Adventure stories; Indians of North America -- Fiction; Short stories, American
Jimmy came from the other side of the street. He was a big, hulking
Indian clad in approved white-man style, with an Eldorado king's
sombrero on his head. He talked with Imber, haltingly, with throaty
spasms. Jimmy was a Sitkan, possessed of no more than a passing
knowledge of the interior dialects.
"Him Whitefish man," he said to Emily Travis. "Me savve um talk no
very much. Him want to look see chief white man."
"The Governor," suggested Dickensen.
Jimmy talked some more with the Whitefish man, and his face went grave
and puzzled.
"I t'ink um want Cap'n Alexander," he explained. "Him say um kill
white man, white woman, white boy, plenty kill um white people. Him
want to die."
"Insane, I guess," said Dickensen.
"What you call dat?" queried Jimmy.
Dickensen thrust a finger figuratively inside his head and imparted a
rotary motion thereto.
"Mebbe so, mebbe so," said Jimmy, returning to Imber, who still
demanded the chief man of the white men.
A mounted policeman (unmounted for Klondike service) joined the group
and heard Imber's wish repeated. He was a stalwart young fellow,
broad-shouldered, deep-chested, legs cleanly built and stretched wide
apart, and tall though Imber was, he towered above him by half a head.
His eyes were cool, and gray, and steady, and he carried himself with
the peculiar confidence of power that is bred of blood and
tradition. His splendid masculinity was emphasized by his excessive
boyishness,--he was a mere lad,--and his smooth cheek promised a blush
as willingly as the cheek of a maid.
Imber was drawn to him at once. The fire leaped into his eyes at sight
of a sabre slash that scarred his cheek. He ran a withered hand down
the young fellow's leg and caressed the swelling thew. He smote the
broad chest with his knuckles, and pressed and prodded the thick
muscle-pads that covered the shoulders like a cuirass. The group had
been added to by curious passers-by--husky miners, mountaineers,
and frontiersmen, sons of the long-legged and broad-shouldered
generations. Imber glanced from one to another, then he spoke aloud in
the Whitefish tongue.
"What did he say?" asked Dickensen.
"Him say um all the same one man, dat p'liceman," Jimmy interpreted.
Little Dickensen was little, and what of Miss Travis, he felt sorry
for having asked the question.
The policeman was sorry for him and stepped into the breach. "I fancy
there may be something in his story. I'll take him up to the captain
for examination. Tell him to come along with me, Jimmy."
Jimmy indulged in more throaty spasms, and Imber grunted and looked
satisfied.
"But ask him what he said, Jimmy, and what he meant when he took hold
of my arm."
So spoke Emily Travis, and Jimmy put the question and received the
answer.
"Him say you no afraid," said Jimmy.
Emily Travis looked pleased.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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