tassels, to look down upon the backs of wheeling hawks that seemed to
hang in mid-air was a never-failing delight. Here Polly would try to
trace the winding red ribbon of road that was continually losing itself
among the dense pines of the opposite mountains; here she would listen
to the far-off strokes of a woodman's axe, or the rattle of some heavy
wagon, miles away, crossing the pebbles of a dried-up watercourse. Here,
too, the prevailing colors of the mountains, red and white and green,
most showed themselves. There were no frowning rocks to depress the
children's fancy, but everywhere along the ridge pure white quartz bared
itself through the red earth like smiling teeth; the very pebbles they
played with were streaked with shining mica like bits of looking-glass.
The distance was always green and summer-like, but the color they most
loved, and which was most familiar to them, was the dark red of the
ground beneath their feet everywhere. It showed itself in the roadside
bushes; its red dust pervaded the leaves of the overhanging laurel;
it colored their shoes and pinafores; I am afraid it was often seen in
Indian-like patches on their faces and hands. That it may have often
given a sanguinary tone to their fancies I have every reason to believe.

It was on this ridge that the three children gathered at ten o'clock
that morning. An earlier flight had been impossible on account of Wan
Lee being obliged to perform his regular duty of blacking the shoes
of Polly and Hickory before breakfast,--a menial act which in the pure
republic of childhood was never thought inconsistent with the loftiest
piratical ambition. On the ridge they met one "Patsey," the son of a
neighbor, sun-burned, broad-brimmed hatted, red-handed, like themselves.
As there were afterwards some doubts expressed whether he joined the
Pirates of his own free will, or was captured by them, I endeavor to
give the colloquy exactly as it occurred:--