Back on the rough Oregon mountains were sons and daughters, “flesh of his flesh, bone of his bone,” brown-skinned though they were; and he turned his back on the White Man and his unfamiliar ways, and set his face toward those whom he knew best and loved. Somehow, you like and respect the man for going, as you couldn’t had he stayed. The story reads like fiction, doesn’t it? But the pity of it is that it is true. [Illustration] ACCORDING TO ONE’S STANDPOINT There were three people in the group on the station platform at Humboldt. The two who were standing were a white man and a white woman. The man was tall, with breadth in his shoulders, five-and-thirty, and rather good looking. His dress evidenced prosperity, and his manner betokened long residence in a city--one of the cities east of the Mississippi. The woman also was tall; and graceful, and very pretty, and not over twenty-five years of age. She was, without doubt, a bride, and--equally without doubt--a fit mate for the man. She carried her chin high (a trick common to those wearing eye-glasses) and moved with an air of being quite sure of her social position. She was inconspicuously dressed, but her gown, when she walked, rustled in the way that speaks of silken linings. She looked like a woman whose boots were always made to order, and who, each night, had an hour spent upon brushing her hair. The third person in the group was an Indian. A Paiute fifty years old, but who looked twenty years older. Old George. His little withered brown face was puckered into a whimsical smile as with head aslant he looked up from where he sat on the bench that was built round a tree-box. This was his frequent seat when the trains came in, and here he came daily to answer the inquisitive questions of people who deem themselves well bred. He was old, and much dirtier than even the others of his race. But he afforded entertainment for the travelers whose pleasure it was to put questions. “Yep, me old. ‘Forty?’ I guess so. ‘One hundred?’ Maybe so; I no know.” He chuckled. It was the same thing over and over again that they--on the trains--asked him every day. Not a whit cared he what they asked, nor was it worth while telling the truth. When they asked he answered; saying the things they wanted to hear. And sometimes they gave him nickels. That was all there was about it. “Where did he live?” “What did he eat?” “Did he work?” his inquisitors queried. “Was he married?” and “Had he any children?” “Had he ever killed any white men?” Then they would note his maimed, misshapen limbs. “How long ago had his leg been broken?” “In what way had he crippled his hands?” But to all there were the same replies: “I no know. Maybe so. I guess so.” What did it matter? They were satisfied. And meddlers they were. Yet----generally he got the waited-for nickel.