LIGHT ON 
 
"I don't want to be no Big-Governor- Afraid-of-the-Cottonwood- 
 
 Stump, do I, Uncle Mac ? " 
 
 (Page 45) 
 
UNCLE MAC'S 
 NEBRASKY 
 
 BY 
 
 William R. Lighten 
 
 WITH FRONTISPIECE BY W. HERBERT DUNTON 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 
 
 1904 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1904 
 
 BY 
 HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 
 
 Published A^ril, 1004 
 
a <f.~~< 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. THE MAN AND His TIME i 
 
 II. THE HONOUR OF A TRANSGRESSOR . . .12 
 
 III. BIG-GOVERNOR-AFRAID ..... 42 
 
 IV. A CUPFUL OF SUGAR . .... 74 
 V. A ROMANCE IN RED AND WHITE . . 101 
 
 VI. LAW-ABIDING CITIZENS . . . . .131 
 
 VII. THE CASE OF PRIVATE SAM WEEKS . . .153 
 
 M513154 
 
UNCLE MAC'S NEBRASKY 
 
 fttme 
 
 DO you remember what Sairey Gamp's 
 traducer said of the oft-quoted Mrs. 
 Harris ? " I don't believe there is no sich 
 a person." Maybe you will want to say 
 something like that about Uncle Mac, look- 
 ing upon him as just one more fictitious 
 " character " bred for the market. Well, I 
 wish I had invented him. But, take my 
 word for it, he's sound flesh and blood and 
 bone, five feet ten in his home-knit woollen 
 socks, a hundred and ninety pounds avoirdu- 
 pois, and every inch and every ounce a man. 
 Three years more and he will stand upon 
 the pinnacle of threescore and ten; but with 
 his ruddy cheeks, his clear, lively eyes, the 
 robust, virile lift of his broad shoulders, the 
 strong, forward fling of his step, and the un- 
 diminished ardour of his love of life, he 
 
2 The Man and His Time 
 
 could pass for fifty anywhere, if he chose. 
 His manhood is of the hardy outdoor kind; 
 heaven's sun has shone upon him from his 
 boyhood, giving him of its vitality ; heaven's 
 rains and heaven's winds have kept him 
 clean; through years and years he slept o' 
 nights upon the open ground, under the open 
 sky, soaking in health at every pore; and 
 now it is good to look upon him, good to 
 feel the iron grip of his big hand and to 
 hear the iron ring of his big voice. 
 
 He came West from Indiana in '55, when 
 this land was new and rude, and, as men like 
 to say, lawless. There was no law then but 
 the Ten Commandments and that native 
 sense of integrity which every natural man 
 carries about with him inside his shirt. 
 Nowadays living is called an art, and there 
 are books full of queer little rules for its 
 practice. What humbug! As if righteous- 
 ness was ever yet learned by rule! There 
 was no such silly belief in the old days out 
 West. Then behaviour was a matter of in- 
 
The Man and His Time 3 
 
 spiration ; then there was no art in living but 
 to live; and men did not go to the statute- 
 books for their ideals or their faith. Uncle 
 Mac has a drastic contempt for codes and 
 lawmakers and lawyers. What's the good 
 of them? he wants to know. In his day 
 honest men made honest bargains about the 
 business of life, and then kept faith with one 
 another, and that was all there was to it. 
 " It worked first-rate, too," says Uncle Mac. 
 " It worked a heap better than these new- 
 fangled notions do. I'd rather have a man 
 on his honour than on his oath, any day, if 
 he's a real man." 
 
 And as to himself, he is a noble fruit of 
 the old order of things staunch, fearless, 
 strong, steadfast. All the cardinal virtues 
 of manhood are his, from A to Izzard. But, 
 once again, he is no doctrinaire in virtue; 
 he has the knack of it, that's all a knack 
 got by much hard, painful practice. And 
 vices? No, I give you my word, not one! 
 It seems contemptible to speak of vices in 
 
4 The Man and His Time 
 
 relation to one so wholly natural and moral 
 and honest. What are the so-called vices 
 of sound health but virtues viewed through 
 the darkened spectacles of the morally weak- 
 eyed? He has lived from first to last as a 
 man ought. His blood runs free in his 
 veins, and the fire of healthy desires has been 
 kept always warmly aglow in his heart. On 
 occasion his eyes can blaze with passionate 
 anger, and his tongue can rip out a good, 
 stout, crashing oath one of the chain-shot 
 order, fired with lots of powder. I like to 
 hear him swear, when there's anything to 
 swear about; it always makes me feel as if 
 the wrong were half righted already. Mild 
 saintliness isn't in his make-up, nor any 
 cheap trick of pious pretension. He doesn't 
 hesitate to make an enemy now and then, 
 when the signs are right for it. " Half the 
 game is being sure you've got plenty of just 
 the right kind of enemies," he said once; 
 and again : " Sometimes, when I've felt 
 like I wanted a little good, swift trouble, to 
 
The Man and His Time 5 
 
 tone me up, I've turned the other cheek, the 
 way they tell about and then coaxed the 
 other feller into slappin' it. Keeps the rule, 
 don't you see ? and gives you your fight too." 
 And he loves a fight, when there is good 
 reason. But there is nothing little or mean 
 or morbid in his temper. He knows the 
 trick of forgiveness and practises it nobly, 
 when the occasion for a fight is past. Best 
 of all, he never bothers to debate whether 
 his impulses are according to the books or 
 no; it suffices him to follow without fear 
 where they lead. If you offend against his 
 sense of decency he will lay upon you the 
 blistering lash of his wrath ; or if you are in 
 want he will give you the coat off his back. 
 The need of the occasion is his sole guide in 
 conduct; that is all he knows of the art of 
 life. 
 
 What a time it was, that of the pioneers ! 
 And what men they were to match it! 
 When the Kansas-Nebraska bill was passed, 
 between the Missouri and the Pacific lay a 
 
6 The Man and His Time 
 
 virgin wilderness, passionately awaiting 
 those wha would come to woo, ready to 
 yield herself utterly, splendidly, when she 
 was won. In our day she has become a 
 staid matron, sobered by the multiplied cares 
 of maternity, so that it is hard to realise the 
 lusty wildness of her unconquered youth. 
 To-day her fruits feed half the earth; but 
 when Uncle Mac first set foot in Nebraska 
 not a plough had yet scratched the soil. 
 Never were greater opportunities. Strength, 
 sheer strength of body and mind and soul, 
 was the quality needful for transmuting op- 
 portunity into achievement, for belting a 
 wide half-continent with railways, turning 
 the prairie sod into farms, founding cities, 
 making out of that chaos an orderly empire, 
 rich in all good things. After a short half- 
 century it is done ; but it was a task for men, 
 not for weaklings. Weaklings came hither, 
 of course, as camp-followers of the strong; 
 but they died out or else went back home 
 to their folks, and only the mighty were left 
 
The Man and His Time 7 
 
 the born fighters, those who could do 
 battle with their destiny in such jocund 
 mood as feared neither life nor death. 
 
 From the very first Uncle Mac was in the 
 foremost rank, fighting, throwing his whole 
 soul into it. His motives? He didn't 
 know that he had any. Do you question 
 the sun and the rain about their motives? 
 His every fibre tingled with the matchless 
 ecstasy of vigorous youth. His feet were 
 hot with the fever of the wanderlust; and 
 here were a couple of million square miles 
 untrodden. Every wind was heavy-laden 
 with siren-songs; every fair, round hill- 
 breast, seductively half-veiled in the mists of 
 distance, charmed his sight and kindled his 
 desire; the very stars of the night were as 
 languorous, living eyes, enticing him to 
 come and know what it meant to live. What 
 choice had he but to go and go and go? 
 Some went in quest of wealth not he. 
 Others' desire was for power or place or 
 prestige not his. With him it was noth- 
 
8 The Man and His Time 
 
 ing less than the pure joy of life itself for 
 its -own sweet sake. Love he knew, and 
 hate, and every great passion that goes to 
 make up the sum of a brave life's round. 
 Daring and danger he faced; and half a 
 score of times he laughed defiance in the 
 grim countenance of Death. His youth was 
 spent gloriously. 
 
 Nor was it all a boy's aimless quest for 
 adventure. He did his work. Three times 
 he went afoot, beside his ox-teams, from 
 Omaha to San Francisco and back again, 
 freighting supplies to the outposts of civili- 
 sation; for five long years he served in the 
 Army of the Frontier, fighting the terrible 
 Sioux and their allies; he helped to string 
 the wires for the first transcontinental tele- 
 graph; he aided in the building of a half 
 dozen towns that are now vain of their im- 
 portance. And through it all he kept his 
 honesty spotless and his name respected of 
 men. He lived and laboured as became an 
 American pioneer. 
 
The Man and His Time 9 
 
 But it is finished. Slowly, subtly, under 
 the inexplicable necromancy of years, his 
 visions have become dreams. They are 
 good dreams, but quieter, soberer. He 
 loves life as of old, but, somehow, he seems 
 to have dropped out of the hurrying pro- 
 cession, standing aside and watching it go 
 by. Swift changes have come over tfie 
 spirit of the West. Destiny has set new 
 tasks, and new men, with another order of 
 genius, have arisen to perform them. Uncle 
 Mac pleases himself with the fancy that he 
 keeps a firm hold upon affairs ; but it must be 
 that in his thoughtful hours he is aware of 
 the innocent self-deception, and this con- 
 sciousness imparts the only tinge of melan- 
 choly his wholesome soul knows. 
 
 He has never cared to be rich, but Fortune 
 has been genuinely kind to him, giving him 
 enough for all his simple needs, with some- 
 thing to spare for those who have not fared 
 so well; and his profoundest joy is in giv- 
 ing. His home is an old-fashioned house of 
 
io The Man and His Time 
 
 stone and logs set in the middle of ten acres 
 of orchard and garden, on the edge of a 
 half-formed town an hour's ride from 
 Omaha. There his days are spent, not in 
 idleness, but busily, in the sort of labour he 
 loves best. It is very fitting. He is out of 
 doors, with his feet squarely planted on the 
 good earth, and with the prairie winds 
 touching his face as with the kiss of a 
 friend, while each morning and evening, 
 and each slow, sweet change of season 
 brings him gently a little nearer the end. 
 
 He loves children, and the love is 
 strengthening with the years, as he grows 
 into closer sympathy with their simplicity 
 of spirit. If you would see him at his best, 
 go into his apple-orchard on a hot summer 
 afternoon, when the sun has driven him 
 from his work. There you will find him 
 stretched at his length upon the thick grass, 
 taking his ease, with a happy, noisy horde 
 about him, eating his apples, sporting in the 
 grateful shade, fighting their little battles, 
 
The Man and His Time 1 1 
 
 or gathering in a rapt, enchanted circle, beg- 
 ging the old man for a story. And the 
 stories he tells- are all of the golden days 
 when life loomed big before him, crying its 
 challenge.. 
 
II 
 
 ibonour of a ^Transgressor 
 
 UNCLE MAC'S vineyard lies upon a 
 hillside, just out of sight from his 
 house; and as a matter of course it suffers 
 at the hands of every rapscallion and tatter- 
 demalion in the town. As a rule the 
 good old man makes no complaint, beyond 
 a mouthful or two of speech in the privacy 
 of his own hearthside; only once have I 
 known him to be much perturbed. He had 
 planned to exhibit at the State Fair some 
 baskets of Golden Pocklingtons, and had 
 tied the selected bunches in bags of netting, 
 to protect them from the birds; but the 
 urchins from the " Bohemian Settlement " 
 beyond the hill, in their daily thievings made 
 choice of these bunches, knowing them to be 
 the best. Uncle Mac was first saddened, 
 then irritated; and then one day I saw him 
 
 12 
 
The Honour of a Transgressor 1 3 
 
 down town, buying fence-posts and barbed 
 wire. Never before had he fenced so much 
 as a square yard of hi land. 
 
 A week afterward I found him toiling in 
 the autumn sunlight, reeling up the wire 
 which a couple of men were pulling from 
 the newly-made fence. He straightened his 
 portly figure, wiping the dripping moisture 
 from his big forehead; then he led the way 
 to the shade of a near-by tree, where we sat 
 down together. 
 
 " Didn't it suit you? " I asked. 
 
 "What? The fence? Yes, sure; 'twas 
 a bully fence." Then came a pause, while 
 he mopped at his face with needless insist- 
 ence. 
 
 "I reckon boys is different from pretty 
 much every animal there is," he said at last. 
 " Don't the Bible say somethin' somewheres 
 about sufferin' little kids in the kingdom 
 of heaven? I've just been findin' out why 
 that is. The walls of the New Jerusalem 
 might be made hog-tight and six rods high, 
 
14 The Honour of a Transgressor 
 
 and yet it wouldn't be no manner of use to 
 try to keep the kids out. Old Saint Peter 
 couldn't do it, nor Paul, nor Pontius Pilate : 
 nobody couldn't." 
 
 I kept grave silence, knowing that in the 
 fulness of time things would be revealed. 
 The old man glanced at me now and again, 
 furtively, shamefacedly; then he laughed, 
 with a frank return to his dominant humour. 
 
 " 'Twas the same way with me, once. 
 There wa'n't no fence ever made that could 
 Ve kept me out of nowhere. I've spent 
 weeks and weeks, I reckon, climbin' fences 
 to get into places I wouldn't 've cared a lick 
 about, if only I hadn't been shut out of 'em. 
 Why, the day after I put this fence up, 
 there was more grapes stole than there ever 
 was in a whole week before. I had to take 
 it down in self-protection: see? Trouble 
 .was," he added abruptly, " 'twas easy 
 enough for the youngsters to get through the 
 wires comin' in, but 'twas terrible hard 
 gettin' out, some reason. I heard yester- 
 
The Honour of a Transgressor 1 5 
 
 day how the women-folks around here ain't 
 done much else all week but lam their kids 
 for comin' home with their clothes tore 
 pretty much all off of 'em. Shucks! I 
 never did see the good of lickin' a boy, 
 nohow, so long as he ain't done nothin' bad. 
 Poor little fellers!" 
 
 Every line of his averted face ran brim- 
 ful of gentle kindness. By and by his 
 broad chest swelled with a ragged sigh. 
 
 " I was just thinkin' : If a little fairy was 
 to come along and gimme three wishes, like 
 they used to tell about, I'd tell him I didn't 
 want but one; and do you know what I'd 
 wish ? I'd wish to be a little, mean, speckle- 
 faced kid real downright sassy and ornery 
 the kind of a youngster that folks don't 
 like to have around, nohow. That's the 
 kind of a little rooster I used to be, and I'd 
 give half of what I've got if I could be him 
 again, just long enough to take another 
 good holt on rememberin' how it feels. I 
 wouldn't ask for just the good part, neither 
 
1 6 The Honour of a Transgressor 
 
 the youngness, and the don't-care; I'd 
 like to go back and steal a big mess of nasty, 
 hard, green apples, and have my mother 
 doctorin' me for one of them old-fashioned 
 pains in my insides. Anything, by God, so 
 it was real boy." 
 
 Then, after a moment's brooding silence : 
 " Most boys is that kind, Billy ; don't you 
 know it ? I never had no use for the sneakin' 
 little chaps that's got no bad in 'em. Decent 
 folks ain't made that way. Decent folks is 
 good and bad both, mixed up together. I 
 like it that way, too, because that's the way 
 the Almighty plays the game." 
 
 Then it was that I spoke the word which 
 provoked the story. " Uncle Mac, did you 
 never come across a man who was all bad? " 
 
 "No," he answered bluntly. "No, I 
 ain't ; nor nobody else. Say, wa'n't there an 
 old feller, once, in some of them foreign 
 places Hong Kong, or Sweden, or some- 
 wheres that hid himself in a drygoods box 
 and pretended to be huntin' for an honest 
 
The Honour of a Transgressor 17 
 
 man ? You listen to me : He wouldn't have 
 knowed an honest man if he'd seen one 
 just because he didn't believe there was any. 
 Why, shucks! he'd have been out of a job 
 in a holy minute, if he'd only been honest 
 with himself to start with. Honest men 
 ain't so scarce as all that. There ain't one 
 in a million that won't do the square thing, 
 when he's pinched right down to it, and on 
 his honour." Then, with kindling warmth, 
 he struck directly into his story. 
 
 " Did I ever tell you about the time me 
 and Turk Wesley run up against each other ? 
 That was along somewheres about '66, 
 after we'd got out of the army, and just 
 before Nebrasky come in as a State. Things 
 was pretty much tore up out here west of 
 the river, of course. After us soldiers was 
 sent back home, there was a good deal of 
 devilment fightin', and thievin', and such- 
 like, different places. It wasn't only natural, 
 and I reckon it would 've come out all right, 
 after while, if it hadn't been for chaps like 
 
1 8 The Honour of a Transgressor 
 
 Turk Wesley, that didn't have a lick of 
 sense. 
 
 "Turk was one of them kind that's always 
 hankerin' to have folks think he's awful 
 smart and cunnin'. I never took much 
 stock in that kind. The minute a feller 
 begins to want to seem smarter than the rest 
 of folks, he'll start off with tryin' to work 
 some big lie that won't get found out; and 
 that's somethin' that can't be done. There 
 never was no lie told yet that wa'n't found 
 out, give it time. No matter how good a 
 one it is when it's told, it won't stay told; 
 it's bound to come loose and get all ravelled 
 out. That was the trouble with Turk 
 Wesley. He could think up a bran'new 
 different lie for every hour o' the day, 
 and that's the sure mark of the man that's 
 goin' to meet up with trouble, some time. 
 
 " Turk, he had two or three that was 
 pardners with him, and they was goin' 
 around, different places, workin' their mean 
 tricks for a year or so, till from bein' at first 
 
The Honour of a Transgressor 1 9 
 
 just half sneak and half dead-beat, he come 
 by and by to be plum tough, not stoppin' at 
 nothin', not even at holdin' up an emigrant 
 outfit on one of the trails and plunderin' the 
 poor critters of all they'd got. But the 
 country was so big, and settled so thin, and 
 not half governed, he done pretty much what 
 he pleased, seemed like, without gettin' 
 rounded up. He'd have pulled through, 
 somehow, only the last thing he done was to 
 take a couple of his pardners out to the 
 Pawnee reservation and run off a bunch of 
 beef-steers. They killed one feller, too, 
 while they was doin' it. 
 
 " The story got down to the river, pretty 
 soon, account of the Pawnees bein' in such a 
 state over it, and hard to hold; and two or 
 three days after I run up against the United 
 States marshal, that I knowed first-rate, up 
 in Omaha, and he says, ' Mac, do you know 
 Turk Wesley?' ' Yes,' I says, 'by sight. 
 I seen him once, down to Falls City/ 
 ' Well, see here,' he says, ' this thing's 
 
20 The Honour of a Transgressor 
 
 makin' a terrible stink, and there ain't 
 nothin' for it but that Turk's got to be took, 
 and I'm goin' to deputise you to go after 
 him/ ' Why, what's the matter with your 
 own boys?' I asked him; and he said they 
 was all busy said they'd only got a couple 
 weeks to summon the jury-panel in, and 
 they'd got to ride all over Kingdom Come to 
 find 'em. ' Can't you go ? ' he says. ' Oh, 
 I reckon,' I says. Yes, I'd go, I told him. 
 Matter of fact, I was willin' enough to go, 
 I was full of hot blood, them days, and I 
 wa'n't married yet, and didn't have nobody 
 to keep me; and anyhow, I'd begun to get 
 kind o' nervous, livin' quiet for a year or so, 
 mindin' my own business, without no excite- 
 ment. Seemed good to me to think about 
 goin' out for a ja'n't like that on the prairie, 
 and I never took the trouble to think about 
 the gettin' back like them kids with my 
 fence. So he app'inted me a deputy, and 
 fixed me out with my papers, and I struck 
 out, horseback, feelin' like a feller will when 
 
The Honour of a Transgressor 2 1 
 
 the weather's good and he ain't got nothin' 
 to worry him. I didn't take nobody with 
 me, because it was a good piece out to where 
 I reckoned I'd begin huntin' for Turk, and 
 I thought mebbe I'd get help out there, if I 
 needed it. 
 
 " On my word, I didn't have the first idee 
 in this world where Turk was, nor where I 
 was goin' to find him, nor what was likely 
 to happen when I did find him. Nebrasky 
 was an almighty big place, them days, be- 
 fore it had been all split up to make States 
 out of. All I knowed was that my papers 
 was good anywhere in the Territory, and I 
 didn't bother my head about anything else. 
 I don't know : seemed like 'twas a way we 
 got into out here not worryin'. We didn't 
 use to fool much time with settin' down and 
 frettin' ourselves bald-headed about how we 
 was goin' to get things done; we was too 
 busy with doin' 'em. We always got out, 
 somehow. Supposin' we'd listened to them 
 that said we was bound to starve to death 
 
22 The Honour of a Transgressor 
 
 out here in this desert! We didn't listen; 
 we didn't never listen to no croakin' about 
 trouble. 
 
 " Well, by and by I got out to the agency, 
 and had a little talk with the agent about the 
 business. He told me Turk had been heerd 
 of, three or four different places, a good 
 ways apart, since the stealin'. He was just 
 sailin' around, big as life, makin' his brags. 
 Seemed like I didn't have nothin' else to do 
 but just keep on a-goin', huntin' up his trail 
 the best I could. 
 
 " The very next day, a little bit after sun- 
 down, I come to a dug-out, off beside the 
 trail, where a settler lived, and I stopped 
 there for night. The men-folks was gone 
 off somewheres, after grub ; but there was a 
 mighty nice, clean little woman and a couple 
 of half-growed girls messin' around with 
 gettin' supper. She told me 'twould be 
 ready in a minute, and I set my rifle up in- 
 side the door and unhitched my belt and 
 dropped it on the floor, and then took my 
 
The Honour of a Transgressor 23 
 
 pony out to the sod stable, a hundred yards 
 or so from the house ; and the little woman, 
 she told me where I'd find things. 
 
 " I'd got done with feedin' and waterin', 
 and was just forkin' in some stuff for bed- 
 din', when I heerd somebody holler ' Whoa !' 
 to his horse outside, and I went to the door. 
 'Twas just one feller, horseback. He'd 
 turned in from the trail, comin' to the stable, 
 and when he'd got up closter I seen 'twas 
 Turk Wesley; and there was my guns layin' 
 over in the dug-out! 'Twas just light 
 enough so as I could see Turk had his'n on, 
 like everybody wore 'em them days, out on 
 the trails. 
 
 " Billy, a man's the plum foolishest critter 
 there is specially a young one. Why, just 
 think. 'Twould 've been the easiest thing 
 in the world for me to have hid back in the 
 dark and bided my time till we'd both got 
 down to the house, after a while, and then 
 took him regular and accordin' to Hoyle. 
 He didn't know there was any warrant out 
 
24 The Honour of a Transgressor 
 
 for him. 'Twould 've been dead easy. But 
 it never come to me that way at all. There 
 was Turk, and there was me, and the only 
 blessed thing I thought of was that I'd got to 
 nab him right then. It's just them kind o' 
 things that's made me get gray-headed, 
 thinkin' about 'em afterwards. I just 
 drawed back in the shadder of the door, and 
 up-ended my hay-fork, and poked the butt- 
 end o' the handle up towards Turk's head, 
 and I hollered, real quick, 'Hands up, 
 Turky ! You're 'rested ! ' Makes me laugh ! 
 Of course, it come on him mighty sudden, 
 when he wasn't lookin' for it, and he was a 
 good deal of a loon anyway; and when he 
 seen that fork-handle within a yard of his 
 face his hands went straight up, and him 
 swearin' shameful. 
 
