"Oh, pooh! They're not all so bad as that," he said when, seated over a comfortable meal in the hut, Captain Hall dwelt on what he had seen at the edge of the forest. "They're only the dregs and leavings. I'll show you something different to that by and by. Poor beggars; I'm afraid they've no one but themselves to thank for their condition." "How do you make that out?" asked the Englishman. "Well, when Congress claimed that bit of prairie land, these fellows were given the patch where you saw them--and considerable money grants as well. They went off to the towns and spent the money like children, and when they hadn't got a red cent left, calculated to try farming. I reckon you saw the sort of farming _they_ go in for, Captain. They're too lazy to fell the trees, let alone grub out the roots or break up the soil. We've given 'em corn for seed, but they only chaw it up and then come back and ask for more. They had the option of coming out here, but they ain't partial to forest hunting; they won't help themselves, and they won't let us help them." "But what's the good of their coming out here if you fellows are going to turn them off when you think good?" asked the Captain. The agent shrugged his shoulders. "Look here, sir, these chaps won't be disturbed for another twenty years. The chiefs have had fair warning, and if they don't turn to and help themselves before then, it'll be their own look-out. Finer men you needn't wish to see--at present." Hall felt that the last remark was fully justified when, later in the evening, his new friend conducted him to the middle of the clearing, where the whole tribe had foregathered. "Couldn't have come at a better time, Captain," said the Yankee. "To-morrow's their Derby Day, University match, or whatever you like to call it--the greatest day of the year. A team of up-forest Creeks is now on the way to play against them at ball." "Ball?" "Ay, you'll see to-morrow. Come and be presented to the chiefs now--and mind the dogs." The caution was needful enough, for at the entry of every hut or wigwam was a brace of half-wild Indian hounds, each fastened by a thong to a stump, and ready to spring on the unwary. "What's all the din about?" asked Hall, as they came to the village square or _place_. "Local band," said the American briefly, and just then they came upon the gifted instrumentalists, two in number, though making noise enough for two dozen. One "uneasy imp of darkness" was beating with his fist a drum made of deer-skin stretched over a short length of hollow tree-trunk; the other had a gourd, so dry that it resembled wood, which contained a double handful of pebbles and which he shook as a child shakes a rattle, only with more disastrous results to Christian ears.