"Percy was surprised and displeased. He put on his specks and trotted quick to the edge. "'Washington,' says he, 'you have hurt that man!' "'Oh, I guess not,' says I. 'He's used to this country.' "I hadn't hurt him half as much as I'd liked. If you slapped a white man straight down a hundred foot on top of a pile of rocks he'd depart like a Christian, but my red friend and brother promptly wriggled off behind the boulders. "I dassen't shoot. There might be a twenty of 'em in hearing, and, besides, no need of worryin' poor Percy, trustin' E. G. W., any sooner than I had to. "'It seems to me, Washington,' says Percy, 'that's _very_ rough play.' "'Percy,' says I, 'as you may have read, an Injun don't care so much about being hurt as he does for supportin' his family pride. If I'd only chucked him fifteen foot or so he'd thought I didn't respect his powers of endurance proper, and like enough wouldn't 'a' spoke to me if we met.' "'Well, of course, _you_ know all about these things,' he says. 'But to me it is very surprising.' "'Percy,' says I to him again, real earnest, 'if a man took note of all the things in this world that are surprisin' it wouldn't be no time before every tree in the forest looked like an exclamation mark to him.' "'I suppose,' says Percy, waggin' his head, wise, 'that's quite true.' "And if there'd been fifty million Injuns ready to fricassee us the next minute I couldn't 'a' helped havin' another attack of that bronco-kitus that troubled me so. "But your Uncle Zeke wasn't so cussed hilarious for the next four days. I expected that Injun back with his friends every minute, and what with watchin' all night and joshin' Percy all day I was plumb wore out. He made me kind of mad by not noticin' things was wrong, although that's the impression I'd labored to create upon him, as he'd say. "The Injun didn't come, and he didn't come till I got mad at him, too. How was I to know that he finished up my idee by fallin' over, further down? So I fumed and I fussed, and I yearned inside of me to get square with somebody. And at last my chance come. "Afternoon, hot and clear as usual. Percy asleep under a rock, and then, horses' footsteps! I jumped for the edge, and, boys, for a minute my sight give out. It wasn't Injuns; it was a lot of Uncle Sam's durned soldiers. I never expected to be so glad to see a soldier; I thought I despised 'em. "I looked at 'em for a full half minute, thinking,' God bless old Percy's blistered nose, he's safe!' and then I done what I hadn't orter did out of that, desire to get even. I slid down the mountain and whanged away over their heads. It was like pokin' your finger in a hornets' nest. Up comes them soldiers, workin' the finest of Injun sneaks up the hill. If there ever was a grand sight in Nature it's a two-hundred-pound soldier entirely concealed by a rock twice the size of my fist.