 " Well, there I had him ; but then I didn't 
 know what to do, so I done the only thing I 
 knowed : I says, ' Get down out of your 
 saddle, Turky ; lively, now ! ' and he shook 
 his feet loose from the stirrups and hopped 
 
The Honour of a Transgressor 25 
 
 down to the ground, but keepin' his hands 
 up mighty careful ; and then I says, ' Go 
 down to the house, and don't you try to 
 budge out of a walk ! ' and then I set the 
 fork-handle up against the small of his 
 back and kep' it there, and we went down to 
 the house. When we got to the door, I hol- 
 lered to the woman, and when she come out, 
 I never give her a chance to blat, but I says, 
 'Unhitch this feller's belt, and take it off 
 him, and give it to me/ She was mighty 
 good about it. She never said a word, but 
 just went up to him and loosed his belt and 
 handed it over. I'd been mighty particular 
 to keep where he couldn't see me; and, my 
 word ! it didn't take me long to get one of his 
 guns out of the holster. My hands begun to 
 shake then, when 'twas over, and I dropped 
 the fork. Turk, he seen it, and he turned 
 around and looked at me, me holdin' his pis- 
 tol, and then he looked down at the fork, and 
 he says, ' Why, you damned fool ! Did you 
 Vest me with that thing? ' ' Yep; with the 
 
26 The Honour of a Transgressor 
 
 butt-end of it/ I says. ' You didn't think 
 'twould take artillery, did you ? ' He got his 
 mouth part open to say something but he 
 shut it up again, plum disgusted, and he 
 never tried to make a move while the little 
 woman fetched a lariat and tied him up, legs 
 and arms; and then I stuck my hand under 
 his arm and helped him to hop into the house 
 and set down over by the fire. 
 
 " 'Twas a mighty good supper they was 
 gettin', and pretty soon, when it was fixed, 
 and me and the woman and the girls had e't, 
 I fixed a plateful and set down alongside of 
 Turk, to feed him. I could see it galled him 
 terrible; but he didn't say nothin' till he'd 
 got done, and then pretty soon he begun to 
 ask what the trouble was, and what I was 
 goin' to do with him. Didn't seem to worry 
 him any, when I'd told him. He said he'd 
 always kind o' leaned on his luck; and then, 
 besides, he'd got some friends down to 
 Omaha that stood in with the prosecutin' 
 attorney, and he'd work his pull and get 
 
The Honour of a Transgressor 27 
 
 loose. Didn't plague him a speck; the only 
 thing that seemed to hurt was the hay-fork. 
 After a bit, when the men got home, and had 
 e't, and we set around the fire, Turk he 
 chirked up right smart, and he turned in and 
 told some of the things he'd been doin', 
 turnin' 'em with the funny side out, so no- 
 body couldn't help laughin' at 'em; and we 
 set there, woman and all, till past one 
 o'clock, havin' a real good time. Company 
 was scarce, them days; 'twa'n't every day 
 them folks in the dug-out had a chance to be 
 sociable. But by and by we turned in, me 
 and Turk layin' down in front of the fire. 
 
 " We got started back towards the river 
 early in the mornin', with Turk settin' on his 
 pony, his feet tied together under the pony's 
 belly. 'Twas a fine day, and Turk had got 
 over bein' sore, seemed like, so's we had a 
 real nice time. He wa'n't such a bad chap, 
 take him altogether. I don't know : first 
 thing I knowed I was kind o' feelin' sorry 
 for the poor devil. Struck me he'd got the 
 
28 The Honour of a Transgressor 
 
 makings of a man in him, if he'd only got 
 started right instead of wrong. Takin' his 
 word for it, the things he'd done hadn't been 
 all bad, not by a long sight. But, then, 
 what's the use ? I reckon you could say that 
 about the Old Nick himself. 
 
 " Well, we jolted along, slow, because of 
 Turk not bein' able to do much with his 
 pony, and me havin' to lead him. We had 
 a snack along about noon ; and then we'd got 
 down within twenty mile or so from the 
 reservation, when Turk he says, ' Who's 
 them over yonder?' ' Where?' I says; 
 and Turk he jerked his head towards a hill, 
 a half-mile off to the left. ' Them,' he says. 
 ' I'm a liar if them ain't Pawnees. What do 
 you reckon they're doin' off the reserva- 
 tion ? ' I took a look at 'em, where they 
 was settin' on their ponies, and I knowed he 
 was right. There was two of 'em, with their 
 heads showin' over the edge of the hill. ' Do 
 you reckon they got wind that you was after 
 me ? ' Turk says, kind o' restless. ' Shouldn't 
 
The Honour of a Transgressor 29 
 
 wonder/ I says. ' I guess we'd better set 
 still here for a spell, till we see/ So we 
 waited; and 'twa'n't but a minute after 
 we'd stopped our ponies, till the two of 'em 
 started down towards us, and then there was 
 two more showed theirselves on the hill, fol- 
 lerin' the others up. They come down in a 
 hurry till they'd got up to three or four hun- 
 derd yards of us, and then I signed to 'em to 
 halt. They drew in out of a dead run, but 
 they kep' on comin' ahead till I got my rifle 
 up to my shoulder, and that brought 'em up. 
 They signed to me they wanted to talk. 
 ' Well, talk! ' I hollered to 'em, in Pawnee; 
 and one of 'em he started to edge down clos- 
 ter, till I motioned he could speak his piece 
 where he was. Of course they seen the way 
 Turk was, tied up and helpless, and the first 
 thing the feller said was that they wanted 
 the man that had stole their cattle. ' You 
 can't have him,' I yells; ' I've got him.' But 
 the feller he 'lowed they was goin' to take 
 him away from me. Made me hot, and I 
 
30 The Honour of a Transgressor 
 
 put my hand up to my mouth and done 
 this " a wonderfully graphic and impudent 
 gesture with forked fingers and protruded 
 tongue. " That's the Sioux way of sayin' 
 1 You're a liar/ Twa'n't what I ought to 
 've done, only I was r'iled considerable. It 
 r'iled them some too; and they was four to 
 us two, and Turk tied hands and feet to his 
 pony; so the one in front, he gives a screech, 
 and then they struck for us, tight as they 
 could jump. 
 
 " I was down off my pony in a holy min- 
 ute, and had my knife out. ' It's honour 
 bright, Turky,' I says. 'Yep; you bet,' he 
 says; and I slashed the rope off of him and 
 give him his pistols, and then we got behind 
 our ponies and begun shootin'. I reckon 
 they'd misdoubted we'd fight. They wa'n't 
 more'n a hunderd and fifty yards off, and all 
 in a bunch, so 'twas dead easy. I got one of 
 'em, first shot, and he rolled heels over head, 
 kickin' up a heap o' dust where he hit the 
 ground; and then they took their cue and 
 
The Honour of a Transgressor 3 1 
 
 begun to spread out farther apart, droppin' 
 down on their ponies' sides, away from us. 
 Turk, his pistols was goin', spiteful, this 
 one and then that one, regular as a clock 
 tickin', and I reckon 'twas him that got the 
 next one. I ain't sure, because the smoke 
 from my rifle was in my face, and right then 
 a bullet cut clean plum through my pony's 
 backbone, back of the saddle, and went in 
 my left shoulder, here, and the pony went 
 down, and me with him. If there'd been 
 more of them Pawnees 'twould Ve been 
 some awkward likely, because I was jolted 
 up considerable ; but I had sense enough left, 
 layin' there, to whang away again, and I 
 seen my feller tumble; and then things got 
 all blurred, and I got a funny, sweet feelin' 
 in the pit of my stomach like I used to have 
 when I was a kid and whirled around till I 
 got dizzy; and then the little sense I had 
 quit me, all of a sudden. 
 
 " I come to, by and by, and seen Turk 
 stoopin' over me. He'd cut my coat and shirt 
 
32 The Honour of a Transgressor 
 
 off my shoulder, and was pluggin' up the 
 hole to stop the blood. When he seen I was 
 lookin' at him, he grinned, and he says, ' Lay 
 still ! I'll get her fixed in a minute,' and so I 
 lay still, kind o' wonderin' what the matter 
 was ; but the blamed thing hurt like all get- 
 out, and pretty soon it made me remember. 
 ' How many did we get, Turky ?' I says ; and 
 he holds up his hand, all bloody, with four 
 fingers stretched out, and grinned like he was 
 plum tickled to death. 'The last one was run- 
 nin' his pony like sin, jumpin' sideways/ he 
 says, ' so I couldn't cover him good with my 
 pistol; but I grabbed your rifle, and I got 
 him,' he says. That made me feel pretty 
 good, and I lay where I was till Turk had 
 got the bleedin' stopped a good bit; and then 
 he got his arms around me and helped me to 
 set up. My pony wa'n't dead yet, but his 
 hind quarters was par'lysed, back of where 
 the bullet had hit him, and the first thing I 
 done was to tell Turk to put him out of his 
 misery. And there we was, with only one 
 
The Honour of a Transgressor 33 
 
 pony between us, miles and miles back of 
 nowhere. 
 
 " Well, Turk he got me up on my feet 
 pretty soon, and helped me to climb straddle 
 of his pony, pilin' my things on in front o' 
 the saddle, and then he started to lead afoot. 
 Didn't take more 'n a couple rods to show me 
 'twa'n't no good. My shoulder hurt so it 
 fair made me blind, and I says, * Hold on, 
 Turky; I can't stand this jigglin';' and I 
 keeled out of the saddle, and he ketched me 
 and put me down on the ground. 
 
 "'Well, what be we goin' to do?' he 
 says, after a while, anxious-like. ' We can't 
 stay here,' he says, * because mebbe there's 
 more of 'em snoopin' 'round in the hills/ 
 ' There ain't nothin' to do,' I says, ' except 
 for you to go and get help. You'd best go 
 back to the sod-house we passed, eight or ten 
 mile, and see if they ain't got a waggon, or 
 somethin', and come after me. Only I'm 
 mighty bad off for a drink o' water/ I says. 
 ' Don't you reckon you could mebbe get me 
 
34 The Honour of a Transgressor 
 
 some, somewheres, before you light out ? If 
 I ain't dead wrong, there's a little branch a 
 mile or so ahead,' I says; and Turk, he took 
 my canteen and started to get on his pony, 
 and then he stops and lays my pistols down 
 beside me, and he stood and looked at me for 
 a minute. ' Am I goin' to take a gun ? ' he 
 says ; and I says, * Why, sure ! You may 
 need 'em.' Turk, he grinned, and he put on 
 his belt, and I give him some ca'tridges, and 
 then he struck out. He was gone an hour, 
 but he had the canteen full o' water when he 
 come back. Muddy water 'twas, and thick, 
 with a lot of different kinds of things in it, 
 and it stunk; but I'm dummed if it didn't 
 taste better than any water I'd drunk since I 
 drunk out of the big spring back home. I 
 drunk it all, wigglers and everything; and 
 then Turk, he helped me to hitch off to one 
 side of the trail, where I could get shelter in 
 some brush, and he fixed me as easy as he 
 could, and then he went off and left me. 
 " Sun went down after while, and it begun 
 
The Honour of a Transgressor 35 
 
 to get dark. My shoulder was swellin' pow- 
 erful bad, 'count o' some o' the bones bein' 
 mashed up pretty much. It hurt me so it 
 made me a little flighty in my head, times; 
 and then, besides, the worst of it was that I 
 wanted to smoke, and I didn't have no 
 matches. I was feelin' pretty mean, layin' 
 there and listenin' to the coyotes yelpin', off 
 on the prairie, closter and closter; only I 
 was thankful they was goin' to eat Pawnee- 
 meat, instead o' mine. I got awful lonesome 
 in the dark there; but while I was waitin' 
 and waitin' and waitin', do you know it 
 never come to me once to suspicion that 
 Turk wouldn't be back? It never did. 
 And I'm mighty glad it didn't. 
 
 " 'Twas away along somewhere in the 
 night when I heerd a waggon comin'. 
 Axle-grease must 've been scarce out there 
 then. I heerd the wheels goin' squeak, 
 squeak, squeak, long before I heerd anything 
 else, till I got to thinkin' 'twas some new 
 kind of a Goliah of a cricket, or mebbe 'twas 
 
36 The Honour of a Transgressor 
 
 inside my head; and then I heerd the gear 
 rattlin', and by and by their voices, one 
 and then the other, talkin'. I'd never 
 knowed how far you could hear things 
 acrost the prairies, night-time, till then. 
 Seemed like 'twas a whole year till they 
 come up, and Turk hollered to me. He'd 
 found his man, all right, and a waggon ; but 
 the rickety old contraption had broke down, 
 a time or two, and a tire had come off, and 
 they'd had to build a fire and fix it. They'd 
 got a pile o' straw in the bottom o' the bed, 
 with blankets over it, and they lifted me in, 
 makin' it as easy as they could. 
 
 " They'd made up their minds how it 
 wouldn't do to go on ahead towards the 
 reservation, nor yet back to the feller's 
 place. 'Twa'n't likely but there'd be 
 more of them Pawnees come out our way, 
 after them ponies had got back to the res- 
 ervation, with nobody on 'em. So they'd 
 made it up that they'd strike off from the 
 trail and go acrost the prairie, south, to a 
 
The Honour of a Transgressor 37 
 
 little settlement, twenty mile or so, where 
 there was some kind of a man-and-beast 
 doctor that they reckoned could help me 
 out. 'Twas Jenks' notion Jenks was the 
 chap with the waggon, and he was all right. 
 There he was, just as good as leavin' his 
 place to be plundered and burnt, if the 
 Pawnees was to start on a big tear; but he 
 wouldn't listen to no talk about that, so long 
 as there was somebody that needed him. So 
 we turned off on the prairie, with Turk ridin' 
 his pony ahead, to pick our trail, and Jenks 
 drivin', with me back on that pile of straw, 
 gettin' the daylights jolted out of me every 
 time the wheels hit a bump. Land, land! 
 I wouldn't take that ride now, stout and 
 hearty as I be, not for no money; and then 
 'twas a hunderd times worse, 'count of my 
 shoulder. I just lay back and gritted my 
 teeth till they was wore down smooth. 
 
 "Jenks was a pretty good hand to talk. 
 Must 've been lonesome for him, livin' out 
 there like he'd done. Every time I'd come 
 
38 The Honour of a Transgressor 
 
 to myself, out o' one o' them fits of holdin' 
 my breath and wishin' I was dead, I'd hear 
 him a-goin' on, like the squeak of his wag- 
 gon-wheels talk, talk, talk, and not ap- 
 pearin' to care whether I said nothin' or not. 
 I wa'n't payin' any attention till by and by 
 he says, ' That Turk Wesley's a mighty 
 nervy chap, ain't he ? Thinks a sight of you, 
 don't he ? ' * Oh, I don't know as he does/ 
 I says. There wa'n't no reason why he 
 should, particular, and I told the feller how 
 'twas. 'But if he didn't,' he says, 'he 
 wouldn't be doin' what he's doin' now, run- 
 nin' his neck into a rope, much as his life's 
 worth.' ' What's that? ' I says. ' What do 
 you mean?' 'Why,' he says, ' goin' down 
 where we're goin'. He's knowed down 
 there mighty well, and folks has been waitin' 
 for him for quite a spell.' ' That so ? ' I says ; 
 and that set me to thinkin'. 'Twouldn't 
 do; and pretty soon I tells Jenks to call 
 Turk back, and when he come alongside the 
 waggon, I says, ' Turk, I ain't goin' to allow 
 
The Honour of a Transgressor 39 
 
 this. You're my prisoner, and you know 
 I'm responsible for you, and bound to take 
 you to Omaha and turn you over, regular; 
 and you know I ain't in no shape to protect 
 you/ But Turk, he only laughed. ' What 
 you been stealin' down here?' I says; and 
 he says, l Horses.' That was bad, and I told 
 him so ; but he just kep' a-laughin', and he 
 said he reckoned he knowed what he was 
 doin'. I 'lowed he didn't have no call to 
 make a fool of himself, just because he hap- 
 pened to know how ; and I says, ' Turk, 
 look here! you just keep away from this 
 outfit of our'n. The way it's turned out,' I 
 says, ' the best thing for you to do is to clear 
 out, and after a while, when I'm over this, 
 I'll come back and 'rest you again/ ' Not 
 by a damned sight you won't,' Turk says. 
 He was right up on his ear. ' There's no 
 livin' man '11 ever ketch me no more, not 
 with a hay-fork nor nothin' else. You shut 
 up/ he says. ' I know what I'm doin'. It 
 'd be a likely story for you to tell back in 
 
40 The Honour of a Transgressor 
 
 Omaha, wouldn't it? that you'd caught me 
 and then turned me loose because you was 
 scared somethin' might happen to me ! You 
 just keep your mouth shut. You're in this 
 fix on account of me,' he says, ' and I'm goin' 
 to stay by you. You acted white with me,' 
 he says, ' and I ain't the one to get you into 
 trouble, me runnin' off now.' He wouldn't 
 say no more, but just rode ahead again, and 
 we kep' on towards the settlement. 
 
 " 'Twas the grey of the mornin' when we 
 come in sight of it; and then Turk he 
 dropped back again beside the waggon, and 
 he says, ' I ain't goin' in. I'm goin' to 
 quit you here and hide out somewheres, 
 handy, till you get ready to start back. I'll 
 be watchin' out, and then I'll j'in you/ 
 he says ; and with that he puts off up a little 
 creek-bottom that we come to. 
 
 " Jenks, he took me in, and they put me 
 to bed and fetched the chap they called the 
 doctor. Lord! There was two weeks I 
 was out of my head; and 'twas a month 
 
The Honour of a Transgressor 4 1 
 
 before I could set up. Then Jenks, he told 
 me. 'Twould 've been better if Turk had kep' 
 away, like I wanted him to. Some way or 
 other they'd got wind of him, and they'd 
 got a committee together and started to hunt 
 for him. They'd run up on him one night 
 where he was hidin' and nabbed him while 
 he was asleep, and his pull hadn't done him 
 a mite of good. I was powerful sorry. 
 He'd played it mighty square with me. 
 
 " But, Billy, it's like I tell you. When a 
 man's a born fool there ain't no help for it; 
 he's got to take the consequences. That 
 was the trouble with Turk: he was a born 
 fool. In my time I've seen a whole lot of 
 fools just exactly like Turk; and Turk he 
 certainly was one of 'em." 
 
Ill 
 
 A MICROSCOPIC boy mounted upon 
 a cosmic horse came slowly down the 
 road leading to the town watering-trough. 
 He was riding bareback; his stubby legs 
 were stretched perilously far apart over 
 the wide ridge of knotty spine, but his bare 
 toes were clutched hard against the sweat- 
 slippery flanks, and his eyes shone with a 
 confident courage. 
 
 The watering-trough is at the curb-line of 
 the street, in front of the post-office. Uncle 
 Mac was standing in the shadow of the 
 building, waiting for the morning's mail to 
 be brought up from the railway station ; but 
 as the odd pair drew up, and the horse put 
 down its greedy muzzle to drink, the old 
 man stepped to the edge of the walk, and 
 put out his big hand, touching the tiny earth- 
 stained foot caressingly. 
 42 
 
Big-Governor-Afraid 4 3 
 
 " Hello, Tommy," he said softly. " Say, 
 I ain't seen you this two or three days. 
 Where you been?" 
 
 Tommy answered with the air of a com- 
 rade. " Been workin'. Foxtail was all 
 growed up in the 'tater patch, and Dad made 
 us kids pull it out. Gee, Uncle Mac, you 
 oughter seen the fish-worms! Say, why is 
 they always such millions an* millions o' 
 fish-worms just when a kid can't go fishin' ? " 
 
 The bearded face wrinkled into a sym- 
 pathetic smile, but the old man did not choose 
 to commit himself upon that unanswerable 
 riddle. " Say, Billy," he said to me gravely, 
 " this is Tommy the Indian Killer. Tommy 
 the Indian Killer, that's what I call him. 
 He's learnin' to be a man and ride horseback, 
 so when he's growed up, him and me can go 
 out and fight the red-skins. Ain't that so, 
 Tommy?" 
 
 Tommy's little back straightened, and his 
 chin went up many degrees. " You bet ! " 
 he cried. " We're goin' to do 'em up, ain't 
 
44 Big-Governor-Afraid 
 
 we, Uncle Mac ? We're goin to be pardners, 
 ain't we? An' all the Indians we kill, we're 
 goin' to take their scalps, an' their ponies, 
 an' their guns an' spears, an' sell 'em. Say, 
 Uncle Mac, I ast Dad last night, an' he said 
 if I'm a good boy till I get growed up, why, 
 he'll gimme ten cents apiece for every scalp 
 I get. Won't that be pretty good? How 
 many do you reckon I oughter get in a day, 
 Uncle Mac? Ahunderd?" 
 
 Uncle Mac's sympathy fought a sharp 
 battle with his colder sense of probability. 
 " I reckon, Tommy," he laughed, " if the 
 weather was good, and things was just right, 
 some days we might mebbe get as many as 
 a hunderd; but not every day, hardly. I 
 wouldn't fret none about that, though, yet. 
 You just keep on practisin' to be strong and 
 brave, and not scared of nothin', so when the 
 time comes you can stand right up to 'em. 
 That's the best way/' 
 
 "Yes, that's what I'm a-doin', Uncle Mac. 
 I don't want to be no coward. I don't 
 
Big-Governor-Afraid 45 
 
 want to be no Big-Governor-Afraid-of-the 
 Cotton- wood- Stump, do I ? " 
 
 " Well, I should hope not." 
 
 " Big-Governor what ? " I asked. 
 
 " Big - Governor-Afraid - of - the - Cotton- 
 wood-Stump," Tommy repeated. " That's 
 Indian, you know. Ain't Uncle Mac ever 
 told you about him ? Shucks ! Uncle Mac, 
 tell him!" 
 
 The little treble carried a note of com- 
 mand, and the gentle old fellow obeyed. 
 
 " Land, Billy, ain't you never heerd about 
 Big-Governor? I thought everybody in 
 Nebrasky knowed about him ; he was such a 
 wonder. 
 
 " That was away back Lord, I 'most 
 hate to say how long ago it was. Them 
 days Nebrasky was just a young Terri- 
 tory hadn't been organised but a couple 
 year, and was just toddlin' 'round in short 
 pants, you might say, gettin' used to its own 
 feet. The Federal Gover'ment seemed to 
 think that because we was so young we 
 
46 Big-Governor-Afraid 
 
 needed a guardeen, and they never reckoned 
 there was any man out here good enough for 
 the place. Had to be Eastern men, 'most 
 generally. Eastern fellers was slicker in 
 politics than us. Big-Governor he come 
 from back East, somewheres. I ain't goin' 
 to tell you where, because I don't rightly 
 remember, and I wouldn't want to hurt their 
 feelin's, anyway, tellin' it. He was certainly 
 a wonder ! He wa'n't never actually Gover- 
 nor ; but he thought he had it all fixed so he 
 was goin' to be, and along in the summer 
 there was some o' the boys got wind he was 
 comin' out here to kind o' nose around a lit- 
 tle, before he got his app'intment. He'd 
 wrote to some of 'em that he knowed, up to 
 Omaha, askin' 'em if they wouldn't meet 
 him when he come, and give him a sort of a 
 send-off; and we done it. 
 
