It's Thursday.

Chapter seventeen: THE TALL INDIAN

In those three days the norther had howled and screeched across the prairie till it blew itself out. Now the sun was warm and the wind was mild, but there was a feeling of autumn in the air. Indians came riding on the path that passed so close to the house. They went by as though it were not there. They were thin and brown and bare. They rode their little ponies without saddle or bridle. They sat up straight on the naked ponies and did not look to right or left. But their black eyes glittered. Laura and Mary backed against the house and looked up at them. And they saw red-brown skin bright against the blue sky, and scalp locks wound with colored string, and feathers quivering. The Indians’ faces were like the red-brown wood that Pa had carved to make a bracket for Ma. Pa said that he had thought that trail had been an old one they hadn’t used any more and he wouldn’t have built the house so close to it if he had known it was a high road. Jack hated Indians, and Ma said she didn’t blame him. She said that she declared that Indians were getting so thick around here that she couldn’t look up without seeing one. As she spoke she looked up, and there stood an Indian. He stood in the doorway, looking at them, and they had not heard a sound. Ma gasped goodness. Silently Jack jumped at the Indian. Pa caught him by the collar, just in time. The Indian hadn’t moved; he stood as still as if Jack hadn’t been at all. He said to Pa how. Pa held on to Jack and replied how. He dragged Jack to the bedpost and tied him there. While he was doing it, the Indian came in and squatted down by the fire.