第13章

"Savages never finds much encouragement to come ha'ntin' about Wolfville.About the first visitin' Injun meets with a contreetemps;though this is inadvertent a heap an' not designed.This buck, a Navajo, I takes it, from his feathers, has been pirootin' about for a day or two.At last I reckons he allows he'll eelope off into the foothills ag'in.As carryin' out them roode plans which he forms, he starts to scramble onto the Tucson stage jest as Old Monte's c'llectin' up his reins.But it don't go; Injuns is barred.The gyard, who's perched up in front next to Old Monte, pokes this yere aborigine in the middle of his face with the muzzle of his rifle;an' as the Injun goes tumblin', the stage starts, an' both wheels passes over him the longest way.That Injun gives a groan like twenty sinners, an his lamp is out.

"Old Monte sets the brake an' climbs down an' sizes up the remainder.Then he gets back on the box, picks up his six hosses an'

is gettin' out.

"'Yere, you!' says French, who's the Wells-Fargo agent, a-callin'

after Old Monte, 'come back an' either plant your game or pack it with you.I'm too busy a gent to let you or any other blinded drunkard go leavin' a fooneral at my door.Thar's enough to do here as it is, an' I don't want no dead Injuns on my hands.'

"'Don't put him up thar an' go sp'ilin' them mail-bags,' howls Old Monte, as French an' a hoss-hustler from inside the corral lays hold of the Navajo to throw him on with the baggage.

"'Then come down yere an' ride herd on the play yourse'f, you murderin' sot!' says French.

"An' with that, he shore cuts loose an' cusses Old Monte frightful;cusses till a cottonwood tree in front of the station sheds all its leaves, an' he deadens the grass for a hundred yards about.

"'Promotin' a sepulcher in this rock-ribbed landscape,' says French, as Jack Moore comes up, kind o' apol'gisin' for his profane voylence at Old Monte; 'framin' up a tomb, I say, in this yere rock-ribbed landscape ain't no child's play, an' I'm not allowin' none for that homicide Monte to put no sech tasks on me.He knows the Wolfville roole.Every gent skins his own polecats an' plants his own prey.'

"'That's whatever!' says Jack Moore, 'an' onless Old Monte is thirstin' for trouble in elab'rate forms, he acquiesces tharin.'

"With that Old Monte hitches the Navajo to the hind axle with a lariat which French brings out, an' then the stage, with the savage coastin' along behind, goes rackin' off to the No'th.Later, Monte an' the passengers hangs this yere remainder up in a pine tree, at an Injun crossin' in the hills, as a warnin'.Whether it's a warnin'

or no, we never learns; all that's shore is that the remainder an'

the lariat is gone next day; but whatever idees the other Injuns entertains of the play is, as I once hears a lecture sharp promulgate, 'concealed with the customary stoicism of the American savage.'

"Most likely them antipathies of mine ag'in Injuns is a heap enhanced by what I experiences back on the old Jones an' Plummer trail, when they was wont to stampede our herds as we goes drivin'

through the Injun Territory.Any little old dark night one of them savages is liable to come skulkin' up on the wind'ard side of the herd, flap a blanket, cut loose a yell, an' the next second thar's a hundred an' twenty thousand dollars' worth of property skally-hootin' off into space on frenzied hoofs.Next day, them same ontootered children of the woods an' fields would demand four bits for every head they he'ps round up an' return to the bunch.It's a source of savage revenoo, troo; but plumb irritatin'.Them Injuns corrals sometimes as much as a hundred dollars by sech treacheries.

An' then we-all has to rest over one day to win it back at poker.

"Will Injuns gamble? Shore! an' to the limit at that! Of course, bein', as you saveys, a benighted people that a-way, they're some easy, havin' no more jedgment as to the valyoo of a hand than Steve Stevenson, an' Steve would take a pa'r of nines an' bet 'em higher than a cat's back.We allers recovers our dinero, but thar's time an' sleep we lose an' don't get back.

"Yes, indeed, son, Injuns common is as ornery as soapweed.The only good you-all can say of 'em is, they're nacheral-born longhorns, is oncomplainin', an' saveys the West like my black boy saveys licker.

One time--this yere is 'way back in my Texas days--one time I'm camped for long over on the Upper Hawgthief.It's rained a heap, an'

bein' as I'm on low ground anyhow, it gets that soft an' swampy where I be it would bog a butterfly.For once I'm took sick; has a fever, that a-way.An' lose flesh! shorely you should have seen me!

I falls off like persimmons after a frost, an' gets as ga'nt an'

thin as a cow in April.So I allows I'll take a lay-off for a couple of months an' reecooperate some.

"Cossettin' an' pettin' of my health, as I states, I saddles up an'

goes cavortin' over into the Osage nation to visit an old compadre of mine who's a trader thar by the name of Johnny Florer.This yere Florer is an old-timer with the Osages; been with 'em it's mighty likely twenty year at that time, an' is with 'em yet for all the notice I ever receives.

"On the o'casion of this ambassy of mine, I has a chance to study them savages, an' get a line on their char'cters a whole lot.This tune I'm with Johnny, what you-all might call Osage upper circles is a heap torn by the ontoward rivalries of a brace of eminent bucks who's each strugglin' to lead the fashion for the tribe an' raise the other out.

"Them Osages, while blanket Injuns, is plumb opulent.Thar's sixteen hundred of 'em, an' they has to themse'fs 1,500,000 acres of as good land as ever comes slippin' from the palm of the Infinite.Also, the gov'ment is weak-minded enough to confer on every one of 'em, each buck drawin' the dinero for his fam'ly, a hundred an' forty big iron dollars anyooally.Wherefore, as I observes, them Osages is plenty strong, financial.