"Oh, you'd be all right as long as you wasn't a dude!" rejoined Sandboys. "Now that the dudes has taken to wearin' their hair long in the back, no wild Indian's goin' to bother with boys. There's no fun scalpin' a small boy, with football scalps in sight. You've hit on the great trouble about Indians, though," Sandboys added, reflectively. "You can civilize 'em. You can teach 'em Latin, Greek, French, or plumbing. You can teach 'em to dance and sing. You can make 'em wear swaller-tail coats and knickerbockers instead o' paint an' hoss blankets, but you can't entirely kill their taste for takin' hair that don't belong to 'em. It was on just that point that I had my only experience with Indians in this place here, and I tell you what there was lively times that summer. It nearly ruined this hotel, and if it hadn't been for me, I kind o' think it would have been goin' on yet. [Illustration] "It was back in the eighties somewhere that it happened. I don't remember whether it was '87 or '88. Tennyrate, it was the year Mr. Hicks's boy Jimmie caught a five-pound bass in Echo Lake with his Waterbury watch. Ever hear about that? Funniest thing y' ever heard of. Jimmie Hicks was the liveliest little boy you ever saw. You two rolled into one wouldn't be half as lively. He was everywhere at once, Jimmie was. He's the boy that busted the hole in the roof with the elevator. Set the thing goin' up, couldn't stop it, and bang! first thing he knew the whole thing had smashed up through the roof and toppled over on its side. He had a watch--a Waterbury watch. His father got it for him just because it took an hour to wind it up, and that kept Jimmie busy for an hour a day, anyhow, an' he used to be doin' everything he could with it. I've seen him smash a black fly on the wall with it, usin' it like a sling-shot; but the queerest thing of the lot was his catchin' the bass with it. He was out in a boat, an' nothin' would do but he should trail that watch in the water after him. The bass he see it, thought it was a shiner, snapped at it, swallered it, and Jimmie pulls him in. Weighed five pounds an' three ounces on the office scales. It was that year we had the time with old Rocky Face--I don't remember his Indian name, but Rocky Face was what it meant in English. [Illustration]