"You don't deserve to have any. Be good enough to explain how this trouble arose?"

The chief was asking the same question of the other young savages in his own language and they were telling him in a series of guttural explosions.

"It was this way, I was playing the game with them when I stepped on Elephant Face's foot. He didn't like it. I guess he has corns on his feet as well as on his face. He punched me. I punched him back. Then the show began. We had a little argument, with the result that you already have observed," answered Stacy pompously.

"You needn't get so chesty about it," rebuked Ned.

"Chief," said the Professor, turning to Chick-a-pan-a-gi, "I don't know what to say. I am deeply humiliated that one of our party should engage in a fight with---"

"I didn't engage in any fight," protested Stacy. "It wasn't a fight, it was just a little argument."

"Silence!" thundered the Professor.

"I trust you will overlook the action of this boy. He was very much excited and-----"

"Fat boy him not blame. Fat boy him much brave warrior," grunted the chief. "Afraid Of His Face he go ha-wa. Stay all day, all night. Him not brave warrior."

The chief accentuated his disgust by prodding his homely son with the toe of a moccasin. Afraid Of his Face got up painfully, felt gingerly of his damaged nose, and with a surly grunt limped off toward his own ha-wa, there to remain in disgrace until the following day.

"Fat boy come smoke pipe of peace," grunted the chief.

"No, thank you. No more pieces of pipe for mine. I've had one experience. That's enough for a life time," answered Stacy.

"Stacy, if I see any more such unseemly conduct I shall send you home in disgrace," rebuked the Professor as they walked back to the village.

"The boy wasn't to blame, Professor," interceded Dad. "The buck pitched into him first. He had to defend himself."

"No, don't be too hard on Chunky," begged Tad. "You must remember that he wasn't quite himself. First to be boiled alive, then set upon by an Indian, I should say, would be quite enough to set anyone off his balance."

The Professor nodded. Perhaps they were right, after all. So long as the chief was not angry, why should he be? The chief, in his unemotional way, seemed pleased with the result of the encounter.

But Professor Zepplin, of course, could not countenance fighting.

That was a certainty. With a stern admonition to Chunky never to engage in another row while out with the Pony Rider Boys, the Professor agreed to let the matter drop.

The day was well spent by that time, and the party was invited to pa.s.s the night in the village, which they decided to do. The chief gave the Professor a cordial invitation to share his ha-wa with him, but after a sniff at the opening of the hovel Professor Zepplin decided that he would much prefer to sleep outside on the ground. The others concluded that they would do the same. The odors coming from the ha-was of the tribe were not at all inviting.

After sitting about the camp fire all the evening, the Pony Rider Boys wrapped themselves in their blankets and lay down to sleep under the stars with the now gloomy walls of the Canyon towering above them, the murmur of the silvery Havasu in their ears.

CHAPTER XXIV

CONCLUSION

The night was a restful one to most of the party, except as they were aroused by the barking of the dogs at frequent intervals, perhaps scenting some prowling animal in search of food.

Chunky was awakened by Tad at an early hour. The fat boy uttered a familiar "Oh, wow!" when he sought to get up, then lay back groaning.

"Why, what's the matter?" demanded Butler.

"My skin's shrunk," moaned Stacy. "It fits me so tight I---I can't move."

"His skin's shrunk," chorused the Pony Rider Boys. "His skin is a misfit."

"Take it back and demand a new suit if you don't like it," laughed Ned Rector.

"It isn't any laughing matter. I tell you it's shrunk," protested Stacy.

"All right, it will do you good. You'll know you've got a skin. Last night you said it was all roasted off from you."

"It was. This is the new skin, about a billionth of an inch thick, and oh-h-h-h," moaned the lad, struggling to his feet. "I wish you had my skin, Ned Rector. No, I don't, either I---I wish yours were drawn as tightly as mine."

"Come on for a run and you will feel better" cried Tad, grasping the fat boy by an arm and racing him down to the river and back, accompanied by a series of howls from Stacy. But the limbering-up process was a success. Stacy felt better. He was able to do full justice to the breakfast that was served on the greasy blanket shortly afterwards. For breakfast the white men shared their bacon with the chief, which the Indian ate, grunting appreciatively.

Before leaving, the boys bought some of the finer specimens of the Indian blankets, which they got remarkably cheap. They decided to do up a bale of these and send them home to their folks when they reached a place where there was a railroad. At present they were a good many miles from a railway, with little prospect even of seeing one for a matter of several weeks.

After breakfast they bade good-bye to the chief. Chunky wanted to shake hands with Afraid Of His Face, but the chief would not permit his young buck to leave the ha-wa. Chi-i-wa, the chief's wife, bade them a grudging good-bye without so much as turning her head, after which the party rode away, Chunky uttering dismal groans because the saddle hurt him, for the fat boy was still very tender.

"I know what I'll do when I get home," he said.

"So do I," laughed Tad.

"Well, what'll I do, if you know so much about it?"

"Why, you will puff out your chest and strut up and down Main Street for the edification of the natives of Chillicothe," answered Tad.

"That's what he'll do, for sure," jeered Ned. "But we'll be on hand to take him down a peg or two. Don't you forget that, Chunky."

Joking and enjoying themselves to the fullest, these brown-faced, hardy young travelers continued on, making camp that night by the roaring river, reaching Camp Butler the following forenoon.

Chow, the half breed pack-train man, met them with a long face. The party saw at once that something was wrong.

"What's happened?" snapped Nance.

"The dogs."

"What about them? Speak up."

"Him dead," announced the half breed stolidly.

"Dead?" cried Dad and the boys in one voice.

"Him dead."

"What caused their death?"

The half breed shook his head. All he knew was that two mornings before he had come in for breakfast, and upon going out again found the dogs stretched out on the ground dead. That there was another mystery facing them the boys saw clearly. Nance examined the carca.s.ses of the dead hounds. His face was dark with anger when he had finished.