg him not to risk his life again! He disclosed the situation as impressively as he could; but, alas! Cecily seemed perfectly tranquil.

‘I’m not a bit afraid this time,’ she said, ‘because you beat them so easily before; there’s only one thing, Clarence. You know I daren’t lock the army in again–they’ve made it up; but they were so cross over it! So I want you to promise to look after them.’

‘I shall have enough to do to look after myself, I expect,’ he answered roughly; ‘you don’t know what these Indians are.’

‘Oh, but I do, Clarence; I saw them at the “Wild West.” I thought they looked rather nice then. And you know you frightened them so before. You are so awfully brave–aren’t you?’

‘I–I don’t think I feel quite so awfully brave as I did then,’ he admitted.

‘Ah, but you will. Jack and Guy will be quite safe with you. Good-bye; I’m going to get some mulberry-leaves for my silkworms.’ And she ran off cheerfully.

It was his hard fate that everybody persisted in treating the affair in one of two ways–either they looked upon it as part of the army game, or else considered him such a champion, on the strength of his past exploits, that there was practically no danger even if a whole tribe of Redskins came to attack him.

Luncheon that day was a terrible meal for him. Uncle Lambert (though he was too great a coward to go near the fight himself) seemed very anxious that the defenders should be in good condition. ‘Give yourself a chance, General,’ he would say; ‘another slice of this roly-poly pudding may just turn the scale between you and Yellow Vulture. Look at the army–they’re victualling for a regular siege!’

But Clarence was quite unable to follow their example; he was annoyed with them for what he considered was ‘showing off’–though he might have reflected that to consume three helpings of jam-and-suet in rapid succession was an almost impossible form of bravado.

The rest of the afternoon he spent in trying to lower the army’s confidence by telling all the gruesome stories of Indian warfare he could think of; but he frightened himself a great deal more than them, and at last had to abandon the attempt in despair.