 " He come up from St. Louie, on a steam- 
 boat, some time along in the middle of sum- 
 mer, and a lot of us fellers was hangin' 
 'round, waitin' for him. We knowed right 
 
Big-Governor-Afraid 47 
 
 off what kind of a duck he was, soon as he 
 begun to quack about his 'idears' for runnin' 
 things. He hadn't more 'n got off the boat, 
 togged out in his long, black coat, and 
 started up the road with us, till he begun to 
 let off his fool talk, that didn't have any 
 more to do with Nebrasky than it did with 
 the Jerushy Islands. What we'd been 
 hopin' for was a wise man to come out here 
 and help; and we reckoned we'd know him 
 by the sign of his keepin' his mouth shut till 
 he'd found out a few things. But when this 
 feller begun to blat while he hadn't got both 
 feet off the gang-plank, and wouldn't let 
 none of us hardly say a word, it made me 
 laugh. Makes me laugh yet. But we didn't 
 care. Didn't make no difference to us how 
 big an idiot he was, so long as we knowed 
 enough to keep on doin' our work, and had 
 patience to wait till after while, same as we'd 
 been doin' before. 
 
 "Indians had been makin' a heap o' 
 trouble that spring and summer. They 
 
4 8 Big-Governor -Afraid 
 
 wa'n't pesterin' the whites so much as they 
 was all balled up with each other. Seemed 
 like every little last tribe of 'em was on the 
 war-path, most o' the time, against some 
 other tribe, till 'twas most as bad as sev'ral 
 families of kin-folk tryin' to live in one 
 house together. The only times they'd 
 bothered the whites was when they'd get 
 hungry near some settler's little patch, and 
 turn in by night and steal everything he had 
 they could pack off. Most of the settlers 
 wa'n't any too well fixed, anyway, and it 
 r'iled 'em up considerable to have a passel 
 of them dauby thieves slip up in the dark and 
 run off with the only horse a feller had to 
 do his ploughin' with, or mebbe the only cow 
 he had to give milk for his kids. There 
 didn't seem to be no way to stop it, neither, 
 except as every man kind o' looked out for 
 himself, the best he could. There wa'n't 
 no soldiers in the country, them days, only 
 just little dabs of 'em, here and there, a 
 long ways apart. What could they do? 
 
Big-Governor-Afraid 49 
 
 " Well, this here Big-Governor, he'd kind 
 o' got an * idear ' up his nose that there was 
 some kind of an Indian problem for him to 
 settle out here. He begun to orate and tell 
 us about it right off, when we was comin' 
 up the road with him. * Kindness/ he says, 
 * firm kindness, that's my theory o' dealin' 
 with the red men/ he says; and he kep' on 
 with it till you'd 've thought he was some 
 kind of a William Pennsylvania. But we 
 listened, taggin' along with him; and we 
 couldn't get a chance to say nothin' but just 
 ' yes ' and ' no/ just like we was wax- works 
 doll-babies. By the time we'd got up to the 
 hotel, I kind o' suspicioned there'd be some 
 fun before he went back home to his folks. 
 
 " There wa'n't anything mean about him, 
 though ; I'll say that for him. He was a real 
 liberal kind of a chap. He knowed some- 
 thin' about drinks, and there wa'n't anything 
 too good for the boys that night. We 
 stayed with him, too. He wa'n't much of a 
 tank himself, though, because we was settin' 
 
50 Big-Governor-Afraid 
 
 'round a big table in the barroom, and it 
 hadn't got to be more 'n about ten o'clock till 
 he begun to show the signs. The sweat 
 come out all over his little fat pink face, and 
 his eyes begun to water and talk! Say, I 
 heerd a woman-Populist, once, makin' cam- 
 paign speeches, down in Kansas; but she 
 was the only thing I ever did hear that could 
 come within miles of Big-Governor that 
 night. But pretty soon the nigger porter 
 come and took him off to bed. 
 
 " Well, we set and looked at each other 
 for a spell, after he'd gone; and then pretty 
 soon somebody begun to laugh. We all 
 laughed some, kind o' foolish and ashamed, 
 you know ; and after awhile there was a little 
 feller from up north a piece, he rubbed the 
 tears out of his eyes on the back of his hand, 
 and he says, ' What in the name o' God are 
 we goin' to do with him, boys ? ' There was 
 another feller from out on the Loup said 
 we'd oughter start a zo'logical garden with 
 him; and then there was a great big old 
 
Big-Governor-Afraid 5 1 
 
 rooster that used to ride around the prairies, 
 them days, kind o' doctorin' the women and 
 children, and he had a voice on him like a 
 cow bawlin', and he ups and yells, ' Kind- 
 ness firm kindness. That's my theory o' 
 dealin' with the little man/ Some said this, 
 and some that. 'Twas awful funny, but it 
 didn't seem to come to nothin'. 
 
 " But next mornin', before breakfast, old 
 Doc and me and the Loup man, we run up 
 against each other, on the sidewalk in front 
 o' the hotel, and we fixed it up then. We 
 didn't let nobody know ; but along some time 
 in the mornin', after Big-Governor had been 
 showed around town some, and had got back 
 to his room, we sent word up by the nigger 
 porter that we wanted to see him, and pretty 
 soon we was upstairs. 
 
 " When we went in, he was settin' there, 
 bareheaded. That was one of his fool ways, 
 takin' off his hat every time he got indoors. 
 So Doc, he pulled off his dusty old hat, and 
 me and the other feller did too; and we stood 
 
5 2 Big-Governor-Afraid 
 
 around till Big-Governor says, ' Don't stand, 
 gentlemen/ he says. ' 'Tain't necessary to 
 stand up for me. I'm just a plain man, that 
 wants to be treated like one o' you, right 
 from the start. Seddown, please, gentle- 
 men,' he says. But we wouldn't seddown. 
 Doc, he drawed himself up he was six foot 
 and better and he says, ' Your Excellency,' 
 he says, ' we was very favourably impressed 
 with your remarks yesterday about your 
 notion of dealin' kindly with the Indians. 
 We reckon mebbe that's been most o' the 
 trouble; they've been shoved around, and 
 abused, and kept down, and worried pretty 
 nigh plum to death, and ain't had no show, 
 nohow. Strikes us that ain't right,' he says, 
 ' and we reckoned we'd come in and tell you 
 how glad we be that you're goin' to make a 
 new start and do different.' Big-Governor, 
 he grinned as wide as he could between his 
 side-whiskers, and he stood up and tucked 
 his fingers in his arm-holes, and bowed, till 
 it seemed 'most too bad to fool with him. 
 
Big-Governor-Afraid 5 3 
 
 But Doc, he wa'n't squeamish. ' There's 
 just one thing,' he says, ' that strikes us as a 
 good chance to show the Indians what your 
 feelin's are towards 'em. It's been on our 
 minds, us fellers, for a good spell; but we 
 ain't never seen just how we could fix it, not 
 havin' no means of our own, and no 
 particular influence, like you've got. But 
 the way we figured it out,' he says, ' was 
 that if a thing's right, and fair and square, 
 and you can see it's so, why, 'tain't goin' to 
 take no particular influence to get you to do 
 the fair thing,' he says. And Big-Governor, 
 he bowed some more, and he says, ' Cer- 
 tainly not.' And then Doc, he says, * This 
 thing I'm talkin' about, it's about the Paw- 
 nees. Mebbe you know, Your Excellency, 
 that the Pawnees is one o' the very best 
 Indian families we got, like some families 
 back East that's old and respectable. 
 Trouble is, the Pawnees is poor ; but they're 
 devilish proud, so's they keep their mouths 
 shut about the way they're fixed, and won't 
 
54 Big-Governor-Afraid 
 
 let on to nobody. But that won't do/ he 
 says, 'when men like us comes to see how 
 they're sufferin'. Now here 'tis, with win- 
 ter gettin' toler'ble clost, and there's them 
 poor fellers out on the prairie, not noways 
 half provided for, come cold weather. I 
 reckon they can make shift to feed their- 
 selves, like they been doin'; and they've got 
 blankets and tents, so's they won't actually 
 freeze to death. But what they do need bad 
 is hats. It's a burnin' shame, the way 
 they've been let go bareheaded, all kinds o' 
 weather. It's gospel truth, Your Excel- 
 lency, that there ain't hardly a weather-tight 
 hat for man, woman, nor child on the whole 
 reservation; so they got to go 'round with 
 their blankets drawed up over their heads, 
 to keep from ketchin' their death o' cold. 
 Tain't right, Your Excellency,' Doc says, 
 'it just ain't right, in a Christian country 
 like this ; and that's why we come to you,' he 
 says. 
 
 "Big Governor, he'd listened, serious as 
 
Big-Governor-Afraid 5 5 
 
 a horse, kind o' clickin' his tongue; and 
 whenever Doc 'd give him a chance, he'd 
 say, ' You don't tell me ! My, my ! 
 Shockin' ! ' And then when Doc was 
 through, Big-Governor he says, ' I'll call it 
 to the attention of the gover'ment at once, 
 gentlemen at once.' But Doc, he looked 
 worried, and anxious, and he says, l Beg 
 pardon, Your Excellency; but seems to us 
 like there ought to be somethin' done right 
 off. Gover'ment's too slow. Time they 
 get around to it, it '11 be hot weather again, 
 so's the hats won't be needed so much. It's 
 presumin' a good deal, I reckon,' he says, 
 ' but we didn't know but you might have 
 some friends o' your'n back East that would 
 feel like takin' some interest in 'em and 
 fixin' 'em out, some kind o' shape, come 
 winter.' 
 
 " Big-Governor, he stood and studied a 
 minute, and then he says, * I reckon mebbe 
 that's so, gentlemen,' and he says, * Please 
 seddown a minute, gentlemen, till I write a 
 
5 6 Big-Governor-Afraid 
 
 letter/ So we seddown, holdin' our hats, 
 and lookin' 'round at the walls, and every- 
 where but at each other. We didn't dast 
 do that. Big-Governor, he drawed his 
 writin'-paper up in front of him and begun 
 to write. He wrote pages and pages, 
 stoppin' every once in a while to ask some 
 fool question about how many Pawnees 
 there was, and what kind o' hats we 
 reckoned they needed, and whether mebbe 
 they wa'n't too proud to wear second-hand 
 white folks' hats. But Doc, he says, ' No ; 
 I give you my word, Your Excellency, they'll 
 take it kind, like it's meant, and be real glad 
 to get 'em; don't matter if they be wore 
 some.' So Big-Governor he kep' on writin' 
 till it looked like a love-letter, and then 
 pretty soon he signed his name to it, and 
 then he sorted it out and started in to read 
 it to us. Billy, he'd actually wrote the 
 whole dummed story to the head medicine- 
 man of a Methodist church back where he 
 come from, just like Doc told it, only more 
 
Big-Governor-Afraid 5 7 
 
 so, puttin' in lots o' little fancy touches we 
 wouldn't 've thought of, and makin' it sound 
 so sorrowful I swear I'd 've cried if I hadn't 
 been bustin' with tryin' not to laugh. And 
 then he folded it up, and he says, ' There, 
 gentlemen, I'll send that right back, first 
 mail,' he says ; and then me and Doc and the 
 Loup man, we shook hands with him, and 
 Doc says how thankful he was, and then we 
 slid out. 
 
 " We never said a word to nobody. 
 There's plenty of folks can be trusted with 
 'most everything else, but you never can say 
 who it's safe to trust a joke with. We went 
 back home, till by and by, six weeks or so 
 afterwards, I got a letter from Big-Gover- 
 nor, tellin' me to come to Omaha ; and when 
 I got there, the first man I seen was Doc, 
 with one o' the same kind o' letters. So we 
 went up together to see Big-Governor. 
 Soon as we'd shook hands, he says, ' You 
 remember, gentlemen, of my intercedin' on 
 behalf of the needy Pawnees? ' and then he 
 
5 8 Big-Governor-Afraid 
 
 pulled a letter out of his pocket and showed 
 it to us, from the preacher he'd wrote to, 
 callin' him ' Dear Brother/ and tellin' him 
 how his appeal for them poor, sufferin' 
 Indian critters had been read out in meetin', 
 and then been passed around to other 
 churches in the same town, and they'd done 
 the best they could, and he was proud to say 
 he was sendin' along with his letter two 
 boxes of assorted hats, which he hoped the 
 Lord would bless, and mebbe put some 
 thoughts into the heads that wore 'em. Big- 
 Governor, he took us down the road a piece, 
 where there was an empty shack, and there 
 was the boxes. Billy, I ain't never seen 
 such big boxes ; no, sir, I never ain't. 
 
 " Big-Governor, he strutted around, 
 flappin' his wings, and gettin' a heap o' 
 satisfaction out o' the way me and Doc was 
 pleased. We was sure pleased, too, and no 
 mistake. Then pretty soon he says, ' Well, 
 gentlemen, now that part's 'tended to, seems 
 to me like you ought to have part o' the 
 
Big-Governor-Afraid 5 9 
 
 credit, seein' as 'twas your idea; so I'm 
 goin' to turn them boxes over to you/ he 
 says, ' if you can spare the time, and I'll see 
 there's a waggon provided for you, at my 
 expense, to take them hats out and kind o' 
 look after distributin' 'em.' Dummed if he 
 didn't do it, too ! Of course, we was agree- 
 able; we just turned in and escorted them 
 hats out to the reservation the best style we 
 knowed. Soon as we'd told the agent, why, 
 he was agreeable, too; and the next day or 
 two them greasy Pawnees come in by 
 bunches and herds, and we pried the lids off 
 the boxes and turned 'em loose. 
 
 "You'd 've died, Billy! 'Twas the 
 funniest thing that ever happened in Ne- 
 brasky. There was women's hats and 
 men's, half and half, and the women's hats 
 was all trigged out in pink roses and 
 feathers and beads, and the men's was like 
 they wore back East them days shiny 
 plugs, and them kind ; and when me and Doc 
 give the word, them buck Indians just 
 
6 o Big-Governor-Afraid 
 
 actually made the squaws stand back and 
 wait while they helped theirselves to the 
 feathers and flowers and things, and then 
 the squaws come in at the last for the plugs. 
 Years and years, anybody that went out 
 around the Pawnees would see them big 
 bucks stalkin' 'round, with their dirty 
 blankets drawed up around 'em, and what 
 was left of them fool hats stuck sideways 
 on their frowsy heads, till they was just 
 plum tore to tatters. Now that's no 
 lie." 
 
 "Uncle Mac!" Tommy shrilled, wrig- 
 gling with emotion. " Uncle Mac, you've 
 told the wrong story. You was goin' to tell 
 about the cotton- wood stump." 
 
 " Yes, I know, honey. But that hat busi- 
 ness just showed! That about the cotton- 
 wood stump was what got him his name, 
 and 'twas of a piece with the other one. 
 
 1 'Twas two or three weeks, mebbe, after 
 me and Doc had gone out o' the millinery 
 business, that there was a big stealin' by a 
 
Big-Governor-Afraid 6 1 
 
 Sioux war-party out on the Platte some- 
 wheres, a hundred mile or so. Made a big 
 talk, because they'd mistreated some o' the 
 settlers. I was with Big-Governor when 
 the story come down to the river; I'd been 
 with him a heap, 'count of him bein' such a 
 comical cuss. Seemed like he'd found 
 things to worry him a lot, since he come to 
 Nebrasky mostly because they wouldn't 
 do like he told 'em about his idiot ' Indian 
 problem/ The tribes had all been pawin' 
 up the dirt that summer, more-less, and it 
 aggravated him. When he heerd this last 
 story, he got right up on his ear. The boys 
 was talkin' about it down in the street, and 
 Big-Governor listened a while, and then he 
 tucked his hands under his coat-tails and 
 begun to prance up and down, swearin' 
 some o' them no-'count little pop-gun cuss- 
 words they learn back East ; and then pretty 
 soon he stops and looks around at some of 
 us fellers that was watchin' him, and he 
 says, ' It's shameful ! ' he says, * and I ain't 
 
62 Big-Governor-Afraid 
 
 goin' to have no more of it. I'll just take 
 hold myself/ he says, ' and show you 
 farmers how to do. If you'd been men 
 from the start, and acted like you had hearts 
 in you, 'twouldn't Ve happened/ We just 
 stood there and grinned, and not sayin' 
 nothin'. 'Twa'n't noways possible to get 
 mad at him. ' Now lookee here,' he says, 
 ' I'm goin' to put a stop to it myself. How 
 many of you is there that's willin' to go out 
 to where this last story comes from and 
 clear the trouble up, providin' I'll lead you? 
 Now then ! ' 
 
 " Well, there was a considerable bunch of 
 us standin' around him by then, and seemed 
 like it struck us all about the same way, be- 
 cause we all says, why, sure, we'd go. Of 
 course we'd go ! Right on the face of it the 
 thing looked so promisin', I reckon we'd 
 have agreed to go with him to China in goat- 
 waggons, if he'd said so. 
 
 " ' There, see that? ' he says, kind o' per- 
 kin' up his head sideways at us. 'Just as 
 
Big-Governor-Afraid 6 3 
 
 soon as a man of idears and decision takes 
 hold/ he says, ' it brings things right to a 
 show-down/ And he says, l My idear, gen- 
 tlemen, is just to get up a small party, twenty 
 or thirty, and have 'em armed right, and 
 every man ready to stand by me and do his 
 duty. If you'll do that,' he says, ' we'll wind 
 this thing up before the week's out.' And 
 then he begun givin' his orders for outfittin' 
 us. Sounds dummed unlikely, don't it ? but 
 it's the plum truth that before night he'd 
 got more 'n twenty of us sinners enlisted to 
 go along with him on the foolishest trip that 
 was ever made on the prairies. That ain't 
 all, neither. Soon as the story got around, 
 seemed like every able-bodied man in town 
 was just wild to go; he could 've had two 
 hunderd, and they was willin' to pay their 
 own way, if he'd only take 'em. But, ' No,' 
 he says, ' 'twon't take many, so long as they 
 just keep ca'm and firm,' he says. ' With 
 what I've got, I'll guarantee there won't be 
 no more Indian uprisin's in Nebrasky, not 
 
64 Big-Governor-Afraid 
 
 while I'm here/ He was fair tickled to 
 death. 
 
 " By noon next day he got us all ready. 
 There was some solemn-minded critters 
 around town that actually went to him and 
 tried to spoil it, tellin' him 'twouldn't do no 
 good, and would only make talk. That was 
 true enough; nobody couldn't have denied 
 it. But he wouldn't listen to nobody; he 
 never was much of a hand to listen, nohow. 
 No, sir; he was just naturally goin' to set 
 the mark for all the Indian campaigns that 
 come after him. I reckon he done it, too, 
 with what help we give him. 
 
 " He had pretty correct notions about 
 providin' for a campaign, though; I'll say 
 that for him. Besides horses and blankets 
 and guns, there was a giant of a big freight- 
 waggon, drawed with four mules, that was 
 chuck-full o' truck. Big-Governor, he'd 
 looked after that himself, and he'd been used 
 to good, tender feedin'. I'm blessed if I 
 know where he'd picked it all up, because 
 
Big-Governor-Afraid 6 5 
 
 Omaha wa'n't no particular headquarters 
 for them kind o' things, them days; but 
 he'd got it somewheres canned stuff, and 
 cigars, and drinks land! He wa'n't out 
 here long, but the boys learned they could 
 always trust him for pickin' out the drinks. 
 
 " Well, seemed like everybody in Omaha 
 that could crawl was there to see us off. 
 Big-Governor, he was up at the head him- 
 self, hollerin' out his orders to us ; and he'd 
 picked up a slim little sword somewheres, 
 and got it tied 'round his middle, and he'd 
 got a big, wide-brimmed hat on, like the 
 rest of us wore, only bran'-new, with a gilt 
 string. Oh, he was a wonder ! Pretty soon 
 he'd got us strung out like he wanted us, 
 and then he squeals, ' 'Tention ! Forward, 
 march ! ' 
 
 " Well, we kep' pretty well in line till we'd 
 got out o' town; but when we got out on 
 the road there wa'n't nothin' could 've kep' 
 us straight. We just picknicked. Couldn't 
 make no kind o' time, on account of the com- 
 
66 Big-Governor-Afraid 
 
 missariat waggon; we didn't want to get 
 too far away from that. We just acted like 
 a passel of colts, till it come along about 
 five o'clock, and then we hunted a place to 
 camp. We didn't know where we was goin', 
 nor we didn't care, so long as we made 
 campin' places regular. We'd only gone ten 
 or twelve mile since dinner, but we was pow- 
 erful hungry. Big-Governor, he'd hired a 
 cook to come with us from the hotel, and I 
 want to tell you that boy knowed his busi- 
 ness. 
 
 " When we couldn't eat no more, 'twas 
 gettin' along towards dark, and then Big- 
 Governor stood up and made us a speech, 
 and he says, ' Gentlemen/ he says, ' I don't 
 begrudge you havin' a good time; but you 
 must remember this here's a military cam- 
 paign, and it must be run right. I'm goin' 
 to divide you up in three watches,' he says, 
 ' with fifteen doin' sentry duty every night, 
 and the rest '11 take care of the horses and 
 camp. Sentry duty,' he says, ' will begin at 
 
Big-Governor-Afraid 6 7 
 
 dark and last till sun-up, and I hope there 
 won't be no objection/ he says. 
 
 " Nobody wouldn't have objected to 
 nothin'. If he'd told us to make the cam- 
 paign in Mother Hubbards and false faces, 
 we'd have done it. You can't think, Billy, 
 how we felt. We felt just right. I was one 
 o' the first shift to go on post, and we just 
 tucked our rifles up on our shoulders and 
 went out a hunderd yards or so from camp 
 and hunted around till we'd found a nice, 
 easy place, and then we seddown to kind o' 
 study out what we was goin' to do. 
 
 " Pretty soon us fellers out there could 
 hear that things was warmin' up some, back 
 in camp. I reckon the liquor had got started 
 around considerable, and they was yellin' 
 and hollerin' and laughin' and havin' a bully 
 time. Got kind o' lonesome, out there in the 
 dark, and dry, too, and I reckon that helped 
 us to make up our minds. Along about ten 
 o'clock we'd got it fixed, and then the rest 
 of the boys scattered out around the camp, 
 
6 8 Big-Governor-Afraid 
 
 a good ways apart, and I sneaked back to- 
 wards the fire, tryin' the best I knowed how 
 to look plum scared to death. I went up to 
 Big-Governor and touched him on the 
 shoulder and motioned him off to one side, 
 and I says, ' Your Excellency/ I says, ' I 
 reckon 'twas a good move, havin' sentries 
 out. Unless I'm fooled/ I says, ' there's an 
 Indian out there now, spyin' 'round. I wish 
 you'd come out along with me/ I says, ' and 
 take a look at him, because I can't be dead 
 sure.' 'You don't tell me!' he says. 'I 
 was 'feared of it. You can't never tell 
 about them sneakin' critters. Where's he 
 at ? ' he says ; and then when I'd p'inted 
 out towards the dark, he gets me down 
 under the shadder of the waggon, and then 
 he makes me get down on my hands and 
 knees and lead him out that way, crawlin', 
 a plum hunderd yards, to where we'd been 
 settin', and all the way I could fair feel the 
 ground tremble under him. 
 
 " There was a cotton-wood stump out 
 
Big-Governor-Afraid 69 
 
 there, standin' about six foot high, and with 
 some kind o' vines growin' up over it, that 
 was shakin' in the wind. Didn't look so 
 dummed much unlike an Indian, after all, 
 with his blanket drawed up around him. 
 ' There he is ! ' I says. ' I couldn't see him 
 that well before, but I'm dead sure of it 
 now. It certainly is an Indian, Your Ex- 
 cellency,' I says. He was down flat on the 
 ground, grippin' the grass with both his 
 hands and chokin' for breath. * Oh, dear ! ' 
 he says. ' Oh, dear ! God save us ! What 
 are we goin' to do ? ' I never said nothin', 
 but I crep' as close as I could beside him, 
 till I could smell the whiskey on him, and 
 I got my rifle up alongside his ear and 
 whanged away; and right quick the feller 
 beyond us on the left, he shoots off his'n, 
 and he yells, ' Look out in camp ! Indians ! ' 
 and then I yells, ' Run, Your Excellency ; 
 run for your life ! ' and the feller over on the 
 right, he lets go with his rifle. 
 
