“I knowed that as well as you do, but that ain’t the question at all. I’ll come to that bimeby. I unfastened the cotch, and then squatted in the starn and paddled harder than ever. I worked so hard, that I kept the rear part goin’ faster than the forrard, so that now and then I hit my nose ag’in the prow. That made it bulge into the qu’arest kind of shapes, and it bounced about so much that I didn’t git along very fast. But at last, I reached camp, whar thar was a good deal of fun when they found we had brought the Injin back with us. Some wanted to skulp him on the spot, but Colonel Stebbins said no. He hadn’t committed murder, but he had been cotched at burglary, and we should try ’im on that charge. “So they got up what they called a court-martial, the colonel himself acting as boss--” “Judge Advocate, he is called,” interrupted Harry, who was becoming quite interested in the narration. “That’s it, and they had their lawyers, or whatever you’ve a mind to name ’em, and the Injin was fotched up. By that time he had worked off most of the whisky. He wasn’t sober, not by no means, but he was just drunk enough to be independent and sassy, and he was the smartest red-skin I ever sot eyes on. He could talk English as well as we, and he understood what they war drivin’ at from the fust. “When they axed him to pick out a lawyer, he shook his head, and said he could lie as fast as any lawyer. That made ’em all laugh, and I could see that they didn’t mean to hurt the varmint. If he’d been a Blackfoot it would have gone hard with him, for they had bothered us a good deal; but the Nez Perces had never troubled us afore, and they’re a much better set of people anyway. “I never could understand what made that red-skin so smart,” said Old Ruff, with a wondering shake of his head, “it beat my ca’clations all holler.” “I don’t see any thing particularly smart in what he did,” said Harry, “unless it may have been that he got hold of a bottle of whisky before you did. I suppose it takes a smart man to do that.” Old Robsart looked down upon the impudent lad, with one of his most patronizing grins. He felt that he was a sharp one, and he liked him all the better for it. “It’s a pity we hadn’t _you_ there,” he said; “if we had, things would have gone different, but nobody was around as cute as you.” “Let us hear how the trial resulted, and I beg pardon for my ill manners.” “Wal, Colonel Stebbins was a big, fat, jolly chap, and he see’d the fun ahead. So he had the red-skin fotched up afore him, and he read a paper full of big-sounding words, that I don’t b’l’eve he understood himself; but when he got through he told the varmint that he was accused of running away with a boat that belonged to the United States, and he axed him what he had got to say in his defense.