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As the boys watched they saw distinctly that each man, from his wrist to his side, was possessed of a sort of leathery fiber like that of bat's swing, and that as their arms were of unusual length this fiber supported them in their downward flights like a parachute.
'Suppose you drop being a little humbug, said Robert, but not crossly. 'Look out dig with your hands, now! So they did, and presently uncovered the spider-shaped brown hairy body, long arms and legs, bat's ears and snail's eyes of the Sand-fairy himself. Everyone drew a deep breath of satisfaction, for now of course it couldn't have been a dream.
The fierce old women swarmed around, yelling at Seet-se-be-a in no complimentary way, but the fury of possible mothers-in-law stopped without the sweep of the Bat's elk-horn pony whip. Before many days there was a new tepee among the "Red Lodges," and every morning Seet-se-be-a set a lance and shield up beside the door, so that people should know by the devices that the Bat lived there.
But she cried secretly all night to have it in her arms, ashamed of the unreasonable desire, but conscious that she could not be appeased by anything else. That plaster image denied to her symbolized the strongest passion of her life. The pigeons wheeled around St. Bat's tower, or strutted burnished on the wall.
She was delirious: seated upright, she kept continually passing her hand over her brow; she sought to efface the taint of a kiss she had received one moonlight night, and the impression in her hair of the flapping of a bat's wings that had caught in her hood. These two things were confounded in her memory. From time to time she said: "Where is my portrait? Give me my portrait."
Ah, what gleams of colored light shoot through the hair! Here is a bird's nest on a bar, lying side of a wide fan, shaped like a palm leaf; in the plaitings are curled all colors, pink, blue, yellow, and green. This shell is like a foot with eighteen or twenty toes, smooth, shining, and of flesh-like tints. This is like a bat's wing, with lines and webs finely tinted.
Again the trader ventured on his wrongs charged the responsibility of the Bat's actions on the Chis-chis-chash, and pleaded for justice. The aged head chief again arose to reply, saying he was sorry for what had occurred, but he reminded McIntish that the young warrior had convicted him of forged words. What would the white chief do to recompense the wrong if his horses were returned?
"I cannot talk English to them, and besides, their manners are not good, for they are not like our peasants." Sally Blake and a bare kneed lad began to amble behind the foreigners, he taking his cue smartly and lolling out his tongue. The whole crowd set up a shout, and Eagle looked back. She wheeled and slapped the St. Bat's girl in the face.
The Magpie cocked his eye, and stuck his tongue in his cheek. "GOOD-night!" he said tersely. "Nothin' like dat! Are youse on, or ain't youse?" "Well, den, wot's in it fer me?" persisted Larrry the Bat. "More'n de price of a coke sneeze!" returned the Magpie pertinently. "Dere's a century note fer youse, an' mabbe two or t'ree of dem fer Mag." Larry the Bat's eyes gleamed avariciously.
It was very quiet even ominously quiet that impression came to him suddenly again. The quarter here was full of dives and gambling hells and resorts frequented by the worst in crimeland but it seemed that the Mole's injunction had been obeyed to the letter! It boded little good for her! Jimmie Dale's face, under the grime of Larry the Bat's make-up, grew white and set, as he approached the window.
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