"The kid grins. 'I guess not,' he says. 'I live thousands and thousands
of miles over there.' He gyrated his hand toward the horizon. 'I come on
the train,' he says, 'by myself. I got off here because the conductor
said my ticket had ex-pirated.' He looks at John Tom with sudden
suspicion 'I bet you ain't a Indian,' he says. 'You don't talk like a
Indian. You look like one, but all a Indian can say is "heap good" and
"paleface die." Say, I bet you are one of them make-believe Indians that
sell medicine on the streets. I saw one once in Quincy.'
"'You never mind,' says John Tom, 'whether I'm a cigar-sign or a Tammany
cartoon. The question before the council is what's to be done with you.
You've run away from home. You've been reading Howells. You've disgraced
the profession of boy avengers by trying to shoot a tame Indian, and
never saying: "Die, dog of a redskin! You have crossed the path of the
Boy Avenger nineteen times too often." What do you mean by it?'
"The kid thought for a minute. 'I guess I made a mistake,' he says. 'I
ought to have gone farther west. They find 'em wild out there in the
canyons.' He holds out his hand to John Tom, the little rascal. 'Please
excuse me, sir,' says he, 'for shooting at you. I hope it didn't hurt
you. But you ought to be more careful. When a scout sees a Indian in his
war-dress, his rifle must speak.' Little Bear give a big laugh with a
whoop at the end of it, and swings the kid ten feet high and sets him on
his shoulder, and the runaway fingers the fringe and the eagle feathers
and is full of the joy the white man knows when he dangles his heels
against an inferior race. It is plain that Little Bear and that kid are
chums from that on. The little renegade has already smoked the pipe of
peace with the savage; and you can see in his eye that he is figuring on
a tomahawk and a pair of moccasins, children's size.
"We have supper in the tent. The youngster looks upon me and the
Professor as ordinary braves, only intended as a background to the camp
scene. When he is seated on a box of Sum-wah-tah, with the edge of the
table sawing his neck, and his mouth full of beefsteak, Little Bear
calls for his name. 'Roy,' says the kid, with a sirloiny sound to it.
But when the rest of it and his post-office address is referred to, he
shakes his head. 'I guess not,' he says. 'You'll send me back. I want to
stay with you. I like this camping out. At home, we fellows had a camp
in our back yard. They called me Roy, the Red Wolf! I guess that'll do
for a name. Gimme another piece of beefsteak, please.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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