"No, you won't pay! You'll go back and wade the river like the low
beasts that you are."

The chief began a fierce oration. Longley ran into the tollhouse and
came out with a sawed-off shotgun.

"Now, will you go?" he cried, defiantly.

The Indians were sober, and they went. As they came abreast of the pier
under the bridge the toll-keeper jeered and laughed at them, and pelted
them with rocks.

They looked up with hate, but went stolidly on their way.

With darkness, the roistering at the barbecue became louder. The
Indians' money was gone by this time, and the fun was getting rougher.
The toll-keeper, after a weary day, was dozing beside his candle. He did
not see nor hear the stealthy forms which crept up the bridge. A board
creaked, and he jumped up and swung about, to find himself quickly
overpowered by a dozen lithe redskins.

They robbed the till, then held a palaver as to the disposition of their
prisoner. They finally left him tied with his own new rope to a huge
drift log at the base of the pier, and went back to buy more firewater.

It was a wild night!

John noticed, very late, that the Indians seemed to be having a special
pow-wow of their own on the river bank near the bridge. There was a