Synopsis of the
play.
Sam and Bill, a couple of down-on-their-luck con
men, decide to kidnap the young son of a prosperous banker in Summit a small
Alabama town, to finance one of their crooked land deal in Illinois. They kidnap
the boy and hide him in a cave a few miles from Summit. At the cave they
finalize their scheme to write a ransom letter asking for $2,000 ransom to
return the boy. The boy, an eight-year old freckle-faced red-headed hellion
loves living in the cave. He treats the kidnapping as a wonderful adventure.
Calling himself "Red Chief" he makes believe his kidnappers are really
his captives. He plans to burn Sam at the stake and scalp Bill at daybreak.
Using Bill's sharp kitchen knife he really attempts to scalp Bill the first
night.
Throughout the story, Red Chief terrorizes Bill,
whose job it is to placate the boy while Sam handles the various details of
collecting the ransom. They write the ransom letter, but Bill convinces Sam that
$2,000 is too much for a kid like Red Chief. They lower the ransom to $1500. Sam
returns the carriage they had rented, and mails their ransom note.
The strain on Bill continues to worsen. Red Chief
uses his sling shot to knock Bill out, making him fall across the campfire. Red
Chief puts a hot baked potato down Bill's back and smashes it with his foot.
Bill made to play the horse in Red Chief's Black Scout game and is ridden ninety
miles to the stockade and forced to eat sand for oats.
At last the reply from the boy's father arrives, but
it is not what the kidnapers expect. Ebenzer Dorset answers the kidnappers' note
with a counter-proposal. He'll accept his son back only if they pay him.
To get the boy to return home with them, Sam tells Red Chief that his father has
bought him a silver-mounted rifle and is planning to take him bear hunting. Sam
and Bill gladly hand over Red Chief and $250.00 to the banker and flee town,
poorer and wiser men.