 " Billy, I've heerd tell there ain't nobody 
 
jo Big-Governor-Afraid 
 
 that can run away from his shadder, nor yet 
 step on it; but I'm tellin' you the truth: 
 Big-Governor done both, right then and 
 there, and had lot's o' time to spare besides. 
 Run! It does beat all how deceivin' some 
 folks is in their looks. I'm willin' to own 
 up that I'd misjudged Big-Governor shame- 
 ful. I hadn't more 'n got up off my belly 
 and turned 'round to look at him till he 
 was half-way to camp, jumpin' high, like 
 an elk, and yellin' twice to each jump. No, 
 sir; there ain't nobody need say nothin' to 
 me about runnin', not after that. 
 
 " Well, soon as I could, I picked myself 
 up and loped along after him into camp. 
 The boys was mixed up considerable, and no 
 shame to 'em. They didn't know what to 
 think. But soon as they seen us fellers 
 comin' in, and got a chance to look at us, 
 par'lysed with laughin' like we was, they 
 knowed what was the matter. Most of 'em 
 had done their share o' drinkin', so's they 
 was ready to do their part, when we told 
 
Big-Governor-Afraid 7 1 
 
 'em, and we begun to hunt around for Big- 
 Governor. But we couldn't find him, no, sir ; 
 high nor low, we couldn't find hide nor 
 hair of him. We yelled and hollered, but 
 'twa'n't no manner o' use he was clean 
 gone. We reckoned he'd skinned out for 
 Omaha, so we just seddown to make our- 
 selves to home. The cook, he'd gone to bed, 
 but we hauled him out and put him to work. 
 'Twa'n't no use to let all them good victuals 
 get wasted. He'd got a kettle of water on 
 the fire, and the rest of us we was rum- 
 magin' in the waggon, turnin' things over 
 to find what we wanted most, and raisin* 
 Cain generally, when pretty soon there 
 was a thin little scared squeal come from 
 somewheres, sounded like a long ways off. 
 1 Listen ! ' somebody says, and when we 
 stopped our devilment we heerd it again. 
 ' Gentlemen ! ' it says, ' gentlemen, won't you 
 please help me out ? ' ' Who in thunder's 
 that ? ' one feller answers back ; and the 
 squeak says, ' I'm your leader. Won't you 
 
7 2 Big-Governor-Afraid 
 
 please help me out ? ' ' Help you out ? ' we 
 says. ' Why, where in the name o' God are 
 you ? ' And he says, ' Down here, under 
 the waggon, and I can't get out/ Come to 
 look, Billy, there he was, jammed in between 
 the body and the runnin'-gear, tight as a 
 cork in a bottle; and I'm dummed if we 
 didn't have to unload that whole blamed 
 waggon-load of truck and lift the body off 
 before we could get him out. That was 
 what give him his name." 
 
 Tommy sat erect, grinning widely, gather- 
 ing the halter-strap into his small grasp. 
 
 "That's a bully story, Uncle Mac," he 
 said. " I could set and listen to that a thou- 
 san' times; only I got to go now." 
 
 When he was gone, Uncle Mac laughed. 
 "That ain't all, Bill. I ain't never told 
 Tommy the rest. He'll learn swearin' soon 
 enough, without no help. But 'twas sure 
 funny. 
 
 "After we'd got back to Omaha, Big-Gov- 
 ernor he took the first boat for Saint Louie. 
 
Big-Governor-Afraid 7 3 
 
 Lord, Lord, but he was hot ! Wouldn't say 
 a word to none of us, after that night, but 
 just packed his things and toted 'em down 
 to the dock by himself, keepin' his mouth 
 tight shut and lookin' straight ahead. But 
 we didn't have no hard feelin's towards him, 
 and there was a good bunch of us trailed 
 down after him, kind o' expectin' he'd 
 weaken and show a Christian spirit. But he 
 didn't ; he just clum up the gang-plank and 
 walked to the other rail, lookin' acrost to- 
 wards loway, till the bell rung. 
 
 " There was a big Swede chap stood next 
 to me, leanin' against a box, with his hands 
 in his pockets and his mouth hangin' open, 
 the way them Swedes does. When he seen 
 the way Big-Governor was actin', he grinned 
 and spit in the water, and he says, ' Say, 
 fallers,' he says, ' he don't seem to like Ne- 
 brasky like hell!'" 
 
IV 
 B Cupful of Sugar 
 
 IN the glory of an October evening Uncle 
 Mac and I sat together upon the wide 
 porch of his homestead. In the roadway 
 below the yard children were playing, their 
 shrill little voices swelling sweet and clear. 
 Warned by the hovering shadows, the chick- 
 ens were picking their reluctant way toward 
 the barnyard, and a gaily bedight Leghorn 
 cock paused at the foot of the steps to flap 
 his iridescent wings and to sound the note 
 of his lusty content with life. Then Uncle 
 Mac's roly-poly wife came from the house 
 and seated herself in her rocker by his side. 
 
 "Got your work all done, deary?" he 
 asked gently. 
 
 "All done for another day," she answered. 
 He took possession of her pudgy hand, hold- 
 ing it locked fast in his own, lifting it to 
 
 74 
 
A Cupful of Sugar 75 
 
 his lips and cuddling it fondly in his big 
 beard. The light in his eye was a sover- 
 eign specific for all doubts of life's utility. 
 
 We sat in silence until the brave lacings 
 of gold and scarlet that lay across the sky 
 had faded. It was as if the tired day had 
 taken off its hot uniform. The mothers of 
 the neighbourhood were summoning their 
 children from their play, and the chorus of 
 baby voices was thinning, dropping from its 
 allegro movement into a sleepy largo. Uncle 
 Mac had drawn his wife's head down upon 
 his shoulder, where it rested content. The 
 calm of the growing dusk seemed too large 
 to be filled with any save large thoughts. 
 When the old man spoke, by and by, it was 
 with a word that matched the hour. 
 
 " I was just thinkin' of the difference 
 that's come over Nebrasky since those first 
 days. The first time I stood up here on this 
 hill, there wa'n't anything between here and 
 the river but woods and some Omaha and 
 Pawnee camp-fires, scattered through. Now 
 
76 A Cupful of Sugar 
 
 look at it! I swear it does look as if the 
 good Lord had kind o' stood by us, don't 
 it? And just because there was a few men 
 that was brave enough to come out here and 
 do things." 
 
 After a quiet minute he sighed. "And 
 yet it wa'n't all easy/' he said. " Nobody 
 '11 ever know but them that was through it. 
 I was thinkin' about the time, once, when I 
 rode thirty mile and better, acrost the prairie, 
 to borrow a cupful o' sugar. Did I ever 
 tell you about that, Billy? I don't wonder 
 if I ain't; it's one o' the times I'd like to 
 forget about, if I could. 
 
 "Twas the next year after I come to 
 Nebrasky that would be '56. You know 
 that little town down below Omaha a 
 ways, name o' Bellevue a no-'count, dry- 
 rot kind of a place now; but them days it 
 was as good as the best of 'em, and a good 
 tradin' and outfittin' station for them that 
 was goin' on West. One winter I blowed 
 in all the money I had down there, buyin' 
 
A Cupful of Sugar 77 
 
 town lots. If I had 'em now, I'd sell 'em 
 three for a quarter. But there wa'n't no 
 way to tell. Bellevue might have been 
 Omaha, if the cards had fell a mighty little 
 different. 
 
 " Well, one day, along in the first summer, 
 there was a Swede come through, goin' 
 down on the Weepin' Water a ways, to lo- 
 cate. He'd got a good waggon, and mules, 
 and tools, besides a right decent wad of 
 money, and he stopped over for a day, layin' 
 in some things he'd need. I run up against 
 him, after a while. Sorenson his name was 
 a great, big, tow-headed bull of a chap, 
 and not bad-lookin' neither, the way Swedes 
 run. He was a mighty 'cute trader, too 
 what the down-Easters call ' near.' Along 
 in the evenin', when we was settin' around 
 the store, me and him got to talkin', and I 
 says to him, ' Well, Mister, got all you 
 want ? ' He set and looked at me for a min- 
 ute, with his hands poked down in his pock- 
 ets, and then he bit off a chew and tucked 
 
78 A Cupful of Sugar 
 
 it in his cheek before he says, * Got all I'm 
 goin' to buy' he says, ' but I ain't got all I 
 want. I can't do all the work myself. I've 
 got to have a woman,' he says, * and I reckon 
 I'll lay over here till noon to-morrow and see 
 if I can't pick me up one,' and he asks me, 
 ' You don't happen to know of a good, likely 
 woman-critter, do you, that I could get, 
 that's a good, stout hand to work? ' Them 
 was his very words like he was goin' about 
 pickin' out a plough-horse or a lead-ox. I 
 was pretty young then, and didn't know 
 so much about the way beasts like him looks 
 at their women-folks, and it made me pretty 
 dummed hot. 'A woman ! ' I says. ' Why, 
 where do you reckon you're goin' to find a 
 woman that's fool enough to go with you? 
 We ain't got none o' your kind around here/ 
 I says. But he wa'n't bothered a bit. ' Oh, 
 I don't know,' he says. ' I'll find one. I 
 got my eye on one, down to the hotel, and 
 I'm goin' to ask her in the mornin', if I don't 
 see me a better one. I've got to get me 
 
A Cupful of Sugar 79 
 
 one that's stout and healthy/ But I wouldn't 
 listen to him no more; I just got up and 
 went off. 
 
 " But next mornin', when I was eatin' 
 my breakfast in the hotel, he come in and 
 set down acrost from me, and the girl 
 brought him his grub. A right nice little 
 girl she was clean and pretty, and with 
 them quiet, gentle ways. I'd talked with her 
 some, and got to like her first-rate. Sally 
 was all the name I knowed for her; but she'd 
 told me about how she was fixed, without 
 no kin-folks out here, and her havin' to take 
 care of herself. Well, she fetched the Swede 
 what he wanted, and set it down ; and then 
 he says to her, grinnin' up at her, he says, 
 ' Say, I'm goin' to get married before I 
 pull out of here, and I want to marry you/ 
 No more decent feelin' in it than if he'd been 
 a tom-cat. I was so hot I wanted to reach 
 over and get my hands on him; but I 
 couldn't do nothin' but set there and listen 
 at him. Sally, she got red as fire, and she 
 
8o A Cupful of Sugar 
 
 stood ketchin' her breath and star in', and 
 then she turned 'round and scooted for the 
 kitchen, and she didn't come back no more 
 while I was there. It made me feel good. 
 I ain't never made no brags about know in' 
 women-folks; but I reckoned that settled it 
 with Mr. Swede, and I told him so. He 
 didn't seem to mind, though, not a bit; he 
 just kep' eat in'. 
 
 " I got done before him and went out to 
 'tend to some business I had. 'Tw'sn't 
 more 'n an hour after that till I met him 
 goin' around the streets, with Sally follerin' 
 along with him, huntin' for somebody to 
 marry 'em. There's just no tellin'! He 
 was big, and stout, and likely-lookin', and I 
 reckoned mebbe he'd showed her his money. 
 That mostly ketches 'em. Anyway, he'd 
 got her, and she was lookin' as chipper and 
 sassy as a she-catbird. 'Twa'n't none o' 
 my business; but what could I do? She 
 didn't have no folks to speak up for her. I 
 stopped her, and I says, ' Sally, you ain't 
 
A Cupful of Sugar 81 
 
 goin' to do it ! ' But she laughed at me and 
 went on with Sorenson. I knowed she'd 
 be sorry, the longest day she lived; but she 
 wouldn't have listened to nobody then, 
 likely, after she'd got her head set. And let 
 me tell you what he done : he went around 
 to every man in town that had license to 
 marry, with her taggin' on behind, till he'd 
 found out where he could get it done the 
 cheapest. But by noon he'd got her, and 
 got his waggon loaded up, and they pulled 
 out. 
 
 " Well, I forgot about her, after while, 
 'tendin' to my own business. I hadn't 
 counted on seein' her again till it come about, 
 winter of '59 or '60. 
 
 " I had a gover'ment contract that year, 
 freightin' out to Fort Laramie, and the time 
 I'm tellin' you about, we was gettin' back 
 from a trip, and one of the waggons had 
 broke down in the runnin'-gear a good piece 
 out on the prairie, so it couldn't keep up with 
 the train, and me and another chap, name o j 
 
82 A Cupful of Sugar 
 
 Jim Wister, we stayed behind with it, 
 travellin' slow. We got along all right, only 
 that when we'd unloaded the grub we'd need 
 from the waggons our supplies was in, we'd 
 forgot sugar. 
 
 " Seems like a mighty little thing, us bein' 
 growed-up men, and havin' tolerable good 
 sense; but we'd always been used to havin' 
 sugar in our coffee. You know how a feller 
 is on Sunday, after dinner, when he's forgot 
 to get anything to smoke. Seems as if the 
 whole thing's wrong, somehow, don't it? 
 That's just the way 'twas with me and Jim. 
 We'd got everything we really needed; but 
 we'd been used to sugar, that's all, and we 
 couldn't seem to be happy without it, nohow. 
 I mind once when I got lost in the Wind 
 River mountains, and run out of ca'tridges, 
 and went without eatin' for four days, till 
 I was 'most starved, without its botherin' 
 me half as much as drinkin' my coffee with- 
 out sugar in it. A man's surely a curious 
 critter. 
 
A Cupful of Sugar 83 
 
 " Next mornin' I waked up long before 
 day, and I give you my word the very first 
 thing I thought of, laying' there in the dark, 
 was a pint tincupful of strong, black coffee, 
 with three big spoonsful o' sugar in it. I 
 couldn't get back to sleep again; I just 
 thrashed around for a while, and then I set 
 up and reached over with my foot and kicked 
 Jim to wake him. ' Jim/ I says, ' you stay 
 here with the outfit till I get back. I'm 
 goin' after some sugar.' And Jim, he 
 roused up a bit, and he says, ' That's good. 
 Where you goin' to get it ? ' 'I don't 
 know/ I says, ' but I'm goin' to keep a-goin' 
 till I find it. You just stay here and wait/ 
 I says; and then I saddled up one o' the 
 mules and lit out. 
 
 " I was minded first to see if I couldn't 
 mebbe ketch up with the other waggons of 
 the train ; but they was 'most a day ahead of 
 us, and after I'd thought about it a bit, I 
 'lowed I'd just strike off south from the trail 
 a piece and mebbe find a settler's place. The 
 
8 4 A Cupful of Sugar 
 
 wind was blowin' cold, and there was a little 
 snifter o' snow on the ground, and more a- 
 flyin'; but I rode acrost the prairie for an 
 hour, till it began to get daylight, and then I 
 seen I'd misfigured where I was, and the 
 country was new to me. Didn't matter. I'd 
 got six or seven mile from camp by then, and 
 I kep' a-goin' for another half -hour, huntin' 
 for some kind of a sign of folks ; and by and 
 by I went to the top of a little rise o' ground, 
 where I could see a good ways. Off south 
 a few mile I seen a little patch of broke 
 ground, with a house on it, so I went for it. 
 'Twas a mean-lookin' hole, when I'd got up 
 closter half dugout and half sod, with a 
 stable of sod and poles. There wa'n't no 
 smoke comin' out o' the chimney, and I 
 thought first 'twas deserted ; but when I got 
 around towards the front I seen a woman. 
 
 " She was dressed terrible poor nothin' 
 but rags, and with nothin' on her head, and 
 the wind had got her hair loose down 
 around her shoulders. She was workin' at 
 
A Cupful of Sugar 85 
 
 something in the yard, and when I got up 
 to her I seen she had an axe and was choppin' 
 a hole in the froze ground, and when she'd 
 get a little bit o' dirt loose with the axe, she'd 
 take a shovel and scrape it out. I hollered 
 to her, but she didn't seem to take much 
 notice; she just turned her head around to 
 look, without straightenin' up, and then went 
 back to what she was doin'. But I didn't 
 care; I hadn't come down there, all that 
 way, just for the sake of bein' sociable. 
 * Got any sugar ? ' I hollers. She didn't 
 look at me no more; she just shook her head 
 and kep' on choppin'. ' Ain't you got a 
 bit ? ' I says. ' Well, which way is it to 
 the next place ? ' She p'inted off south. 
 ' How far is it ? ' I says ; and she says 'twas 
 four mile. I thought she was powerful 
 uncivil, but I picked up and went on till I'd 
 got to the place she meant. A feller was 
 livin' there by himself, and he was putterin' 
 'round, gettin' his breakfast. I didn't waste 
 no time. * Got any sugar ? ' I says ; and 
 
86 A Cupful of Sugar 
 
 he says, ' I don't know but I got a little, 
 somewheres around. Seddown and eat 
 breakfast first, and then I'll look/ He'd 
 got some fried meat and some pan-bread 
 laid out on a wood bench, and me and him 
 set on the different ends of the bench, with 
 the grub betwixt us, and e't. Seemed like 
 he'd got powerful lonesome, livin' off by 
 himself there, so as he was mighty glad to 
 see me. We set and chinned a while, him 
 askin' me about things down at the river, 
 till I begun to think o' Jim waitin' back there 
 with the waggon, and then I asked him again 
 about the sugar. ' I'll see/ he says. ' We 
 used to have some sugar here, but I don' 
 know. I never use no sugar myself,' he 
 says, ' and I ain't had no call to hunt it up 
 since my wife died, last spring.' But he 
 begun diggin' 'round in a mess of truck he'd 
 got stowed away in a box under his bunk, 
 turnin' the things over kind of aimless ; and 
 pretty soon he fished up a tin can and pried 
 the lid off it, and then he hollered, ' Well, 
 
A Cupful of Sugar 87 
 
 I'll be dog-goned if here ain't my specs ! I 
 lost 'em while my wife was sick, when I'd 
 be readin' to her out o' the Bible. I never 
 knowed what had become of 'em/ he says, 
 1 and I ain't been able to read a word since.' 
 He was awful tickled. ' There's the hand 
 of the Lord in it,' he says, ' your comin' 
 down after that sugar. You take what 
 there is; it's your'n.' 'How much is 
 there?' I says. 'What's it worth?' But 
 he wouldn't listen to me. He'd got them 
 specs straddle of his nose, and he couldn't 
 think of nothin' else. ' Take the can, and 
 clear out,' he says. ' I'm goin' to lay by 
 to-day and read, if it's the last thing I do/ 
 So I stuck the can down in my pocket and 
 struck back towards the trail. 
 
 " When I got to the dugout where I'd 
 seen the woman, she was there yet, peckin' 
 away with her axe. 'Twas just kind o' the 
 fashion, them days, to speak when you went 
 by, and so I says, ' What you doin' ? Kind 
 o' soon for a posey-garden, ain't it ? ' But 
 
A Cupful of Sugar 
 
 she wouldn't look at me nor answer me, and 
 so pretty soon I says again, ' What you 
 doin'?' and then she stood up, pushin' the 
 hair back from her face. She'd got to be 
 terrible old in her looks, them few year; but 
 I knowed who she was, right off. ' Sally ! ' 
 I says. ' Why, Sally, what in the name o' 
 God are you doin'? What's the matter?' 
 I says. * What am I doin' ? ' she screeched, 
 and she reached up her hands like she was 
 goin' to grab me. ' What am I doin' ? ' she 
 says : ' I'm diggin' a grave, that's what I'm 
 doin' a grave a grave a grave/ she 
 says, hollerin' it over three or four times, till 
 she had me scared nigh to death, with the 
 chills runnin' up my back, the way she looked 
 and took on. f A grave ? ' I says. ' Why, 
 what do you mean, Sally ? ' She begun 
 laughin' then, and hollerin' like she was 
 crazy. I got down off my mule and took her 
 by the arm and shook her till she quit her 
 carryin' on, and then I says, ' Where's Sor- 
 enson ? ' * He's gone down to the river, 
 
A Cupful of Sugar 89 
 
 tradin',' she says. * He's been gone a week/ 
 Soon as I begun to get over my scare, I seen 
 'twas a mighty little hole she was diggin', 
 short and narrow both, and I says, ' Where's 
 the kid?' and she jerked her hand towards 
 the dugout. 'Be you alone?' I says ; and she 
 says, ' No, I ain't alone. There's another one 
 in there, nigh dead, too, and I'm goin' to 
 make it deep enough for the two of 'em while 
 I'm about it,' she says. A man got pretty 
 much used to seein' them kind o' things, if he 
 was goin' around much, them days ; but that 
 kind o' ketched me by the wind. I just put 
 my arm around her and made her go in the 
 house with me. 
 
 " I'd never seen such a mean hole for folks 
 to live in starved, and poor, without no 
 fire nor no sign of nothin' to make one with. 
 There was a tumbledown bed in one corner. 
 I went over and turned back the blankets, 
 and the two of 'em was layin' there together, 
 the live one and the dead one. The dead 
 one was just a little bit of a baby, and it 
 
90 A Cupful of Sugar 
 
 looked like it had starved to death and froze 
 to death, both. It made me wink to look at 
 
 'em. 
 
 " ' Sally, ain't you got nothin' in the house 
 to eat ? ' I says ; and she says, real short, 
 ' Cornmeal.' ' Nor nothin' to make a fire 
 with ? ' I says. She just shook her head. 
 ' I got to rustle my own wood when he's 
 gone,' she says, ' and I ain't been feelin' able 
 these last two or three days.' I didn't know 
 what to say. ' Sally,' I says, ' he ain't been 
 good to you, has he?' Seemed like I'd 
 touched a raw spot then, for she stiffened 
 up, and her eyes got like they'd been before, 
 out in the yard, and she got white, even her 
 lips, and some red come in the middle of her 
 cheeks. ' He's nothin' but a beast,' she says ; 
 ' a black beast that's what he is.' ' Well/ 
 I says, ' then why in thunder don't you quit 
 him ? What makes you keep on stayin' with 
 him, if he's that kind? Lord knows the 
 country's big enough,' I says, ' so you don't 
 need to live so close to him if you don't want 
 
A Cupful of Sugar 91 
 
 to. Why don't you pull out ? ' ' Because/ 
 she says, kind o' lookin' down at the floor, 
 like she was 'most ashamed of herself, ' be- 
 cause I didn't think I'd ought to. I didn't 
 think I had a right to, me bein' his wife.' I 
 swear I wanted to cry; only I felt like I 
 wanted to laugh worse. ' Does he drink, 
 Sally ? ' I says ; and she says, ' No, he don't. 
 He's too stingy to spend anything that way/ 
 ' Well,' I says, ' don't he spend nothin' for 
 victuals, neither ? ' She didn't want to tell 
 me; but I made her, and she told me she'd 
 had to scrabble along for herself the best 
 way she could, for the last week, with Soren- 
 son away. She'd fixed a trap and caught a 
 couple of jack-rabbits and fed 'em to the old- 
 est kid, and she 'd e't her damned cornmeal 
 mush. Poor little critter ! ' But don't he 
 like his children ? ' I says. 'Ain't he some 
 kind of a man, somewhere ? ' I says. ' No,' 
 she says. ' He didn't want to have no chil- 
 dren, and he was mad when they come, be- 
 cause it kep' me from doin' my share of the 
 
92 A Cupful of Sugar 
 
 work, like he wanted me to.' That settled 
 it with me, Billy. * Sally/ I says, ' you listen 
 to me: I'm goin' to take you back to the 
 river. You ain't goin' to stay here no more. 
 It's time you was meetin' up with white 
 folks again. I'm goin' to make a fire first,' I 
 says; and I went out and got the axe and 
 took it in. There was a table, made out i/ 
 boards, and I knocked the legs off it, and 
 split 'em up for kindlin', and then chopped 
 the rest of the thing up bigger, so it 
 wouldn't burn too quick, and then I started a 
 fire. You'd oughter seen the girl. She just 
 stood starin' at me, with her eyes bulgin' 
 out, and her thin little hands pressed to- 
 gether, like she was scared to death for fear 
 of what the feller might say. I didn't mind; 
 I didn't look at her any more 'n I had to, till 
 I got the fire blazin up brisk; and then I says, 
 'Now, Sally, you pull that kid out o' bed and 
 get him warm.' ' Tain't a him, it's a girl,' 
 she says. 'Don't make no difference,' I says; 
 ' you pull her put and seddown and get her 
 
A Cupful of Sugar 93 
 
 warmed up till I get back.' She done just 
 like I told her, and I wrapped 'em up in one 
 of the blankets, and then I got on my mule 
 and rode back to the house where I'd got the 
 sugar. The old chap was still there, layin' 
 in his bunk, readin' his Bible a mile a min- 
 ute. When I come in on him, he cocked his 
 eye at me over his specs, and he listened 
 while I told him what I wanted; and then 
 you'd ought to've seen the move he got onto 
 him. He was a joy, that feller! His wife 
 must 've been sick for a good spell, because 
 he'd got a whole lot of fancy fixin's tucked 
 away in his box. He dug 'em out, all that 
 was fit, and loaded me down with 'em till 
 I couldn't carry no more; and then I went 
 back to Sally. 
 
