William Sidney Porter, who wrote under the pseudonym O. Henry (1862-1910), was an American short story writer.The future writer was left without a mother at an early age, and at the age of fifteen he dropped out of school and entered a pharmacy store as an apprentice, where he became a pharmacist, later worked as a draftsman, accountant and cashier in a bank.His first literary experiences date back to the early 1880s, when Porter began publishing a humorous weekly in Austin, filling it with his essays, drawings, and jokes. Due to lack of money, the magazine was closed a year later. Porter was soon fired from the bank, accused of embezzlement, and spent three years in prison, writing short stories all the time. After his release, Porter moved to New York, and his stories quickly gained popularity with readers, and critics began calling the writer "American Gogol" and "American Chekhov."In total, O. Henry wrote 273 short stories, the complete collection of his works is 18 volumes.The heroes of O. Henry's stories are cowboys and millionaires, speculators and clerks, bandits and politicians, writers and laundresses – people taken from life, bright and colorful. The intricate plots of the stories certainly end with an unexpected denouement.In the story "The Chief of the Redskins," two crooks, Sam and Bill, kidnap a nine-year-old boy, hoping to get a ransom from his father. But the boy who calls himself the Leader of the Redskins does not seek to return home.…The collection includes stories from different years.