was empty but for himself, and the braves were dodging about behind the
houses in mortal terror of the hideous monster, worse than the white
men, for he was an unheard-of, polychromatic kind of being, not only
white, but red, blue, and yellow as well. It was no doubt the monster of
whom the priest had warned them, who would appear one day, if they were
not careful of their Christian duties (and they could not say they had
been), and destroy them all and burn their village. The thing he had in
his hand was doubtless the torch--see how it shone, just like fire! In
vain poor Pio declaimed his speech: it fell on ears too demoralized to
hear; and when one or two of them began to fit arrows to their
bowstrings, the best thing to do was plainly to beat a prompt retreat.
This he did, holding Big Flower ignominiously behind him to catch the
arrows that he expected every moment to hear whizzing about him.

He ran for some distance till he was out of sight of the inhospitable
village, and then sat down to rest and think. The adventure began to
take on an unpleasant complexion. If every one he came near acted like
this he could not be a medicine-man, for there would be no one on whom
to practice; and the bow and arrow episode was really alarming. What if
his own people refused to hear him? No one would recognize him there,
for he was a boy when he had been taken to the Mission, and he had never
been chosen to accompany the Padre on his rare visitations to the
Elcuanams, as it had been thought wise not to allow him to return to the
old surroundings. What had he better do? Of course he might discard Big
Flower and all the other fine things, and return to his people an
undistinguished runaway from the Mission (as not a few others had done,
to the scandal of good Father Urbano); but he could not bring himself to
that, not yet, at least. Well, he would go on: probably the
well-remembered name of Kla-quitch would make it all right.