 " She was settin' in her rickety old chair, 
 rockin', all good and warm, and she was 
 actually tryin' to sing a kind of a tune to the 
 little critter she'd got hugged up to her. 
 ' Here,' I says, ' you can put her down now, 
 and fix up some o' this truck to eat, while 
 
94 A Cupful of Sugar 
 
 I'm workinV Soon as I seen she was doin' 
 what I told her, I went out and finished dig- 
 gin* the hole for her, and then I went back 
 in the house. I didn't want to get her 
 started again with her carryin'-on, so I 
 talked as matter-of-fact as I could. 'Twas a 
 blessed good thing she'd got the livin' one to 
 think about. ' What was you goin' to put 
 the baby in to bury it ? ' I says ; and she says, 
 ' I 'lowed to wrap it up in my petticoat. 
 We'll need the beddin', and there ain't 
 nothin' else,' she says. ' Yes, there is,' I 
 says; and I took the axe and started to 
 knockin' the bedstead to pieces, and I made 
 a kind of a box out of the boards. Sorenson 
 wouldn't like it, mebbe, but I says to myself 
 he could lay on the ground, where he be- 
 longed, same as a hog. 
 
 " When I'd got the box nailed, I put the 
 baby in it and carried it out and buried it. 
 Sally didn't fuss much; she was too wore 
 out, and too full of good grub she hadn't 
 been used to, and too warm and comfortable. 
 
A Cupful of Sugar 95 
 
 You know how folks is, when's the strain's 
 took off 'em. That was the way with Sally. 
 She just stood by, quiet, while I put the little 
 thing down in the hole and covered it up. 
 'Twas a funny kind of a funeral, with nobody 
 sayin' nothin' ; but even if I'd knowed how, 
 / wouldn't have said a word. I reckoned the 
 Almighty knowed what'to do with the baby, 
 and there wa'n't no call for me to put in my 
 lip. ' Now,' I says, ' that's a good job done; 
 now we'll be movin'.' And I says, 'Ain't 
 there some kind of a critter about the place 
 you can ride ? ' ' There's a couple of his 
 mules out in the stable,' Sally says, ' but I 
 wouldn't dast to take one of 'em.' ' Wouldn't 
 you? ' I says; ' well, 7 would.' I went out 
 and got the mule ready for her, and then we 
 started off. 
 
 " We'd got half-way to the trail when we 
 seen Sorenson comin' along towards us on 
 his waggon. Sally was covered up in the 
 blankets so he didn't know her at first, but 
 when he'd got closter he seemed to know the 
 
96 A Cupful of Sugar 
 
 mule she was ridin'. I wa'n't goin' to pay 
 no attention to him, but he stopped his team 
 and jumped down to the ground, holler in' 
 to me. ' Who's that you got there ? ' he 
 says ; and I says, ' This here's a girl by the 
 name of Sally.' Land, you'd ought to heerd 
 him ! He fair frothed at the mouth, he was 
 so mad. He'd got his gun buttoned up in- 
 side his big coat, but he started to get it; 
 only I got mine first, and then I made him 
 stick his hands up. * You wait there a min- 
 ute/ I says, ' until I can think what I'm 
 goin' to do with you/ He done it, too; but 
 I couldn't make him stop talkin'. * But you 
 got my mool/ he splutters ; ' she's got my 
 mool. You can have the woman,' he says, 
 ' but I won't let you take the mool/ I just 
 set there a-studyin'. I didn't want to kill 
 him, and I knowed mighty well he could 
 lick the daylights out of me in a fight, with 
 him near a foot bigger than me. ' Sally/ I 
 says, ' you pass the kid over to me, on my 
 other arm/ And when she done it, then I 
 
A Cupful of Sugar 97 
 
 says, ' Now, you Swede you, you keep your 
 hands up. If you go to take 'em down, I'll 
 plug you.' I reckon I must 've looked it, be- 
 cause he done just like I told him; and I 
 says to Sally, ' Now, you go and slap his face 
 for him, good. Go on,' I says; 'we ain't 
 got no time to fool.' 'Twas more fun than 
 a cat-fight. Sally, she rode her mule up 
 alongside of him, where he was standin', and 
 she leaned down and hit him a lick that made 
 his eyes water. ' Good ! ' I says. ' Don't 
 stop. Hit him again ! ' She pasted him as 
 hard as she could, five or six times, and me 
 near dyin' with laughin'. His big, red ears 
 was stickin' out from the sides of his head 
 like swing-doors, and I judged by the feel of 
 my own that they was stiff with cold. ' Hit 
 him on the ears,' I says; and she done it 
 He'd kep' his mouth shut till that, but that 
 fetched a yell out of him. Did you ever 
 notice how like blazes it hurts to get your 
 ears whacked when they're froze and half- 
 stiff? I'd rather be shot, any day. But the 
 
98 A Cupful of Sugar 
 
 only way to treat brutes like him is to hurt 
 'em some place where they're tender. You 
 can't hurt 'em in their feelin's, because they 
 ain't got any. ' Once more on each ear, 
 Sally/ I says, ' hard as you can,' and then I 
 give the baby back to her and I set and 
 talked to that feller good and plenty for a 
 spell, makin' motions at him with my gun, 
 and makin' him keep his hands up ; and then 
 I made him climb back into his waggon and 
 drive on. ' You dast to look back as much 
 as once, till you get clear home/ I says, ' and 
 I'll shoot six loads into you.' Far as we 
 could see him, he was lookin' straight ahead. 
 " When we'd got back to the waggon, and 
 I told Jim, he didn't seem so sunny about it 
 not till after he'd got sight of the kid. He 
 had two of his own, back home. By and by, 
 when I fetched out my sugar from my 
 pocket, Jim he took and peeked in, and then 
 he clapped the lid back on the can and tucked 
 it away in the grub-box; and come night, 
 after we'd got our supper, and the woman 
 
A Cupful of Sugar 99 
 
 was settin' by the fire, holdin' the little girl 
 up to her, Jim, he went to work and made 
 every speck of that sugar up into a mess of 
 dauby candy for the young one. And there 
 wa'n't neither one of us said another word 
 about sweet'nin' for our coffee." 
 
 The tale seemed to have come to an end. 
 " But what became of Sally? " I asked. 
 
 The old man chuckled softly, dwelling 
 upon it with relish. "I don't know what 
 become of her," he said. " I lost track of 
 her, after a bit. But I do know part. Me 
 and Jim we took her back to Bellevue with 
 us and kind o' looked after her a little, till 
 pretty soon she got a job up in Omaha, 
 cookin' or somethin'. I'd most forgot her 
 again, till one day when I was foolin' 'round 
 Omaha I run up against her on the street, all 
 togged out for a widder black, you know, 
 with a funny little bunnit on the backside of 
 her head and a black veil stringin' down her 
 back behind her. ' Why, hello, Sally!' I 
 says. ' What's the matter with you ? Soren- 
 
ioo A Cupful of Sugar 
 
 son ain't dead, is he ? ' I says. ' No, he ain't 
 dead/ she says, real quiet ; and then she stood 
 there in front o' me, kind o' playin' with the 
 dust with the toe of her shoe, and lookin' 
 down, like she didn't rightly know what to 
 say. But pretty soon she told me, and she 
 said she hadn't been able to feel right good 
 in her mind somehow, leavin' Sorenson that 
 way, without nothin' to show that things 
 was different, and so she'd took the first 
 money she got and fixed up them duds. 
 Killin', wa'n't it? But, then, I don't know. 
 I've noticed women-critters a heap since 
 then, and I reckon there ain't many of 'em 
 but has spells of wonderin' if they wouldn't 
 look pretty well in widder's fixin's. Mebbe 
 that was what ailed Sally." 
 
V 
 
 B IRomance in 1ReD and Tidbite 
 
 I HAD been admiring a fine pair of elk- 
 teeth that hung from Uncle Mac's 
 watch-fob, held by a buckskin thong. He 
 took the teeth in his broad palm, looking 
 upon them reminiscently. Then a vagrant 
 flush crept into his cheeks. 
 
 " Them teeth makes me think. I cheated 
 myself out of a wife, once, just because I 
 didn't have the nerve to live up to my 
 chances. I reckon you'd never guess, from 
 lookin' at me, that I'd ever cut a swath with 
 the women. But I did, once, just the same. 
 
 " It begun back in the summer o' '59, 
 when I was freightin' up the Platte. One 
 day we'd camp, along in the middle o' the 
 day, so as to let the critters rest up till 
 towards evenin', like we done in hot 
 weather ; and after while I saddled one of the 
 
 IOI 
 
IO2 A Romance 
 
 extry mules and went out to see if I couldn't 
 mebbe get a buf'lo. I went back five or six 
 miles in the hills, and then I seen a little 
 bunch of 'em grazin' over beyond a creek 
 bottom. I hopped down out o' the saddle 
 and took the bridle over my arm and started 
 to creep up closter, through the willers and 
 brush, so as I could pick me out a fat one; 
 and just as I was gettin' ready to shoot, that 
 there mule brayed. That's what makes me 
 hate a mule ! I never did like man nor beast 
 that can't keep his lip out of other folks's 
 business. 'Twas just as good as if he'd hol- 
 lered to them buf 'lo to look out. I was tired, 
 and hot, and mad, and I hauled off and hit 
 him a lick alongside the head with my rifle ; 
 and then he pulled loose from me and started 
 off on a lope towards camp. 
 
 " When I turned 'round again to look for 
 the buf'lo they was all up in a close bunch; 
 and then an old bull that was with 'em, he 
 give a beller, and they lit out. I was as mad 
 as a woodpecker by then, and I up with my 
 
A Romance 103 
 
 rifle and plugged the bull in the shoulder, 
 and then jumped out from where I was hid. 
 The old bull he whirled 'round when the 
 bullet hit him, and he seen me. Seemed like 
 he was in pretty much my state of mind ; he 
 let the herd go on without him, and come at 
 me on a charge, bellerin' and poundin' the 
 ground till he made it shake. But you know 
 how a feller is when he gets good and r'iled ; 
 I wa'n't goin' to be bluffed then by no buf'lo 
 bull on top o' earth. I stayed right where 
 I was and took another shot at him while he 
 was runnin'; but I was so mad my hand 
 wa'n't steady, and I guess I missed him. 
 He was gettin' up a dummed sight too close 
 to suit me by then; so I dropped down on 
 one knee and shot careful; and just as he 
 tumbled there come another shot from a 
 good piece up the creek, and an Indian broke 
 out o' the brush on a buckskin pony, tearin' 
 along towards me, swingin' his rifle and 
 yellin'. I thought at first 'twas a Pawnee, 
 till I seen his long hair blowing out behind; 
 
104 A Romance 
 
 and then I knowed it was a Sioux. The Sioux 
 used to run loose all over the country when 
 they was on a hunt. This feller was ridin' 
 like the Dickens, makin' signs to me that 
 the bull was his'n, and that I was to keep 
 off. I didn't care I didn't want the bull 
 nohow, me bein' so far from camp, and 
 havin' no way to pack the meat down ; but 
 I was that tore up in my feelin's by then, I 
 reckon I'd have been ready to pick a fuss 
 with the Old Nick himself. I started on a 
 run for the critter, signin' to the Sioux that 
 it was mine and he'd better keep away or 
 there'd be trouble. We've have had it, too, 
 likely, if his pony hadn't happened to run his 
 foot down a dog-hole, or somethin', and went 
 end over end. The Sioux came down hard 
 and didn't move for a spell, and I stood 
 watchin' till he roused up; but he couldn't 
 stand because of his leg bein' broke. I hol- 
 lered to him, friendly, and started to go to 
 him; but he must have been jolted foolish, 
 because he made a slash at me with his knife, 
 
A Romance 105 
 
 and I had to bat him with the butt of my 
 rifle to make him lay still, and when he come 
 round again he was ready to listen to what I 
 was tellin' him. He wa'n't but a boy, six- 
 teen or seventeen, or such a matter, and 
 light-built. He told me where his village 
 was, a quarter of a mile or so up the creek, 
 and he let me h'ist him on my back and tote 
 him towards his camp. I was tolerable stout, 
 them days, and my wind was good; and he 
 wa'n't no great heft nohow ; so pretty soon 
 I got him down to where his folks was. 
 
 " 'Twas just a little huntin' outfit, with a 
 dozen or so lodges. The men was all gone, 
 and some o' the squaws, too ; but some o' the 
 squaws was fussin' 'round, cuttin' up meat 
 and dressin' hides. When they seen us, they 
 quit what they was at and come around, jab- 
 ber in' and cacklin', till the boy spoke to 'em 
 right sharp, and then an ugly old squaw she 
 went ahead and showed me where I was to 
 take him. Twas the best lodge in the out- 
 fit, and up on top o' the lodge-poles, where 
 
io6 A Romance 
 
 they stuck out o' the smoke-vent, there was 
 a bunch o' feathers, and there was a shield 
 and a lance out in front, and some more 
 truck; so I knowed it belonged to a head 
 man. We fixed the boy up as good as we 
 could, and me and the squaw set his leg for 
 him ; and when I was ready to go away he 
 shook hands with me, real friendly, like he'd 
 got all over his tantrum. 
 
 Well, that was just the beginnin'. I was 
 doin' different things, till the war broke out, 
 and then I j'ined the cavalry, and our regi- 
 ment was one that was stationed out along 
 the edge of things, different places. I was 
 a second lieutenaut, and I had plenty to do, 
 me knowin' the prairies pretty well. 'Twas 
 suspicioned that the Indians would be makin' 
 trouble soon as they knowed the regulars 
 was gone from the posts 'specially the 
 Sioux. We was lookin' for the Minnesota 
 Sioux to come down, too, any time and j'ine 
 luck with them in Nebrasky; so it used to 
 be that the freighters and emigrant outfits 
 
A Romance 107 
 
 would mostly have a little squad of cav- 
 alry for escort. That was the work I had to 
 do. 
 
 " 'Twas along in the late summer of 
 '62 that me and a half-company went up 
 Cedar Creek Valley with a waggon-train. 
 Part of it was new country to me, and so 
 when we was on our way back I used to go 
 out 'most every day up over the hills, back 
 from the trail, gettin' acquainted. I had 
 good ponies, and I'd be gone all day some- 
 times and ketch up with the boys towards 
 night. 'Twa'n't just to say good judgment; 
 but that was just the kind of a fool I was, 
 when I was younger. I never thought 
 nothin' about risk, if there was anything to 
 do or see. 
 
 " One day near noon, I'd gone back from 
 the rest a good bit further than I mostly did, 
 follerin' up a bunch of ant'lope and tryin' to 
 get a shot. I was just ridin' along, not 
 thinkin', and just as I got up to the edge of 
 a bunch of scrub, my pony shied, and a little 
 
io8 A Romance 
 
 naked Indian baby come out of the brush, 
 five or six years old. He'd got a chunk o' 
 raw meat in his fist, gnawin' and suckin' 
 on it, and he never took it out of his mouth, 
 but just stood there, starin' at me; and then 
 I seen there was some squaws in the scrub, 
 pickin' choke-cherries. I'd have backed out, 
 if I could; but I didn't know where the 
 bucks was, nor where I'd be likely to run into 
 'em if I tried to get away, so I made up my 
 mind the best thing to do was to put up a 
 good front and see it through. I don't know 
 but that's as good a way as any, when you 
 run up against trouble. It's helped me out 
 of lots o' tight holes. I told them squaws I 
 was huntin' for their village, and for them 
 to show me the way; and they picked up 
 their traps and went ahead till we'd gone a 
 mile or so, down where there was some big 
 timber, and then we come to the lodges. 
 There was a big lot of 'em, and they was 
 fixed up like they'd come to stay for a spell. 
 I told the squaws I wanted to talk to the 
 
A Romance 109 
 
 head chief, lettin' on like I'd come a-purpose ; 
 and while they was leadin' me down through 
 the village, pretty soon there was a young 
 buck that give a holler, and he run out and 
 grabbed my bridle. ' Good-bye, John ! ' 
 thinks I; but then, when I'd got a look at 
 him, I knowed I was all right, because I seen 
 he was the same chap I'd toted on my back 
 that time he broke his leg. Indians is 
 treacherous, and ornery, and all that; but 
 they don't forget a thing that's done for 'em. 
 He took me in tow then, himself, tellin' the 
 squaws to go about their business, and he 
 led me to the main lodge. 
 
 " The old head-chief must have been a 
 high-roller, because his lodge was as good a 
 one as I ever seen a big one, made out o' 
 good skins that wa'n't all smudged up with 
 smoke and dirt ; and there was dressed hides 
 hung up in front, all covered with picture- 
 writin' that showed the things he'd done, 
 huntin' and fightin'. When I'd got out o' 
 my saddle, there was a young feller waitin' 
 
1 1 o A Romance 
 
 to take care o' my pony, and then me and 
 the other chap ducked down under the flap 
 and went in the lodge. The chief was there, 
 settin' back from the door on a pile of skins, 
 all hunched up a real old man, he was ; and 
 the young feller begun talkin' to him, makin' 
 signs at me, and pow-wowin' faster than I 
 could listen; and then the old feller got up 
 and shook hands wkh me, like he was glad 
 I'd come. I reckon the boy must have told 
 him about that leg business. 
 
 " 'Twas a bully place inside, all fixed up. 
 Sioux can put on a heap o' style, when they 
 set out to. Little Bear was the old chief's 
 name, and he'd got things fixed up about like 
 he wanted 'em. There was two squaws and 
 a girl settin' off to one side, doin' somethin' 
 with beads and skins and porcupine quills; 
 and they wa'n't the greasy, frowsy kind that 
 most Indian women is, neither. They had 
 their hair slicked up, and their clothes was 
 made out of clean skins, with all manner 
 of trinkets. The squaws wa'n't no great 
 
A Romance 1 1 1 
 
 shakes for looks; but the girl was different, 
 now I tell you ! She'd got them high cheek- 
 bones; but her nose wa'n't all squashed out 
 over her face, nor her eyes little and mean 
 and pinched-up. Her skin had a kind of a 
 yaller cast to it, with pink in the middle of 
 her cheeks, and her eyes was the kind you 
 can see things in big, and wide open, and 
 oh, I don't know: I can't tell about a 
 woman's looks. I figured it out that there 
 must be some French blood in her, a while 
 back. 'Tain't no-ways uncommon to see 
 French signs in tribes that was mixed up 
 with them trappers, early days; and some o' 
 the reddest Indians on the plains has got 
 French names. To tell the truth, I wa'n't 
 a bit sorry, lookin' at her; it helped mighty 
 well to pass the time while I set there waitin'. 
 I hadn't no notion yet what was goin' to 
 happen. The young feller, he'd hung 'round 
 for a spell, and then he'd gone out; and the 
 old chief was just settin' there, not doin' 
 nothin' but keep his mouth shut. 'Twas 
 
112 A Romance 
 
 a curious kind of a feelin'. If it hadn't 
 been for lookin' at Miss Big-Eye, I'd have 
 got tolerable dummed lonesome. 
 
 " Along in the middle of the afternoon the 
 old chief roused up and begun talkin' to the 
 squaws, tellin' 'em to get up a supper, and I 
 judged from what he said there was goin' 
 to be company. The squaws they set to 
 work, real brisk, and the girl helpin'. 
 They'd got no end of grub tucked away here 
 and there and tied up in bags meat, and 
 roots, and berries, and dried back-fat from 
 buf'lo, and all such kind of truck; and one 
 o' the squaws went out and ketched a big 
 brindled dog that was runnin' 'round in 
 front o' the lodge, and killed it. I seen her 
 doin' it, and watched her gettin' it ready to 
 cook. They'd made up a big fire, and you'd 
 have thought they was gettin' ready to feed a 
 gang of railroad hands. But the thing that 
 took my eye was watchin' that girl make 
 dumplin's. She fetched out a bag of choke- 
 cherries, that had been pounded till the seeds 
 
A Romance 113 
 
 was all mashed up, and then dried ; and she'd 
 take a little handful of 'em and mix 'em up 
 with a wad of buf'lo fat, rollin' 'em 'round 
 in her hands till she'd got 'em the right 
 shape, and wettin' her hands with her tongue 
 to keep 'em from stickin'. I made up my 
 mind I was goin' to eat some of 'em, too. I 
 was pleased with that girl, Billy. 
 
 " While the supper was cookin', the young 
 feller had come back; and Little Bear, he 
 told him to go and invite the company, and 
 the boy, he went and stood out in front o' 
 the lodge and yelled out the names of them 
 that was to come like a bailiff yellin' for a 
 jury in the court-house. And pretty soon, 
 here they come, stringin' along, togged out 
 to kill old men, mostly, with just two or 
 three old squaws that had a right to set with 
 the bucks when there was a council or some 
 big doin's. They kep' a-comin' till the lodge 
 was packed like a stock-car, and they 
 squatted 'round on the ground, nobody 
 sayin' a word. Little Bear, he set back 
 
114 A Romance 
 
 furthest from the door, and he made me 
 come and set beside him, on a deerskin. 
 
 " I couldn't tell what was goin' to happen ; 
 but pretty soon, here come the supper. 
 'Twas a bully good supper, too, and I was 
 powerful hungry, 'count of not havin' e't 
 since early breakfast, and I e't with the best 
 of 'em. I'd kind o' made up my mind I'd 
 skip the dog, and I'd tried to keep my eye on 
 the kettle they had him in; but I'd got 
 flustered, and forgot which was it. I e't 
 some of everything they had, and I reckon' 
 I got dog along with the rest. Didn't mat- 
 ter; I swear I couldn't tell the difference. 
 There was some o' the things in the kettles 
 that I hadn't been used to things that 
 tasted as if they hadn't had their faces 
 washed for a good spell ; but I e't 'em. I e't 
 a mess of the girl's dumplin's, too; I was 
 bound I would, if it killed me; but my in- 
 sides never made a kick. 
 
