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and raised a ray of cheer. While it lasted, he got them interested in a new device.
This was to knock off being pirates, for a while, and be Indians for a change.
They were attracted by this idea; so it was not long before they were stripped,
and striped from head to heel with black mud, like so many zebras,- all of them
chiefs, of course-and then they went tearing through the woods to attack an
English settlement.

By and by they separated into three hostile tribes, and darted upon each other
from ambush with dreadful war-whoops, and killed and scalped each other by
thousands. It was a gory day. Consequently it was an extremely satisfactory one.
They assembled in camp toward supper time, hungry and happy; but now a
difficulty arose-hostile Indians could not break the bread of hospitality together
without first making peace, and this was a simple impossibility without smoking
a pipe of peace. There was no other process that ever they had heard of. Two of
the savages almost wished they had remained pirates. However, there was no
other way: so with such show of cheerfulness as they could muster they called
for the pipe and took their whiff as it passed, in due form.

And behold they were glad they had gone into savagery, for they had gained
something; they found that they could now smoke a little without having to go
and hunt for a lost knife; they did not get sick enough to be seriously
uncomfortable. They were not likely to fool away this high promise for lack of
effort. No, they practiced cautiously, after supper, with right fair success, and so
they spent a jubilant evening. They were prouder and happier in their new
acquirement than they would have been in the scalping and skinning of the Six
Nations. We will leave them to smoke and chatter and brag, since we have no
further use for them at present.