“Oh, I’ll talk. Go get ready quick,--High Bear, what I tell you?” But High Bear’s eye was now fixedly watching the door through which Horacles had withdrawn; he did not listen as Scipio proceeded. “What I tell everybody? He do handkerchief. He do dollar. He do heap more. See me. I no can do like him. I not medicine-man. I throw handkerchief and dollar in the air, look! See! they tumble on floor no good,--thank you, my kind noble friend from Virginia, you pick my fool dollar and my fool handkerchief up for me, _muy pronto_. Oh, thank you, black-haired, green-eyed son of Dixie, you have the manners of a queen, but I no medicine-man, I shall never turn a skunk into a watermelon, I innocent, I young, I helpless babe, I suck bottle when I can get it. Fire and water will not obey me. Old man Makes-the-Thunder does not know my name and address. He spit on me Wednesday night last, and there are no dollars in this man’s hair.” (The Virginian winced beneath Scipio’s vicious snatch at his scalp, and the Agent and the doctor retired to a dark corner and laid their heads in each other’s waistcoats.) “Ha! he comes! Big medicine-man comes. See him, High Bear! His father, his mother, his aunts all twins, he ninth dog-pup in three sets of triplets, and the great white Ram-of-the-Mountains fed him on punkin-seed.--Sick ’em, Horacles.” The burning eye of High Bear now blazed with distended fascination, riveted upon Horacles, whom it never left. Darkness was gathering in the store. “Hand all same foot,” shouted Scipio, with gestures, “mouth all same hand. Can eat fire. Can throw ear mile off and listen you talk.” Here Horacles removed a dollar from the hair of High Bear’s fourteenth daughter, threw it into one boot, and brought it out of the other. The daughter screamed and burrowed behind her sire. All the Indians had drawn close together, away from the counter, while Scipio on top of the counter talked high and low, and made gestures without ceasing. “Hand all same mouth. Foot all same head. Take off head, throw it out window, it jump in door. See him, see big medicine-man!” And Scipio gave a great shriek. A gasp went among the Indians; red fire was blowing from the jaws of Horacles. It ceased, and after it came slowly, horribly, a long red tongue, and riding on the tongue’s end glittered a row of teeth. There was a crash upon the floor. It was High Bear’s crock. The old chief was gone. Out of the door he flew, his blanket over his face, and up on his horse he sprang, wildly beating the animal. Squaws and bucks flapped after him like poultry, rushing over the ground, leaping on their ponies, melting away into the dusk. In a moment no sign of them was left but the broken eggs, oozing about on the deserted floor. The white men there stood tearful, dazed, and weak with laughter.