 " While we was eatin', Little Bear he was 
 cuttin' tobacco for the smoke, and as soon as 
 
A Romance 1 1 5 
 
 we was done he took a big red pipe and 
 filled it, and there was a boy standin' behind 
 him that lit it, and Little Bear mumbled some 
 words over it, like they do, and blowed 
 smoke all around, different directions, and up 
 and down, so as to tickle all their different 
 gods and devils and make 'em feel good; 
 and then he passed the pipe to me, and I done 
 like him and passed it on to the feller beyond 
 me. I didn't say my prayers, though, like 
 Little Bear ; I only says, solemn as I could, I 
 says, ' My Lord, what's comin' next ! ' and I 
 wanted to laugh, only I didn't dast. It 
 seemed so plum foolish. When they was 
 done with the smoke, Little Bear he stood 
 up and began to make a speech. Land, how 
 he did lay it on ! He told 'em about that leg 
 business, makin' it sound like I was a blue- 
 and-gold hero in a story-book; and he said 
 if I did have a white face I had a man's 
 heart in me, anyways. He said he'd been 
 thinkin' a heap since I come, and he'd made 
 up his mind 'twould be a mighty good move 
 
1 1 6 A Romance 
 
 for him and his tribe if I was to be took into 
 his family; 'twould most likely give 'em 
 a good pull with gover'ment, he said, to 
 have one of the Great Father's warriors 
 j'ined in with his'n; and he'd been thinkin' 
 that after what I'd done for the boy, he was 
 goin' to give me Miss Big-Eye for my wife, 
 and have me settle down with 'em; and he 
 wanted the rest to speak their minds. 
 Wouldn't that put frost on your whiskers? 
 It made me feel like I was the corpse at a 
 wake I just set there, with my mouth 
 hangin' open, chokin' for some fresh air. I 
 didn't rightly sense what the rest of 'em 
 said after that; only they got up and spoke 
 their little pieces, like they thought 'twas a 
 bully scheme. By and by, when they'd all 
 had their say, they all got up and shook 
 hands with me, and they never give me a 
 chance to say a dummed word. I was all in 
 a sweat, and I wanted to yell. I'd have 
 give two dollars for a man's drink o' 
 whiskey. 
 
A Romance 117 
 
 " Well, when the pow-pow was done, Lit- 
 tle Bear he said there was goin' to be some 
 doin's in the dance-lodge, and we all went 
 down through the village to where there was 
 a whalin' big lodge set up. There'd been a 
 fire built in the middle, and the folks was 
 commencin' to come in when we got there. 
 The men was squattin' on one side, and the 
 women and girls acrost from 'em, like in a 
 Quaker meetin', and up to one end there was 
 two or three of the critters that was painted 
 up to beat the Dickens, and they had a couple 
 o' hide-drums that was to make the dance 
 music. They was poundin' on 'em and 
 singin' a lazy, shiftless kind of a tune that 
 I couldn't get on to ; and then pretty soon one 
 of the bucks over by the door, he give a 
 ki-yi, and got up, droppin' his blanket and 
 steppin' out towards the fire, 'most naked; 
 and he danced a whirl or two by himself, 
 bendin' over in the middle and hoppin' twice 
 on each foot. Ever seen 'em dance? Looks 
 more like a drunk chicken than anything else 
 
1 1 8 A Romance 
 
 I can think of. They didn't seem to have no 
 regular way ; first one would get up, and then 
 another, and sometimes two or three of 'em, 
 and hop till they got tired; and after while 
 some o' the women took a turn at it, too, 
 only they went different, standin' flat-footed 
 and see-sawin' up and down on their toes. 
 After bit there was a string of 'em on each 
 side, men and women, goin' it hot-foot, 
 acrost from each other. 'Twas mighty 
 interestin'. 
 
 " We'd been there an hour, I reckon, 
 when Big-Eye she got up and come over to 
 where I was settin', beside the old chief, and 
 she stood there, right in front o' me, goin' 
 up and down on her toes, and lookin' at me 
 and then lookin' down to the ground. I 
 didn't know what she wanted, till Little Bear 
 says to me I was to get up and dance with 
 her. I wa'n't minded to be mean, not after 
 the way they'd treated me. It looked easy 
 enough, too; so I stood up and commenced 
 hoppin'. You'd ought to 've heerd them 
 
A Romance 119 
 
 squaws cackle! I reckon I must 've looked 
 some funny, me not havin' got the hang of 
 it ; and besides, I hadn't took more 'n a dozen 
 jumps till my wind give out. 'Twa'n't so 
 dummed easy as it looked. I felt like I'd 
 run a mile over a big hill. But I wa'n't 
 goin' to knuckle down. No, sir-ee! I kep' 
 on, the best I could, and I was just wishin' 
 I hadn't e't such a terrible big supper, when 
 Big-Eye, she unhitched the robe she was 
 wear in' and lifted it up in her arms towards 
 me. We didn't stop jiggin', but she give 
 the robe a whirl, comin' up clost to me, and 
 then she slung it right over our heads, and 
 before I knowed what she was doin' she'd 
 ketched me 'round the neck and pulled my 
 head down to her and kissed me, smack! 
 Indians is terrible funny kissers, too. She 
 took her time to it, and when I got to 
 thinkin' it over afterwards I made up my 
 mind 'twa'n't such a bad kiss, only it did 
 taste awful strong of taller and wood-smoke. 
 When she got done, she sneaked out from 
 
I2O A Romance 
 
 under the robe, quick, leavin' it hangin' over 
 me, and I was that hot and rattled I thought 
 I never would get it pawed off of me. 
 
 " When I went and set down, they was all 
 gruntin' and laughin', like they was mighty 
 well tickled, and I knowed my goose was 
 cooked, unless I could manage to get some 
 kind of a stand-in with Providence; but I 
 didn't see how I was goin' to work that. 
 Me and Him wa'n't so well acquainted that 
 I felt like askin' Him for much of a favour. 
 I was mighty glad when the dance broke up, 
 after while, 'long about midnight, and we 
 went back to the chief's lodge. 
 
 " I wa'n't so hungry for breakfast, next 
 mornin'. I hadn't forgot how my supper 
 tasted yet ; and you know a feller don't want 
 no breakfast them times. Things wa'n't so 
 interestin' by daylight as they'd seemed the 
 night before, neither. The squaws had just 
 kind o' give theirselves a lick and a promise, 
 with their dressin', and they looked like 
 they'd been pulled through a brush-patch, 
 
A Romance 121 
 
 feet first ; and Big-Eye, she was 'most as bad 
 as any of 'em. Her hair wa'n't slicked up, 
 and she looked as if the paint she'd put on 
 her for the dance the night before had all 
 run together, red and yeller. It made my 
 mouth get all dry to think of kissin' her 
 then. There wa'n't nothin' for me to do but 
 just set and watch 'em, and think. 
 
 " But thinkin' didn't seem to do me no 
 good. After breakfast was done, the boy he 
 come in from somewheres, and he told Little 
 Bear 'twas all right; and then Little Bear, 
 he signed I was to come with him, and he 
 took me to another lodge, right acrost from 
 his'n, that was bran' new. When we went 
 in there wa'n't nobody there, but 'twas fixed 
 up mighty fine, with skins, and some cookin' 
 dishes, and such-like ; and my pony was tied 
 to the rack out in front. Little Bear, he said 
 this lodge was mine, and I was to live there 
 till the weddin', and then Big-Eye would 
 come in and put it to rights, when she was 
 my wife. That wa'n't the worst, neither; 
 
122 A Romance 
 
 for pretty soon here come the boy, totin' a 
 lance, with eagle-feathers hangin' to it, and 
 a hide-shield, with more feathers stringin' 
 down, and some scalp-locks and bear-claws, 
 all brown and battered up; and Little Bear, 
 he gave them to me and said they was mine. 
 Know what that meant? It meant there 
 wa'n't nothin' he could Ve done that would 
 Ve showed his feelin's more 'n that givin' 
 his shield and lance to a feller that was goin' 
 to marry into the family. I didn't know 
 what to say to the old man; I just stood 
 there till he went away, and then I begun 
 studyin' for sure. But the inside of my head 
 felt just about like a dried milkweed pod 
 full o' fluff, and no ideas. I couldn't see, to 
 save my soul, how I was goin' to get away 
 from it, without showin' myself to have no 
 more principle than a billy-goat. 
 
 " Then by and by here come Big-Eye, 
 duckin' down under the flap of my lodge, 
 and another girl with her. She'd got her- 
 self dusted off by then, and her best bib and 
 
A Romance 123 
 
 tucker on; and, Billy, I can't think yet but 
 that she was right up-and-a-comin' for looks. 
 There's lots of fellers that wouldn't have 
 wanted nothin' better than to stay right 
 where I was and take my chances. Big-Eye 
 and the other girl, they come in, and Big- 
 Eye she'd got a dish of somethin' she was 
 carryin' in front of her. Neither of 'em 
 said a word, but Big-Eye, she come and set 
 the dish down in front of me, and then the 
 two of 'em went and set down by the door, 
 waitin'. That was the way a girl had to do, 
 when she was goin' to marry a feller had to 
 bring him his grub, and wait on him. 'Twas 
 just one more sign. When I'd e't, she come 
 and picked up the dish and took it away. I 
 wished she'd stayed a spell, till I could 've 
 found out what she was thinkin'. That was 
 what worried me most. Times when I'd 
 look at her, her eyes would just be shinin', 
 away down deep in 'em, and to save my sin- 
 ful soul from the everlastin' gridiron, I 
 couldn't tell whether the shine was from her 
 
124 A Romance 
 
 wantin' to laugh, or whether 'twas you 
 know feelin's. I reckon what worried me 
 most was dreadin' that she was just coddin' 
 with me. You know a young feller can 
 stand 'most anything but that from a pretty 
 girl. And I knowed there was a streak of 
 French in her. 
 
 " Well, then, along in the afternoon I be- 
 gun to get visits from the men- folks. Little 
 Bear, he come first, and with him was a 
 feller leadin' three or four ponies. Them 
 was a present to me. And then another old 
 man come, and he give me a shirt and 
 breeches, buckskin, all worked with beads 
 and fringe. Land, land ; you'd ought to 've 
 seen. Pretty soon the inside of my lodge 
 looked like a junkshop. Weddin' presents 
 is mighty particular things with Indians 
 leastways, with Sioux; with a Sioux, 
 weddin' presents is like the buttons on a suit 
 of clothes: they're what makes it hang to- 
 gether. And you can tell by the presents 
 they give what they think of a feller, too. 
 
A Romance 125 
 
 That's what made me feel so ornery, me 
 knowin' I was goin' to fool 'em if I could. 
 'Twas my place to give things back to 'em, 
 too, and I didn't have nothin'. That was 
 what set me to studyin' harder than ever, 
 after they'd gone, and it helped me out. It 
 come to me all of a sudden, and it made me 
 feel like I'd found a quarter in the pocket of 
 an old vest. Know what that feels like? 
 It's a mighty blessed feelin'. I just quit 
 worryin', and I waited till Big-Eye come 
 with my supper; and then, when she'd gone, 
 I got myself together and f oiler ed her. 
 
 " Little Bear was settin' back in his lodge, 
 and two or three of the old men was with 
 him, visitin'. Indian visits is just about the 
 unsociablest things you can think of; they 
 was just settin' there, lookin' at the fire ; and 
 when I come in they didn't hardly move nor 
 wink, only that Little Bear made a place for 
 me to set beside him, on his pile of skins. 
 But I didn't want to do no settin' then, 
 because my scheme was already hatched. I 
 
126 A Romance 
 
 just stood up and started in to make my 
 speech. I knowed just enough Sioux-talk 
 to make it hang together. The women quit 
 workin', and everybody listened, and I begun 
 to feel like the end-man in one of these here 
 minstrel shows; but their faces didn't have 
 no more look to 'em than toads'. That's 
 what makes it so devilish hard to deal with 
 'em : you can't never tell what they're 
 thinkin', by their faces, no more than you can 
 with a clothing-store dummy. But when 
 they take a shine to a feller, they don't ask 
 no questions; they just take it for granted 
 that he's playin' it fair and square, and they 
 trust him ; and that's the way they done with 
 me. 
 
 "You'd ought to 've heerd that speech, 
 Billy. I started in with tellin' 'em a lingo 
 about me and the Great Father, down to 
 Washington, and about how much he set by 
 me, and how the Great Father had just sent 
 me out to run an errand for him, and neither 
 one of us hadn't suspicioned 'twas goin' to 
 
A Romance 127 
 
 be my weddin' trip, so I hadn't come fixed. 
 'Twa'n't right, I says, that one of the Great 
 Father's warriors should get caught that-a- 
 way, like a beggar, after what they'd done 
 for me, with the weddin' presents, and I 
 said the Great Father would be mighty hot 
 if he knowed I'd gone off and got married to 
 Big-Eye without no more style than that. 
 That was gospel-true, too! So, I says, I 
 must get the weddin' put off till I'd had 
 time to slide down to my post and do the 
 thing up right, and accordin' to Hoyle. I 
 didn't wait for 'em to say aye, yes, nor no; 
 I just says : ' I'm goin' down the river, and 
 when I come back, I'll come like a man ought 
 to come, times like this, when he wants to 
 warm up and be liberal.' 
 
 " I don't know why 'twas, unless 'twas 
 that I'd done the right thing in the first 
 place, with the boy's leg. The whole passel 
 of 'em set like stumps till I'd got through, 
 and then two or three of the old men give a 
 grunt from the Amen-corner, and I knowed 
 
128 A Romance 
 
 I'd ketched 'em. They'd been mighty 
 liberal to give; but I knowed they'd be 
 willin' to take from me, just as liberal. So 
 I said I was goin' down and get the truck to 
 bring back. Little Bear, he shook hands 
 with me, like it suited him first-rate, and he 
 asks me if I was goin' in the mornin'. * No,' 
 I says, ' I'm goin' right now, so as I can get 
 back quicker,' and Little Bear, he sent the 
 boy to fetch my pony for me. While I was 
 waitin', with my feet fair itchin' for the 
 stirrups, I turned 'round to where Big-Eye 
 was settin' with the women, lookin' at me. 
 It took all the nerve I had; but I just went 
 over to her and lifted her up onto her feet, 
 and then I give her a bustin' big kiss, right 
 in front of 'em all. I was bound I'd be 
 square with her on that score, anyway. 
 
 " She never blinked ; she just stood there, 
 lookin' at me, and lookin' and lookin', with 
 that shine comin' in her eyes, like a big star 
 in the bottom of a well. I couldn't make it 
 out, nohow. That's forty year ago ; but I'd 
 
A Romance 129 
 
 give four dollars, right this minute, to know 
 what she was thinkin'. When she'd got done 
 lookin' at me, she stuck her hand down inside 
 her frock, somewheres, and pulled out these 
 two elk-teeth, tied with this very string, and 
 she reached up and hung it 'round my neck. 
 For remembrance, she said 'twas, and lucky 
 medicine. Then my pony come, and I want 
 to tell you I made a long streak of trail be- 
 fore sun-up; and I didn't look for no land- 
 marks to find the back-trail, neither. 
 
 " But, Billy, supposin' I'd stayed just 
 supposin' I had. I had the chance, and 
 there was pretty near enough o' the devil in 
 me, them days, to make me want to take it. 
 Even yet, sometimes, when I get so dummed 
 sick and tired of towns and railroads and 
 asphalt pavin', and all such foolishness, it 
 comes over me to 'most wish I'd took up with 
 Little Bear and his outfit. I'd 've had the 
 girl, for one thing, and I'd Ve found out 
 what them eyes meant and then mebbe I'd 
 Ve been sorry when I did know. My kids 
 
130 A Romance 
 
 wouldn't Ve been red-headed, like they 
 be now or mebbe they would: there's 
 no tellin' what might 've cropped out in 
 the stock, besides French. I'd be rich, 
 most likely or poor. Mebbe my name 
 would be Big-Chief- With-a-Fence-Around- 
 the-Earth, or mebbe it 'd be just plain Mud. 
 The Lord knows and He's mighty close- 
 mouthed." 
 
VI 
 
 ONE day, as Uncle Mac and I stood to- 
 gether upon the main street of River- 
 town, a burly, unkempt fellow, whose right 
 arm was held in a dirty bandage and sling, 
 slouched up to us and struck at once 
 into the thousand and first rehearsal of his 
 ill luck and sufferings, ending with a brazen 
 plea for alms. He was a fair specimen of 
 his class; he looked like the merest rough 
 charcoal study of a man, done by an amateur- 
 ish hand; his nondescript attire, loose fatty 
 figure, and dull face made a very inadequate 
 sum-total of manliness. His plea was 
 addressed to Uncle Mac, as though his 
 experience had yielded a certain power of 
 discrimination. He was undoubtedly ex- 
 perienced; he spoke with a callous overcon- 
 fidence, and his plaint had been so often 
 131 
 
132 Law- Abiding Citizens 
 
 unrolled and rewound that it was worn 
 smooth and threadbare. 
 
 Uncle Mac listened until the woeful tale 
 had dragged its slow length along to a con- 
 clusion; and as he listened his feet were 
 spread wide apart, his hands were pushed 
 deep into his pockets, and his blue, seeing 
 eyes were intent upon the rude face of the 
 beggar, who, when the last word was spoken, 
 stood with his free hand expectantly out- 
 stretched. 
 
 " You're a terrible clumsy liar," Uncle 
 Mac said gravely. The other raised his 
 ready hand toward heaven. 
 
 " I'll take my oath I ain't said a word that 
 ain't God's truth." 
 
 "Shucks!" Uncle Mac retorted, with 
 ineffable scorn. " I'll bet four dollars there 
 ain't a thing the matter with your arm; or 
 if there is, you've blistered it with medicine, 
 to make it look pitiful. I've knowed your 
 kind before now." 
 
 The beggar turned away, muttering 
 
Law-Abiding Citizens 133 
 
 surlily; but Uncle Mac called after him: 
 " On honour, now ; is there anything the 
 matter with you ? " 
 
 " What's it to you? " the fellow growled. 
 Uncle Mac's answer was to flip into the air 
 a silver dime, which the beggar caught 
 deftly. 
 
 "There's just one chance in a thousand 
 you're hungry," the good old man said, as 
 though he felt obliged to seek a justification 
 for the gift, " and I don't like to think I've 
 mebbe let anybody go that-a-way. But I'd 
 give dollars to the man that would tell me 
 what's to be done with the likes of you. I 
 do hate like sin to take what ought to be 
 give to them that's deservin', and give it 
 to such critters as you, that ain't got no 
 more decent pride in you than a salt cod- 
 fish." 
 
 The man pocketed the coin with an air of 
 bravado and ambled down the street, Uncle 
 Mac gazing after him sadly. 
 
 " We never had none like that chap out 
 
134 Law- Abiding Citizens 
 
 here, early days," he said presently. 
 " They'd have made a mighty poor shift. 
 There was lots of them old-timers that 
 wa'n't no-ways backward about coaxin' 
 each other's money away; but they done it 
 different ways from beggin'. 'Twas fairer, 
 too; because when a feller begs from you, 
 you don't have no show on earth except to 
 dig down in your clothes and give to him, 
 but if he only tries to cheat it out of you, 
 why, you've got just as good a chance as 
 him. 
 
 " I don't say there was such a great sight 
 of cheatin' done, neither, them days, more 
 than other times not hardly as much, be- 
 cause folks was on honour a good deal, and 
 that always makes a man pretty apt to stand 
 up to the rack. I know I'd trust 'most any- 
 body, them days, a sight quicker than I 
 would now, since they've got such stacks of 
 law to hide behind. We didn't have no law 
 then, to speak of; but a feller can't hardly 
 turn 'round, now-days, even mindin' his own 
 
Law- Abiding Citizens 135 
 
 business, without gettin' all balled up in a 
 mess of nasty little laws. I don't like it. 
 Why, a man knows if a thing's right, don't 
 he ? And if he won't do it because it's right, 
 he ain't liable to do it any quicker just be- 
 cause it's law, is he? Not by a dummed 
 sight. Them days, when we didn't have no 
 law, it just kind o' learned us that we'd got 
 to do the best we knowed and look after 
 ourselves; and that helped us to know that 
 we'd got to look out for other folks, too, 
 same time. We got to know each other, 
 when we wa'n't afraid to stand up and let 
 folks see what we looked like and what we 
 could do for ourselves when it come to a 
 show-down. 
 
 " Oh, we was law-abidin' citizens, them 
 days," he chuckled. " We didn't know 
 what the law was, nor not even if there was 
 any; and what's more, we didn't care; but 
 we had a mighty big respect for it, just the 
 same. Why, I mind a time early summer 
 of '60, I think 'twas out on the Salt 
 
136 Law- Abiding Citizens 
 
 Lake trail a piece west from the river. 
 There'd been a passel of horse-thieves pes- 
 terin' 'round out there amongst the settlers, 
 runnin' off their critters, and they was like 
 most of that kind : they didn't have no sense. 
 They didn't get ketched, right at first, and 
 that made 'em get careless, until by and by 
 the settlers made up a committee and went 
 after 'em. One day I come along the trail 
 with a freightin' outfit, goin' West, and 
 when we got to where the trail crossed a 
 little creek, where the willers and cotton- 
 woods was growin', we seen that the com- 
 mittee had bent over some of the young 
 trees for a kind of a scaffold, and they'd 
 strung up two fellers and left 'em hangin'. 
 They didn't look right pretty, swingin' right 
 where we had to pass under; but we didn't 
 feel that we had any call to monkey with 
 'em, us bein' strangers in them parts. But 
 when we come to the next settler's place, we 
 spoke up about it. 'Twas gettin' towards 
 dark, and the old man was settin' out in 
 
Law- Abiding Citizens 137 
 
 front of the house, smokin', while his woman 
 was gettin' supper, and he'd got one of his 
 dogs crawled half-way up onto his lap, and 
 he was scratchin' it behind the ears, cozy and 
 comfortable. I can see him yet. We pulled 
 up, and I hollered to the feller, and I says, 
 ' Say, did you know there's a couple chaps 
 been strung up, back at the crossin' ? ' He 
 pulls his pipe out of his mouth, and spits, 
 and he says, ' Yep, I know. I reckon I 
 ought to; I helped do it.' 'Well/ I says, 
 ' but ain't it kind o' on-Christian, leavin' 
 'em that-a-way? Why don't you cut 'em 
 down and bury 'em ? ' ' Land, no ! ' he says. 
 1 Why, mister, we ain't got no authority to 
 cut 'em down. But we notified the coroner,' 
 he says, * so it can be done accordin' to law/ 
 That just shows ! 
 
 " But the most fun was after while, when 
 the boys begun to get kind o' tired of hittin' 
 off justice amongst themselves, the best they 
 could, and when they was gettin' sort o' 
 prideful, and wanted to have justices of the 
 
138 Law- Abiding Citizens 
 
 peace, and such. Out around the edges there 
 wa'n't many men with good sense that could 
 afford to neglect their business to play at jus- 
 tice there wa'n't enough in it ; so them that 
 was elected was mostly pretty raw. 
 
 " There was one Dutch farmer out in 
 Frontier County that had got elected because 
 there wa'n't nobody runnin' against him, and 
 he'd kep' the place till his time was nigh up, 
 without havin' no cases. But then, along 
 one fall, there was a young feller out there 
 on a farm that shot another feller in a fight, 
 while they was drunk, and he got hauled up. 
 The folks up there was mighty much inter- 
 ested, because they all knowed the boy's fam- 
 ily, and his daddy was rich ; and when it got 
 to be knowed that there was three or four 
 lawyers comin' out all the way from Omaha 
 and Council Bluffs, why, seemed like every- 
 body that could crawl come in to the hearin'. 
 I knowed that old Dutchman mighty well, 
 and there wa'n't no honester old rooster on 
 the prairies; but he wa'n't a bit bright 
 
Law- Abiding Citizens 139 
 
 in his mind just stupid-honest, you know, 
 like a Dutchman is. 
 
