THE BASEBALL GOD
red feathers which they wore in their ears and nostrils, as well as in their long black hair, and they easily looked like nightmares. Tib and I were ready at sight of them to believe them cannibals, and expected nothing better than to speedily find ourselves salted down for a rainy day.
"The president of the delegation had a little powwow with the other Trilbys and then waved his spear, and we were hustled along towards the upper end of the valley, the brown beggars yowling some plaintive medley all the time. They carried the blue hen with them, and whenever their eyes caught a glimpse of it they beat their breasts and howled and whined in a perfectly ridiculous manner. A three-mile trot brought us to a bunch of low huts with palm-leaf roofs, and there the whole chorus tripped out to greet us. The squaws were much taken with Tib, I reckon because he was so plump; they kind of side-stepped me as being good only for a sandwich. But when the chairman held up the hen and threw a little Russian at them, their curiosity gave way to rage, and several expressed a kindly desire to hold an autopsy.
"‘I guess, my boy, that when I heaved that rock and hit the bird I hit their gospel,' groaned Tib.
"And that was the layout. We'd unintentionally shattered their whole religious fabric when we
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