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He had returned to his wigwam after an exhausting buffalo hunt in which he had slain two hundred and seventy-five buffalos with his own hand, not counting the individual buffalo on which he had leaped so as to join the herd, and which he afterward led into the camp a captive and a present to the lovely Mushymush. He had scalped two express riders and a correspondent of the “New York Herald”; had despoiled the Overland Mail Stage of a quantity of vouchers which enabled him to draw double rations from the government, and was reclining on a bear skin, smoking and thinking of the vanity of human endeavor, when a scout entered, saying that a pale-face youth had demanded access to his person.

“Is he a commissioner? If so, say that the red man is rapidly passing to the happy hunting-grounds of his fathers, and now desires only peace, blankets, and ammunition; obtain the latter and then scalp the commissioner.”

“But it is only a youth who asks an interview.”

“Does he look like an insurance agent? If so, say that I have already policies in three Hartford companies. Meanwhile prepare the stake, and see that the squaws are ready with their implements of torture.”

The youth was admitted; he was evidently only half the age of the Boy Chief. As he entered the wigwam and stood revealed to his host they both started. In another moment they were locked in each other’s arms.

“Jenky, old boy!”

“Bromley, old fel!”

B. F. Jenkins, for such was the name of the Boy Chief, was the first to recover his calmness. Turning to his warriors he said, proudly–

“Let my children retire while I speak to the agent of our Great Father in Washington. Hereafter no latch keys will be provided for the wigwams of the warriors. The practice of late hours must be discouraged.”

“How!” said the warriors, and instantly retired.

“Whisper,” said Jenkins, drawing his friend aside; “I am known here only as the Boy Chief of the ‘Pigeon toes.'”

“And I,” said Bromley Chitterlings, proudly, “am known everywhere as the Pirate Prodigy–the Boy Avenger of the Patagonian Coast.”

“But how came you here?”

“Listen! My pirate brig, the ‘Lively Mermaid,’ now lies at Meiggs’s Wharf in San Francisco, disguised as a Mendocino lumber vessel. My pirate crew accompanied me here in a palace car from San Francisco.”

“It must have been expensive,” said the prudent Jenkins.

“It was, but they defrayed it by a collection from the other passengers–you understand, an enforced collection. The papers will be full of it to-morrow. Do you take the ‘New York Sun’?”

“No; I dislike their Indian policy. But why are you here?”

“Hear me, Jenk! ‘Tis a long and a sad story. The lovely Eliza J. Sniffen, who fled with me from Doemville, was seized by her parents and torn from my arms at New Rochelle. Reduced to poverty by the breaking of the savings bank of which he was president,–a failure to which I largely contributed, and the profits of which I enjoyed,–I have since ascertained that Eliza Jane Sniffen was forced to become a schoolmistress, departed to take charge of a seminary in Colorado, and since then has never been heard from.”

Why did the Boy Chief turn pale, and clutch at the tent-pole for support? Why, indeed!

“Eliza J. Sniffen,” gasped Jenkins, “aged fourteen, red-haired, with a slight tendency to strabismus?”

“The same.”

“Heaven help me! She died by my mandate!”

“Traitor!” shrieked Chitterlings, rushing at Jenkins with a drawn poniard.

But a figure interposed. The slight girlish form of Mushymush with outstretched hands stood between the exasperated Pirate Prodigy and the Boy Chief.

“Forbear,” she said sternly to Chitterlings; “you know not what you do.”

The two youths paused.

“Hear me,” she said rapidly. “When captured in a confectioner’s shop at New Rochelle, E. J. Sniffen was taken back to poverty. She resolved to become a schoolmistress. Hearing of an opening in the West, she proceeded to Colorado to take exclusive charge of the pensionnat of Mad. Choflie, late of Paris. On the way thither she was captured by the emissaries of the Boy Chief–“