So she and her aunt and the maid changed cars twice after leaving St.
Louis and then staged it to Kiowa City, where, while waiting for “Pop”
Henderson's coach to Fort Crockett, they dined with him on bacon, fried
bread, and alkali water tinged with coffee.
It was at Kiowa City, a city of four hundred houses on blue-print paper
and six on earth, that Miss Post first felt certain that she was going
to enjoy her visit. It was there she first saw, at large and on his
native heath, a blanket Indian. He was a tall, beautiful youth, with
yellow ochre on his thin, brown arms and blue ochre on his cheekbones,
who sat on “Pop's” steps, gazing impassively at the stars. Miss Post
came out with her maid and fell over him. The maid screamed. Miss Post
said: “I beg your pardon”; and the brave expressed his contempt by
gutteral mutterings and by moving haughtily away. Miss Post was then
glad that she had not gone to Aiken. For the twelve-mile drive through
the moonlit buttes to Fort Crockett there was, besides the women, one
other passenger. He was a travelling salesman of the Hancock Uniform
Company, and was visiting Fort Crockett to measure the officers for
their summer tunics. At dinner he passed Miss Post the condensed
milk-can, and in other ways made himself agreeable. He informed her aunt
that he was in the Military Equipment Department of the Army, but, much
to that young woman's distress, addressed most of his remarks to the
maid, who, to his taste, was the most attractive of the three.
“I take it,” he said genially to Miss Post, “that you and the young lady
are sisters.”
“No,” said Miss Post, “we are not related.”
It was eight o'clock, and the moon was full in the heavens when “Pop”
Henderson hoisted them into the stage and burdened his driver, Hunk
Smith, with words of advice which were intended solely for the ears of
the passengers.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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