 " Well, they had it up and down for two 
 days, listenin' to the folks that was called for 
 witnesses; and I ain't never seen lawyers 
 work so hard. When the witnesses was all 
 through, they turned in and argued and 
 ripped and stormed, first one and then the 
 other, for a whole day; and after supper 
 they come back at it again. The old Dutch- 
 man was holdin' his court out in his barn, 
 and he'd had his women-folks just spread 
 themselves, cookin', and everybody that had 
 come a good piece to 'tend the hearin' pris- 
 oner and lawyers and everybody was his 
 company, and he'd just laid himself out to 
 make them comfortable. He'd got a heart in 
 him as deep as a well. There wa'n't a word 
 said by any of the witnesses but what the boy 
 had done the shootin', with nothin' to make 
 him do it except he was drunk; but the other 
 chap had got him drunk, first place; and I 
 knowed the old chap so well, and what ten- 
 
140 Law- Abiding Citizens 
 
 der insides he had, I just made a little side- 
 bet with myself that he'd let the boy go, if 
 he could anyways at all, more especially as 
 the other man had got well from the bullet. 
 I kep' watchin' him, settin' up there on the 
 lid of his feed-box, where he could be com- 
 fortable, smokin', and not openin' his head. 
 Dutchmen may be stupid, but they're mostly 
 mighty cute about it. He didn't say a word 
 to give himself away, though I could see that 
 half the time he couldn't make head nor tail 
 of what they was sayin' to him. Little as 
 I knowed, it was scandalous the things 
 them lawyers tried to tell the old feller was 
 law. 
 
 " He'd been used to going to bed about 
 sundown, so when they went back to the 
 barn after supper, and started down the 
 homestretch with their arguin', every little 
 while they'd have to stop and wait till some- 
 body 'd go and poke Mister Justice, to wake 
 him up, because when he'd drop off to sleep, 
 he'd snore like a Guinea-hen, and nobody 
 
Law- Abiding Citizens 141 
 
 couldn't hear nothin'. But along towards 
 'leven o'clock, when they was all as hoarse as 
 barn-hinges, they quit, and one of them that 
 was defendin' the boy, he says, s Now, your 
 Honour, we're all willin' to stop right here 
 and let you decide/ and the rest of 'em said 
 they would, too. The Dutchman, his pipe 
 had gone out, but he lit it up and smoked a 
 minute, and then he says, ' Well, what be I 
 goin' to do ? You fellers ain't told me what 
 the law is yet,' he said. ' You talked a heap, 
 and I been thinkin' you might mebbe work 
 round to it and agree on somethin' ; but you 
 ain't done it. Seems like you're further apart 
 than when you started in,' he says, * and it 
 looks now as if I'd got to make up my mind 
 for myself, after all, and that's what I'm 
 goin' to do. It's a principle o' law/ he says, 
 ' that when a feller's in doubt, why, the pris- 
 oner's got to be give the benefit of it, and he's 
 got to be let go. I don't know what the law 
 is, and my doubts has been gettin' bigger 
 ever since you commenced; and so, if this 
 
142 Law- Abiding Citizens 
 
 boy '11 give me his word that he's sorry and 
 won't get drunk no more, nor do no more 
 shootin', but '11 just go back home to his 
 folks, why, I'm goin' to let him go free. If 
 that suits you, Ed/ he says to the boy, ' you 
 can go/ And with that he gets down off the 
 feed-box, and stretches himself, and gaps, 
 and goes pokin' off to bed. And the boy 
 turned out all right, too. 
 
 " There was another time I mind, as bad 
 as that one. 'Twas up at Florence. There 
 was an old chap up there that was a justice, 
 with a wooden leg and not a lick o' sense. 
 He didn't have nothin' to do neither, till one 
 day there was a feller got fined three dollars 
 for fightin'. The feller slung the money 
 down on the table, and the justice picked it 
 up and set jinglin' it in his hand a minute, 
 lookin' at it, and turnin' it over ; and then he 
 says, kind o' bothered, to us that was 
 standin' 'round, he says, ' Now, what am I 
 goin' to do with this here ? Who does it be- 
 long to? ' he says. It come on me all of a 
 
Law- Abiding Citizens 143 
 
 sudden, like devilment always does; and I 
 says to him, ' Why, it's your'n ; you can do 
 as you please with it;' and the feller that had 
 been fined, he chips in and he says so, too. 
 We knowed mighty well what would happen 
 the same thing that always happened when 
 the old chap had any money to spend. He 
 just took the whole bunch of us across 
 the road to a saloon and stood treat, long as 
 the money lasted and that was long enough 
 to get him so that he didn't know which way 
 was up. Come night, he was so bad that 
 three or four of the boys set off to take him 
 to the shack where he slept ; but he got half- 
 way there and then he went to sleep between 
 them that was holdin' him, and they laid him 
 down beside the road. The feller that had 
 put up the money to start with, it was his 
 notion. They gathered up some weeds and 
 sticks and built a little bonfire on top o' the 
 old rooster's peg-leg, and burnt the end of 
 it plum off. 
 
 " We all done things that wa'n't set down 
 
144 Law- Abiding Citizens 
 
 in no book, them days, without botherin' our 
 heads about the law for it. There was the 
 Underground Railroad, for one thing, when 
 old John Brown was rummagin' 'round 
 down in Kansas and Missouri, with his 
 gang, stealin' niggers and sendin' 'em off to 
 places where they'd be took care of and 
 turned loose. They was mostly sent over to 
 Canada; but there was towns all along 
 where there was stations on the Under- 
 ground, and where the gang would stop to 
 get the niggers rested and fed up. Seemed 
 like everybody took sides, one way or the 
 other, and sometimes it 'd make a heap o* 
 trouble. 
 
 " The only time I ever seen old Brown 
 was one day down to Falls City '57, I 
 believe 'twas when he was makin' one of 
 his trips over to loway with a bunch of nig- 
 gers. That was one of the things I was 
 talkin' about a while ago. 'Twa'n't no ways 
 law-abidin' to run them niggers off. Ac- 
 cordin' to law, old Brown was a thief when 
 
Law- Abiding Citizens 145 
 
 he stole 'em, and us that helped him was as 
 bad as him. But what did we care ? 'Twa'n't 
 because we loved the niggers, nor yet for 
 meanness; but it just seemed like as if it 
 was in the wind, and ketchin', when a few 
 men like Brown and Jim Lane started it. 
 I've always noticed that it don't take more 
 than one good man to make a thousand 
 others get to work. Brown, he was just one 
 of them kind. Jim Lane was more human, 
 like other folks; but things wouldn't have 
 been done if it hadn't been for Brown. He'd 
 got his head set just one way, and there 
 wa'n't no turnin' him ; so it seemed like there 
 wa'n't nothin' for the rest of us to do but to 
 tail after him. 
 
 " I just happened to be down to Falls City 
 that day when Brown sent word up that he 
 was comin', and that he'd want his niggers 
 fed up and some clothes got ready for 'em, 
 and a place to sleep. I knowed some of the 
 boys down there, and I turned in to help 'em. 
 We tried to keep it as still as we could ; but 
 
146 Law- Abiding Citizens 
 
 there was some pro-Slave folks around town 
 got wind of it, and they made their brags 
 about what they was goin' to do. 'Twas 
 just a little ways over to Missouri, and they 
 was payin' big money there for niggers that 
 was brought back to 'em. Near dark, there 
 was so much talk that three or four of us 
 fellers took our rifles and rode out horseback 
 so as to meet Brown and look after him 
 some, comin' into town. Look after John 
 Brown! Like talkin' about takin' care of 
 sun-up so nothin' won't happen to it. 
 
 " Four or five mile out we come on a 
 mean-lookin' waggon drawed by mule-teams, 
 with a feller ridin' alongside. It didn't ap- 
 pear to be much of an outfit, and we turned 
 our ponies out to go past it, when the man 
 that was ridin' horseback, he sung out to 
 know where we was goin'. I says to him, 
 ' Oh, we're just goin' along on our own busi- 
 ness ; ' and he says, ' Be you lookin' for John 
 Brown ? ' It r'iled me, havin' him inter- 
 fering and I said, ' What odds is it to you 
 
Law- Abiding Citizens 147 
 
 who we're lookin' for? ' He didn't seem to 
 care ; he just says, quiet, * If you're lookin' 
 for Brown, I'm him.' It was right on the 
 end of my tongue to tell him he was a liar; 
 but then I reckoned I'd better wait a minute. 
 I been thankful ever since that I did wait. 
 But I was terrible disappointed. I'd heerd 
 tell so much about Brown and his doin's, I 
 expected to see a man seven foot tall and big 
 as a barrel; but he wa'n't neither one. He 
 was just a common-lookin' chap, for size, 
 settin' humped over in his saddle like any- 
 body else, joggin' along easy. 'Twas his 
 face that shut me up. I never seen a face 
 like it, before nor since; it looked like 'twas 
 made out of rock, with a jaw like a bear- 
 trap, and eyes that looked plum through me 
 and out on the other side. Yes, sir; I'm 
 mighty glad I didn't say what I was goin' 
 to. Come to find out, there was seven 
 niggers in under that ragged old waggon- 
 cover, and just Brown and the driver to 
 look after 'em. If I'd been him, I'd have 
 
148 Law- Abiding Citizens 
 
 wanted a half -company escort, anyway. 
 But Brown, he wa'n't a mite bothered. 
 
 " When we was goin' back towards town, 
 I kind o' wanted to square myself with the 
 old man for the way I'd spoke, and I up and 
 told him about the trouble we was afraid of 
 when we got there. I talked a heap, tellin' 
 him everything I knowed, and a lot more be- 
 sides; but he didn't seem to be half-listenin', 
 and when I'd come to a stoppin'-place, he 
 just shook his head, kind o' careless, and he 
 says, quiet as ever, ' There ain't goin' to be 
 no trouble.' How did he know? It made 
 me tired, bein' turned down that way, and I 
 sailed in and told it all over again, tellin' 
 about the brags the pro-Slaves had made, 
 and what they was goin' to do, till Brown 
 shut me off; and he says, ' Young man, you 
 don't never need to be scared of them that 
 makes their brags about stoppin' the Lord's 
 work, because that's a brag that no livin' man 
 can make stick.' So I shut up; and Brown, 
 he took us right to the place where he'd been 
 
Law- Abiding Citizens 149 
 
 used to stoppin' other trips; and when we 
 got there, Brown made the niggers get down 
 out of the waggon, and he turned 'em into a 
 barn, and they cooked their supper and went 
 to sleep, with two or three of us standin* 
 post. 
 
 " Brown he wa'n't no more bothered 
 than a man would be that's takin' a waggon- 
 load of hogs to the stockyards. He slept 
 with 'em in the barn, layin' down on a pile of 
 fodder, with a blanket wrapped 'round him, 
 and he took his turn with the rest of us, 
 watchin'. He'd been right about it, too; 
 there wa'n't a whisper of trouble all night, 
 and come mornin' he let them take their time 
 gettin' breakfast, and after while he got 'em 
 loaded up and started on. I ain't never for- 
 got it, nor I wouldn't take a new red waggon 
 for what it learned me. No, sir; a man that 
 knows he's right, he don't need to be scared 
 of law nor nothin' else. Trouble is, I reckon, 
 there ain't so many that's dead sure they're 
 right. 
 
150 Law- Abiding Citizens 
 
 " I've seen the other kind, too, plenty. 
 There was one chap I remember, that I 
 knowed long before '60, when Florence 
 was the big town, instead of Omaha. This 
 chap was a Scotch Presbyterian, and he 
 thought more of a dollar than 'most anybody 
 else I ever met up with; and it was awful 
 funny the way he tried to work it sometimes, 
 to make his religion fit in with his schemes 
 for gettin' rich. After a bit, when Florence 
 begun to peter out, and Omaha was on the 
 boom, there was lots of folks that set their 
 houses up on wheels and moved 'em down 
 the road, and this feller had contracts for a 
 lot of that work. There was good money in 
 it, and the different outfits was terrible jeal- 
 ous of each other. The Scotchman, he'd got 
 the biggest end of it somehow, but there was 
 one thing about him that wa'n't like the rest : 
 he wouldn't work on Sunday. No, sir. 
 Come Sunday, when the rest 'd be hustlin' 
 same as other days, he'd just lay by, studyin' 
 his catechism and singin' hymns through his 
 
Law- Abiding Citizens 151 
 
 big red nose, and waitin' for Monday. But 
 I could see it worried him a heap, lettin' the 
 rest of 'em get in an extry day on him ; and 
 then, one Sunday I come on him, up yon- 
 der, and his gang was movin' a house. He 
 wa'n't doin' nothin' himself, only just 
 standin' off to one side of the road, with his 
 hands behind him, watchin' 'em. ' Why, 
 hello, Scotchy! ' I says: ' How's this? Got 
 converted ? ' And what do you reckon he 
 told me? ' No,' he says, ' but I hired another 
 gang. These here is all Irish, and Cath'lics. 
 They're predestinated to be damned any- 
 way,' he says, ' and so I figured it out that I 
 might just as well be makin' my percentage 
 off of 'em." 
 
 " Oh, there was all kinds, and they done 
 all kinds of ways. I don't know how your 
 book-learnt chaps would explain it out, Billy; 
 but we got on, and seemed like we done as 
 well as they do now, when there wasn't a 
 legislature, nor hardly a lawyer, this side the 
 Mississippi. Here's me : I've never had no 
 
152 Law- Abiding Citizens 
 
 truck with lawyers all my life, and I've al- 
 ways got on; and I don't know no more 
 about law than I know about the cost of 
 layin' gold pavements in the New Jerusa- 
 lem." 
 
VII 
 3be Caee of private Sam 
 
 YOU let me tell you a true word/' said 
 Uncle Mac. " It ain't the things 
 that happens to a feller that makes hard- 
 ship ; it's the way he looks at 'em. I found 
 that out, 'most the first thing, when I 
 come to Nebrasky. I used to sleep a sight 
 sounder and peacefuler than I'm goin' to 
 sleep to-night, them times when I'd lay out 
 on the ground, all kinds of weather, with 
 nothin' but my blanket. Same principle, I've 
 been a sight worse scared when I got a bum- 
 blebee up the leg of my breeches than I was 
 one time when I rode like blazes three mile, 
 when the Sioux run me into camp, with my 
 right leg pinned fast to my saddle with an 
 arrow. It just depends on how you look at 
 it. And there was Sam Weeks, that I 
 knowed when I was scoutin'. Did I ever tell 
 you about him ? 
 
 153 
 
1 54 Private Sam Weeks 
 
 " 'Twas when we was policin' the Upper 
 Platte country, the times they was runnin' 
 the surveys, and Sam, he come to the post 
 with a bunch of rookies that was sent out 
 from Omaha. He was a funny chap, for a 
 soldier. We was most of us pretty tolerable 
 stout and hearty; but Sam, he was a long, 
 slim, wobbly kind of a critter, that didn't 
 have no more shape to him than a new- 
 dropped lamb. He looked like the meat on 
 him had been jerked. He walked with his 
 shoulders all humped up, and his legs looked 
 as if they had six or seven j'ints in 'em. Me 
 and him was in the same mess, so I got to 
 know about him. He said he belonged in 
 Conne'tikit, and before he j'ined he'd been 
 knockin' 'round a good bit and havin' a 
 pretty hard time of it. 
 
 " Well, there was one blazin' hot day at 
 the post, when we was all outdoors, layin' 
 'round in the shadder of the buildin's; and 
 after bit I went in to get my pipe that I'd left 
 under my bunk; and there was Sam. He 
 
Private Sam Weeks 155 
 
 was layin' in his bunk, and he'd got the dog- 
 gonedest litter of books I ever seen seemed 
 like he'd got two in each hand, besides a lot 
 more that was layin' open in his lap, and 
 down on the floor and everywheres. When I 
 come in on him it bothered him, and he 
 started to scramble 'em up and hide 'em 
 under his blankets, till I says, ' What you 
 doin', Sam ? ' ' Oh, nothin',' he says. I 
 never was much of a hand for books, but I 
 picked up one that was layin' handy and 
 started to turn back to where it commenced, 
 and I seen 'twas all printed out in some 
 ornery kind o' talk that looked to me like 
 Chinee wash-tickets. I couldn't find a word 
 I knowed, and pretty soon I says, ' Sam, 
 what kind o' truck is it, anyway ? ' and Sam 
 says 'twas Jew. ' Jew ? ' I says. ' Why, 
 Sam, your name don't sound like a Jew 
 name. Was your Ma one? ' ' Nop,' Sam 
 says. ' What you doin' with a Jew book 
 then ? ' I says, and Sam says he'd learned to 
 read Jew when he was to school. I guess I 
 
156 Private Sam Weeks 
 
 was pretty young ; I thought he was coddin' 
 me, but I didn't want to let on to him I didn't 
 know any better, and I picked up another 
 one. Honest, I couldn't tell which was right 
 side up. ' Why, they're all Jew,' I says; but 
 Sam just laughed. ' That one's Greek,' he 
 says; and come to find out, he didn't have 
 hardly a United States book in the whole out- 
 fit, only two or three, and them was all tore, 
 with the covers half off of 'em, and mighty 
 little account. I begun to feel kind o' sorry 
 for him; and after a while, just to humour 
 him, I begun tellin' him about Sioux talk. 
 He was mighty bright, I'll say that for him. 
 It had took me 'most two years to pick up 
 what little I knowed of Sioux ; but he had it 
 all learnt, every bit I told him, before supper- 
 call, and he was as tickled as a kid that's 
 got a new toy to play with. I reckoned he 
 must get powerful lonesome, mebbe, away 
 off there from his folks, with nothin' but 
 them dirty old foreigner books ; and so next 
 time I got where I could, I bought him a 
 
Private Sam Weeks 157 
 
 bran'- new one. I disremember the name of 
 it, but it was a powerful interestin' book, 
 about a young chap that had fell in love with 
 his Ma's hired girl, and the hard time they 
 had, and 'twas all fixed out with red and 
 blue on the outside, and had some crackin' 
 good pictures in it. I read it all through 
 before I gave it to him, and he was mighty 
 tickled to get it, and it seemed like after that 
 me and him got pretty well acquainted and 
 friendly. 
 
 " But the more I knowed him the cur- 
 iouser he was. I liked most of him first- 
 rate; but he was awful raw. He didn't 
 know the first thing about real livin'. He 
 was a copule year older than me, but he 
 hadn't never been out on the plains till then, 
 and he used to like to hear me tell about the 
 little scrapes I'd been in, fussin' with the 
 Indians, and such like. 
 
 " I remember one day I'd been tellin' him 
 a yarn about some of my doin's, and I'd laid 
 myself out to tell it right; and Sam, he'd 
 
158 Private Sam Weeks 
 
 listened clear through, not hardly sayin' a 
 word, till towards the last he stretched him- 
 self out on the ground, and after while he 
 says, ' Mac, how does a thing like that make 
 you feel? ' ( Bully! ' I says. ' You feel like 
 you wanted to live a thousand years/ ' Hon- 
 est, true, don't you get scared ? ' he says. 
 * Thunder, no ! ' I says. ' You don't have 
 time to get scared. Times when I'm makin' 
 a run for my life, I don't feel no-ways but 
 just bully.' That was true, too; but with 
 school-learnt chaps like him it's hard to 
 make 'em see it. Trouble is they don't get 
 learnt to do things; they're mostly just learnt 
 to sit around and try to figure out how they 
 think they'd feel if they was to happen to do 
 somethin', without expectin' it. It makes 'em 
 sickly same as when a feller begins to think 
 he's goin' to be sick, and spends his time 
 huntin' for pains in his insides instead of 
 gettin' out and hustlin'. Sam, he says, ' If 
 I got ketched that-a-way, so as I had to stand 
 up for myself with a gun, they wouldn't 
 
Private Sam Weeks 159 
 
 have to kill me; I'd be so scared I'd just 
 drop dead.' ' No, you wouldn't/ I says. 'A 
 man don't get scared when he's too busy to 
 think about it.' 
 
 " Well, 'twas only a couple weeks after 
 that when me and him was detailed to go out 
 with a squad that was goin' to guard one of 
 the surveyor's grub-trains. We had to go 
 with 'em about a hunderd mile up the Platte. 
 The Sioux was all through that country, 
 more or less ; but they hadn't been botherin' 
 much lately, right around there, and we 
 didn't expect no trouble. There wa'n't a 
 thing happened, goin' out; nor nothin' 
 wouldn't have happened comin' back, only 
 that me and Sam and another feller asked to 
 be let to strike off over the hills, one day, 
 by ourselves, huntin' ant' lope. We fooled 
 'round a good bit, gettin' further and further 
 back, without havin' no luck, and along in 
 the middle of the day we laid by, meanin' to 
 go on when it got cooler. 'Twas near the 
 middle of August, and powerful hot and 
 
160 Private Sam Weeks 
 
 dry. The river was nothin' but a creek, and 
 some places there'd be miles and miles where 
 the water 'd go clear down under the sand, 
 out o' sight. There was lots of little creek- 
 beds that we crossed, back in the hills, but 
 they was all dry as powder. That country's 
 no good in a drought spell. The wind was 
 blowin' hot, too, and driftin' a heap of alkali 
 dust, that cracked our lips and made our 
 eyes smart like fire. We got on tolerable 
 well though, and Sam never whimpered. 
 
 " Then in the evening just after we'd got 
 started to go on, the other feller that was 
 with us, he says, ' Look ahead, there. What's 
 that?' I couldn't see nothin', only a little 
 cloud of dust, mebbe three mile away, and I 
 reckoned 'twas the wind; but the other feller 
 says, ' No, 'tain't, because I been watchin' it 
 It's movin' too regular.' We looked at it a 
 minute, and then he says, ' It's a couple In- 
 dians ; I can see their lances.' His eyes was 
 a sight better than mine. I couldn't see 'em, 
 that far off; but pretty soon I seen 'em. 
 
Private Sam Weeks 161 
 
 'They're Indians, Sam,' I says. Sam, he'd 
 rode his horse up close to me, and I seen by 
 the look of him he didn't know how to take 
 it. The only Indians he'd ever seen had been 
 them that come into the post and hung 
 around there, tradin'. He begun to fidget, 
 and he says, ' Be you goin' to keep right 
 on ? ' ' Sure/ I says. ' Why, what else 
 would you do, Sam ? ' ' Oh, I don't know/ 
 he says. ' I didn't know but mebbe you 
 might be wantin' to sneak back in the hills a 
 ways and hide.' 'Hide!' I says. ' What 
 would be the use ? They seen us, a half-hour 
 ago, long before we seen them.' But Sam, 
 he looked pretty much worried. Soon as 
 they'd got up closter, the other feller says, 
 ' They're up to some devilment. They're 
 plum naked, and all painted up like a red and 
 yeller sunset/ With that, Sam, he edged 
 his horse in between us, and the sweat begun 
 to break out on him. I had to laugh. ' Why, 
 Sam/ I says; 'you ain't scared, are you?' 
 Sam, his chin was tremblin' so he couldn't 
 
1 62 Private Sam Weeks 
 
 hardly talk ; but he says, real pitiful, ' Yes, 
 I be/ ' Oh, your granny ! ' I says. ' Why, 
 Sam, there ain't but two of 'em/ l But they 
 got their war-paint on/ Sam says. ' Well, 
 what of it ? ' I says. 'A white man's always 
 got his war-paint on.' But he wa'n't a bit 
 easy in his mind; he made his horse 'most 
 crazy, pullin' and haulin' on the bridle and 
 makin' him jig round in the dust. 
 
