“Hey!” said High Bear now, to Scipio. “New store. Pretty good. Heap cheap.” “Yes, High Bear. Heap cheap. You savvy why?” With a long arm and an outstretched finger, Scipio suddenly pointed to Horacles. At this the Virginian’s hitherto unchanging face wakened to curiosity and attention. Scipio was now impressively and mysteriously nodding at the silver-haired chief in his bright, green blanket, and his long, fringed, yellow, soft buckskins. “No savvy,” said High Bear, after a pause, with a tinge of caution. He had followed Scipio’s pointing finger to where Horacles was happily practising a trick with a glass and a silver dollar behind the counter. “Heap cheap,” repeated Scipio, “because” (here he leaned close to High Bear and whispered) “because his uncle medicine-man. He big medicine-man, too.” High Bear’s eyes rested for a moment on Horacles. Then he shook his head. “Ah, nah,” he grunted. “He not medicine-man. He fall off horse. He no catch horse. My little girl catch him. Ah, nah!” High Bear laughed profusely at “Sippo’s” joke. “Sippo” was the Indians’ English name for their vivacious friend. In their own language they called him something complimentary in several syllables, but it was altogether too intimate and too plain-spoken for me to repeat aloud. Into his whisper Scipio now put more electricity. “He’s big medicine-man,” he hissed again, and he drilled his bleached blue eye into the brown one of the savage. “See him now!” He stretched out a vibrating finger. It was a pack of cards that Horacles was lightly manipulating. He fluttered it open in the air and fluttered it shut again, drawing it out like a concertina and pushing it flat like an opera hat--nor did a card fall to the ground. High Bear watched it hard; but soon High Bear laughed. “He pretty good,” he declared. “All same tin-horn monte-man. I see one Miles City.” “Maybe monte-man medicine-man too,” suggested Scipio. “Ah, nah!” said High Bear. Yet nevertheless Scipio saw him shoot one or two more doubtful glances at Horacles as that happy clerk continued his activities. Horacles had an audience (which he liked), and he held his audience--and who could help liking that? The bucks and squaws watched him, sometimes nudging one another, and they smiled and grunted their satisfaction at his news. Cheaper prices was something which their primitive minds could take in as well as any of us. “Why you not sell cheap like him?” they asked their friend “Sippo.” “We stay then. Not go his store.” This was the burden of their chorus, soft, laughing, a little mocking, floating among them like a breeze, voice after voice:-- “We like buy everything you, we like buy everything cheap.” “You make cheap, we buy heap shirts.” “Buy heap tobacco.” “Heap cartridge.” “You not sell cheap, we go.” “Ah!” The chorus laughed like pleased children. Scipio looked at them solemnly. He explained how much he would like to sell cheap, if only he were a medicine-man like Horacles.