 " We rode up till we was a hunderd yards 
 or so from 'em, and then I held up my hand 
 and made the sign for 'em to stop ; and they 
 drawed in their ponies, and then I signed to 
 'em to know who they was. One of 'em, he 
 lifted his hand and fetched it across his 
 throat, meanin' they was Sioux, and he said 
 they was friendly. We rode up to 'em, and 
 we seen they was a couple scouts for some 
 kind of a war-party, by the way they was 
 trigged out. There hadn't been no fightin', 
 that I'd heerd about, for six months ; and so 
 I reckoned they'd been off on a horse-stealin' 
 trip, or some little thing like that. 
 
Private Sam Weeks 163 
 
 "After we'd got out of sight from the 
 scouts, we misdoubted what we was goin' to 
 do about the main band. At first I said they 
 was sure friendly, or else them scouts 
 wouldn't have come on to meet us; they'd 
 have turned back to the main band as soon 
 as they seen us. But the other feller said 
 mebbe they did send a man back; how was 
 we to know? He argued we'd better strike 
 off from the trail and get in the hills and 
 wait till they'd passed, because he said if 
 they'd been out on a big steal they'd likely be 
 reckless, and there wa'n't no tellin' what 
 they'd do. But I told 'em we'd just keep 
 straight on; and that's what we done. 
 'Twas some foolish, I reckon; but seemed 
 like I never could learn to be scared of 
 Indians. 
 
 " 'Long about dark we seen there'd been 
 fires built ahead, and we judged 'twas the 
 Sioux gone into camp. The dust had been 
 blowin' all day, and the air was full of it, 
 and that made their fires show up pretty 
 
1 64 Private Sam Weeks 
 
 strong, so we could see 'em a long way. I 
 wanted to see what they looked like. I 
 judged they wouldn't have no advance-guard 
 out, more than them scouts we'd seen, be- 
 cause when they're comin' back home from 
 a trip like that they don't have no particular 
 guard out, only to the rear, in case they're 
 follered. So we went in pretty clost to 'em, 
 mebbe half a mile, till we come to a dry creek 
 that crossed the trail, and then we struck up 
 the creek so as to get up on the hills and 
 kind o' nose 'round. After we'd gone as 
 far as I liked to on the horses, I told 'em 
 we'd leave the other feller down there in the 
 creek to mind the critters, and me and Sam 
 would go on afoot. Sam didn't want to go ; 
 you'd have thought he was afraid I was 
 goin' to take him out in the brush and mur- 
 der him, he was so scared. His face was 
 actually shiny in the dark, and he says, ' Oh, 
 Mac, for the Lord's sake, don't let's ! Please 
 lemme stay down here with the horses, and 
 you two go up.' I had to ketch him by the 
 
Private Sam Weeks 165 
 
 arm and pull him with me ; he was so scared 
 and weak, I 'most had to carry him. But 
 we crep' up till we got where we could lay 
 down flat on top o' the hill and look down 
 to the camp. 
 
 " 'Twas like we'd figured it out. They'd 
 got a rattlin' big bunch of ponies, and there 
 was some o' the bucks herdin' 'em clost to 
 camp. There was about a dozen bucks in 
 the party, and I judged they must have had 
 a pretty good trip, the way they was actin', 
 racketin' 'round like they didn't care for 
 nobody. Me and Sam, we laid there 
 watchin' 'em for mebbe a quarter of an hour. 
 'Twas mighty interestin' for Sam, after his 
 scare had wore off some, and he begun 
 pesterin' me with all kinds o' questions, till 
 after while I seen there was some kind of a 
 fuss amongst 'em, and there was one o' the 
 bucks come in towards the fire, draggin' a 
 woman by the arm. I told Sam to watch, 
 because she'd been took prisoner, likely. She 
 was mighty unwillin', and kep' pullin' her- 
 
j 66 Private Sam Weeks 
 
 self away from the buck, the best she could, 
 till they'd got in near to the fire, and while 
 the buck had his arm around her, we seen her 
 reach up and grab her hands in his hair. He 
 was beginnin' to mishandle her, shameful, 
 and the rest of 'em settin' 'round, watchin', 
 and we could hear 'em gruntin' and laughin' ; 
 but after while there was one o' the old men 
 got up and made the buck quit his foolish- 
 ness, and made the woman seddown. 
 
 " Sam, he'd got up on his knees, while we 
 was lookin' at 'em, and I couldn't make him 
 lay down. ' What they doin' ? ' he says. 
 ' Nothin',' I says, ' only she's a Winnebago, 
 or Omaha, that they took when they was 
 stealin' the ponies. Lay down, you fool/ 
 I says, ' or they'll see you.' ' But what be 
 they goin' to do with her ? ' he says ; and I 
 says, ' Oh, nothin', I tell you, only same as 
 they do with all the women they ketch. 
 They'll take her home with 'em, and one of 
 'em '11 have her for his'n. Now you lay 
 down, or I'll be dummed if I don't make 
 
Private Sam Weeks 167 
 
 you.' Their fire was blazin' up big, and if 
 they'd had anybody watchin' 'twould 've 
 been easy for 'em to see him. I grabbed him 
 by the arm and pulled him down beside me. 
 ' Keep still!' I says; 'she's nothin' but a 
 squaw.' But Sam, he was mad. ' She's a 
 woman,' he says, ' and I ain't goin' to have 
 'em treatin' her that-a-way.' ' What you 
 goin' to do about it ? ' I says ; and Sam, he 
 laid his rifle down on the ground, in front of 
 him, and he says, ' If I see ary one of 'em 
 lift his hand to her again, I'll plug him.' I 
 had to laugh. ' What's it to you ? ' I says ; 
 ' she's nothin' but a squaw, don't I tell you ? 
 She's used to it.' But Sam, he wouldn't 
 have it. ' She's a woman, don't I tell you? ' 
 he says, l and I ain't been used to seein' a 
 woman mistreated, no matter who she is, 
 unless I got somethin' to say about it myself/ 
 So we just laid and watched 'em a spell 
 longer, and pretty soon Sam, he says, ' Say, 
 Mac, ain't there some way we could get 
 her ? ' ' What in thunder do you want to 
 
1 68 Private Sam Weeks 
 
 get her for?' I says. 'Oh, I don* know/ 
 he says, ' only I just want to get her out o' 
 that. I can't think of no way to do it/ he 
 says, ' but I'm goin' to make a try for it, 
 anyhow.' Ever hear such foolishness! 
 ' No, there ain't no way/ I says. ' If there 
 was half a dozen of us, mebbe we might ; but 
 it's too risky, with only us three. Come on/ 
 I says; ' let's go back.' But Sam, he 
 wouldn't budge. * No, sir ! ' he says ; and 
 then he says, ' If you was goin' to try it, 
 which way would you do it, Mac? ' I just 
 laid there on the ground and swore. ' There 
 ain't no way to do it/ I says, 'except to sneak 
 down after they're sleepin'; and who the 
 Dickens wants to take chances like that for a 
 squaw?' 'Why/ Sam says, 'if you're 
 scared to go, I'll do it.' Hear him talk! 
 ' Scared ! ' I says ; ' scared ! No, I ain't 
 scared ; but I ain't a forsooken idiot, neither.' 
 I took hold of him and tried to make him go 
 back with me; but he wouldn't. If ever I 
 was sorry for anything, 'twas for bringin' 
 
Private Sam Weeks 169 
 
 * 
 
 him along with me. He wouldn't listen to 
 me, not for a minute ; seemed like when he'd 
 set his head, I couldn't turn him. Some- 
 how, I can't help likin' them kind o' fellers ; 
 but they do make a sight of trouble. The 
 more I listened to Sam, the more I knowed 
 I'd either have to j'ine in with him or else 
 go off and leave him; and of course there 
 wa'n't but one thing to do, and after while 
 I says, ' All right, Sam ; we'll give her a 
 try/ I don't know : while I was lay in' there, 
 listenin' to him gabblin', and watchin' them 
 Sioux actin' so contrary, like they owned all 
 creation, seemed like I begun to itch, and I 
 begun to look 'round to see the best way to 
 crawl up on 'em, without runnin' too much 
 risk of bein' ketched. Sam, he didn't know 
 no more about the risk than a rabbit. I did, 
 though ; but it didn't stop me. I used to be 
 terrible reckless, when I was a youngster; 
 and the worst of it was I used to go into 
 my devilment with my eyes open, but blind. 
 The boys used to say that all that saved me, 
 
170 Private Sam Weeks 
 
 lots of times, was me bein' such an awful 
 fool, and the Lord always lookin' after fools, 
 some way. Don't matter. We made up 
 our minds what to do. 
 
 " After we'd got the thing fixed, I left 
 Sam there, to watch out, and I went back 
 and told the other feller what we was goin' 
 to do. He was willin' enough, because we 
 hadn't had much fun yet, that trip ; and me 
 and him, we tied the ponies up in a bunch of 
 willers that was growin' in the creek-bed, 
 and then we went back to Sam. The way 
 we'd fixed it, we was to wait till the Sioux 
 was sleepin', and then one of us was to sneak 
 down and try to get in close enough to let 
 the squaw know we was there, and get her to 
 come out, if she could. We knowed she'd 
 come, if she seen we was white, because the 
 Omahas and Winnebagos, whichever she 
 was, had always been friendly with the 
 whites. We laid there on the hill for an 
 hour before the Sioux begun to quiet down. 
 They'd been havin' a mighty good time, 
 
Private Sam Weeks 171 
 
 smokin' and talkin'; but after while there 
 was two or three of 'em that wrapped their- 
 selves up in their blankets and laid down, 
 and 'twa'n't long till they was all stretched 
 out. What made it look mean, though, was 
 that this buck with the woman had took and 
 tied one of her arms to his'n, so as she 
 wouldn't hardly be able to move without 
 wakin' him up. That didn't look good, 
 because it meant I'd likely have to crawl 
 clear down close and take big chances. 
 We'd fixed it so I was to be the one to go. 
 Sam, he wanted to, because he said 'twas his 
 doin's; but we wouldn't let him, and me and 
 the other feller had pulled straws for it, and 
 I got it. I was goin' to take just my knife 
 and pistols, and they was to lay up there 
 on top o' the hill, with their rifles, and they 
 wa'n't to move without they just had to. 
 
 " Well, when the Sioux had got fixed for 
 night, 'twa'n't but a little while till their fire 
 died down. They didn't have nothin' but 
 dry brush to make a fire with, and it didn't 
 
172 Private Sam Weeks 
 
 last. I waited a while, and then I started 
 down the hill, goin' on my hands and knees, 
 and keepin' hid behind the brush-patches as 
 much as I could. There was brush growin' 
 up to within twenty yards or so of the fire; 
 only 'twas scattered, so as I had to get down 
 on my belly and wiggle acrost the bare 
 places. Pretty soon I raised up and looked 
 over the top, to locate the squaw, and while 
 I was up on my knees I heerd a little noise 
 behind me; and there was Sam, comin' 
 crawlin' after me! Land, land, how I did 
 sweat ! If he'd been in reach of me, I'd 've 
 felt like runnin' my knife in him. I jerked 
 my head for him to lay down, and then I 
 backed out to where he was, just fair grittin' 
 my teeth, I was so mad. ' We couldn't see 
 you/ Sam whispers. * It's too dark, with 
 the fire 'most out, and I couldn't stand it/' 
 ' Well, darn a fool, any way ! ' I says ; and 
 then I talked mighty tolerable straight to 
 him, till I made him swear he wouldn't move 
 an eye-winker till I told him. 'Twas bad 
 
Private Sam Weeks 173 
 
 enough, without havin' him to look after. I 
 didn't know what to make of him. He was 
 shakin' all over, just like a cold pup ; but he 
 wouldn't be satisfied till he'd got to a place 
 where he could see what was goin' on, and 
 even then he just begged to go, instead of 
 me. But I crep' back to where I'd been, 
 behind the brush. The squaw wa'n't but 
 about ten yards from me. I just laid flat on 
 the ground, where I could keep my eye on 
 her, and I begun to make a lot of little noises, 
 like crickets, and different kinds o' bugs. I 
 misdoubted if she'd be sleepin' right hearty, 
 after what had happened ; and pretty soon I 
 seen her turn over and lift up on her arm, 
 like she was listenin'. I kep' on, chirpin' 
 and squeakin', till she'd got me located and 
 looked out my way, and then I took off my 
 hat and reached it out from behind the 
 brush, makin' motions with it; and then I 
 raised up slow, till she could see my face. 
 She was onto her job, all right; she never 
 made a move nor a sound. I signed to her 
 
174 Private Sam Weeks 
 
 what I was tryin' to do, and then I took my 
 knife out o' the sheath and crep' in a ways 
 further till I got where I reckoned I could 
 pitch the knife to her and let her cut herself 
 loose. The knife lit right between her and 
 the buck, and the blade hit a little rock. I'd 
 ought to 've knowed better ! It sounded like 
 a clap o' thunder, and the buck, he begun to 
 move and throw his blanket off him. The 
 squaw, she snatched the knife and slashed 
 her arm loose and then she made a break 
 for it ; but the buck set up and ketched hold 
 of her. He wa'n't rightly wide awake, so 
 he didn't have his full strength, and she 
 jerked away from him and begun to run ; but 
 he let out a screech and jumped up and 
 started after her ; and he'd have ketched her, 
 too, if it hadn't been for Sam. I'd got 
 back behind the bushes by then, nigh 
 par'lysed, and cussin' Sam's fool idea for all 
 I was worth, under my breath; and then 
 Sam let go with his rifle, and I seen the buck 
 drop. 
 
Private Sam Weeks 175 
 
 " The whole camp was waked up by then, 
 of course. They didn't know what. 'Twas 
 mighty lucky for us the fire was low. I 
 called to Sam and the squaw to foller me, 
 and then struck off in a different direction 
 from what I'd come, makin' all kinds of 
 noise, till we'd got out a ways in the dark; 
 and then we turned off and made a break for 
 the hill, doublin' back on our tracks and 
 keepin' mighty still. The Sioux begun 
 shootin' after us, the way they thought we 
 was goin'. I knowed they wouldn't foller 
 us till they'd got on their ponies, because a 
 Sioux ain't no manner of good while he's 
 afoot, and he knows it. That give us a 
 minute or two start. They throwed a lot 
 of dry brush on the fire, and it begun to 
 blaze up; but by then we was up to the top 
 o' the hill, where we'd left the other feller, 
 and then we all broke down to where the 
 ponies was tied. Sam, he made a jump for 
 the saddle; but I ketched hold of him. 
 ' That's no way, Sam/ I says. ' We'll have 
 
176 Private Sam Weeks 
 
 to let the ponies go.' I knowed them Sioux 
 would be hikin' 'round everywhere, right 
 off, and there was too many of 'em, so we 
 must do somethin' to put 'em off our trail. 
 So I cut the ponies loose, and turned 'em 
 with their heads towards the trail, and then I 
 took and lashed 'em with a stick, and they 
 started down the creek-bed, lickity-split, with 
 their hoofs poundin' the rocks, and makin' 
 a terrible racket. I 'lowed the Sioux would 
 foller the noise, for a spell, till they found 
 out ; and then we went the other way, afoot, 
 makin' all the trail we knowed how. We 
 kep' down in the creek-bed for a spell, and 
 then we got out on the hills, travellin' all 
 night, straight north. Come mornin', we 
 laid by in the brush, waitin' for night again. 
 We reckoned the Sioux wouldn't be able to 
 find our trail, mebbe, till day; and then 
 mebbe the wind would 've helped cover it up 
 with dust. So we just laid down to keep 
 hid. 
 
 " It proves what I've always said. Long 
 
Private Sam Weeks 177 
 
 as a man just keeps right on doin' things, 
 and not thinkin', he's all right, and it don't 
 make no difference ; but soon as he sets down 
 and begins studyin' about what a hard time 
 he's havin', then's when it gets him. That 
 was the way it was with us. All night long 
 we'd kep' on, stumblin' over them sand-hills, 
 once in a while me and the other feller sayin' 
 somethin' to josh Sam. We didn't feel no 
 worse than if we was kids runnin' off with a 
 watermelon we'd stole. But after we'd hid 
 in the brush, and begun to turn the thing 
 over in our minds, it looked mean. We 
 didn't have no grub, and we didn't have but 
 less'n a pint of water in our canteens, for 
 the whole four of us. Out in them sand- 
 hills it gets hot awful soon in the mornin', 
 summertime. The sun wa'n't hardly up till 
 we begun to feel it, bad. Sage-brush ain't 
 no good to keep the sun off, nohow; it just 
 makes a little bit of thin, dusty shadder that's 
 'most worse than none, it's so aggravatin'. 
 Twa'n't long till I was so miserable I'd 'most 
 
178 Private Sam Weeks 
 
 as soon have got ketched. The wind come 
 up, hotter 'n it had been the day before, and 
 blowin' the dust down on us, thick, and our 
 eyes was smartin' with the alkali. There 
 ain't nothin' makes a body feel so mean as 
 a hot wind blowin' on him, with the fine 
 sand siftin' in his ears and down his neck. 
 Me and the other feller was cussin' a blue 
 streak, huntin' up a new name for every 
 different bone in Sam's body, till I begun to 
 feel sorry for him, only I couldn't stop 
 cussin' him. We hadn't slep' none the night 
 before, and that always makes a man ornery. 
 But Sam, he didn't seem to mind what we 
 said to him ; he was too much took up with 
 the girl. He sure did set a heap by her ; he 
 was as proud of her as if he'd made her him- 
 self. She wa'n't much to look at, neither, 
 that I could see only just a Winnebago 
 girl, sixteen or seventeen, and not no better 
 lookin' than the general run of 'em. But 
 she sure looked all right to Sam. We 
 poured what little water we had into my 
 
Private Sam Weeks 179 
 
 canteen, and every so often, when we 
 couldn't stand it no longer, we'd pass it 
 'round and just barely wet our lips ; and Sam 
 was always mighty particular to see that the 
 girl didn't get skipped. Made me tired ! 
 'Twa'n't right human, I reckon, but I didn't 
 seem to care much how thirsty she was. 
 Sam, he couldn't get done talkin' to us about 
 her. ' She's goin' home to her folks,' he 
 says, ' and they're all goin' to be so happy, 
 just on account of us. That's worth thinkin' 
 about, ain't it? ' ' Yes,' I says, ' and there's 
 that buck-Sioux you shot last night. He's 
 goin' home to his folks, too, and they're all 
 goin' to be so happy, too, 'count of us.' 
 Sam, it worried him, I could see. Matter 
 of fact, I didn't care how dead Sam had 
 killed him; but seemed like I was bound to 
 say as contrary things as I could. 
 
 " Well, by and by I stood up to take a look 
 around ; and then I swore some more. The 
 air was so thick with dust I couldn't see 
 fifty yards. And there we'd been, squattin' 
 
180 Private Sam Weeks 
 
 in the brush for eight mortal hours, when 
 we'd 've been just as well hid goin' on. 
 ' Come on/ I says ; and we picked up and 
 started. Land, land ! If the Almighty had 
 sent an angel to us, out there, with a pack- 
 pony loaded with water and grub, I'd have 
 picked a fight with him for not comin' 
 sooner. There ain't no tellin' how I felt. 
 I don't get that way often, but when I do, 
 seems like it goes clear to the middle of me. 
 Hungry! I could 've e't anything. We'd 
 took the last of our water, too. 
 
 " After we'd gone on for a couple hours, 
 we come to a deep canyon, with the walls 
 goin' down steep. We scrambled down, 
 scrapin' the hide off us every jump; but 
 there wa'n't no water at the bottom, nor 
 nothin' but just dry sand and rocks. I 
 thought it over a good bit, figurin' out the 
 meanest thing I could say to Sam, and then 
 I says, ' Sam, what did the fellers in your 
 mouldy old Jew books do when they was 
 thirsty ? ' Sam, he looked at me a minute, 
 
Private Sam Weeks 1 8 1 
 
 kind o' pitiful, and he says, slow, ' There was 
 one of 'em that belted the water out of a 
 rock/ With that he hauled off with his foot 
 and kicked one of the stones that was layin' 
 there, and it rolled over and showed the sand 
 was damp under it. I just yelled ; and then 
 I dropped down on my knees and begun 
 diggin' with my hands, like a dog after a 
 chipmunk. The whole of us started to 
 diggin', usin' our hands and our knives. I 
 tore my fingers shameful, because the sand 
 was full of sharp stones ; but we didn't seem 
 to get no closter to water, even two foot 
 down. I could 've cried, I was so dis- 
 app'inted, if it would 've done any good; 
 but a feller don't cry nothin' but salt water, 
 nohow. We tried scrapin' up a little of the 
 damp sand and puttin' it in our mouths, to 
 suck;' but the sand worked under our tongues 
 and down our throats, and it hurt like blazes. 
 The squaw, she'd been peckin' 'round in the 
 rocks, here and there; and pretty soon she 
 come back to us with a little handful of dry, 
 
1 82 Private Sam Weeks 
 
 bilious-lookin' moss she'd peeled off, and 
 told us to chaw on it. 'Twas full of grit. 
 It smelled a good bit like a lady's handker- 
 chief, and tasted like a horse-blanket ; but we 
 e't it, and it helped some. But not much. 
 The inside of my throat felt like the inside of 
 a fur boot, and I was so empty I could feel 
 the front of my stomach rubbin' against my 
 backbone. We just set there and rested for 
 a spell, and then we went on. 
 
 " Come night, I actually didn't care. Me 
 and Sam, our tongues was swelled so by 
 then that our mouths wouldn't go shut ; and 
 the other two wa'n't much better off. We 
 was clean tuckered out, and we couldn't 
 hardly stagger another step. After the sun 
 set, the wind begun to die down, and after 
 while we could see the stars just a big one, 
 here and there. They looked mighty sickly ; 
 but they helped us a heap, because they told 
 us which way we was goin'. It got a little 
 mite cooler, by and by, and we laid down for 
 a spell, and we was so beat out we went to 
 
Private Sam Weeks 183 
 
 sleep, all of us. When I waked up, I was 
 actually chilly, and I felt damp on my 
 hands, and on my face, and on my whiskers. 
 When I put my hand up, my beard was wet. 
 'Twas dew. I ain't never goin' to tell you 
 how it happened, out there in the sand-hills, 
 that time o' year, unless it was some of the 
 Lord's work. But I knowed we was all 
 right then. I waked the rest of 'em up, and 
 showed 'em what to do. The brush and 
 stuff that was growin' 'round was all 
 speckled over with little shiny drops, and us 
 fellers took off the handkerchiefs we had 
 'round our necks and went to work, real 
 easy, wipin' the dew off the leaves. It's a 
 trick a soldier learnt me once, and it's worth 
 knowin'. We kep' wipin' and wipin' till our 
 handkerchiefs was soaked, and then we 
 tipped our heads back and squeezed the 
 water in our mouths. It saved my life, and 
 I know it. We just kep' on, hours and 
 hours, till mornin', wipin' and squeezin', till 
 we'd drunk all we wanted and got 'most half 
 
184 Private Sam Weeks 
 
 a canteen full besides. Next mornin' we 
 felt mighty different, now I tell you ! 'Twas 
 a cooler day, too, and we judged 'twould be 
 safe to strike towards the trail where our 
 squad was. We e't our moss till the middle 
 of the mornin', and then I shot a jack-rabbit 
 and cooked it; and by evenin' we was so 
 close down that we seen a couple of our fel- 
 lers ridin' over the hills, lookin' for us. 
 We was all right then. 
 
 "But what do you reckon Sam done? 
 He had a sick spell, after a bit, and got his 
 discharge ; and then he didn't do a thing but 
 go back to the Winnebago reservation and 
 stay there, and take up with that girl. 
 That's just exactly the very thing he done. 
 If you ever happen to meet up with any half- 
 breed Winnebagos that knows how to talk 
 Jew, you'll know they belong to Sam." 
 
 THE END 
 
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