So today he answered even as they questioned. Then the woman (pretty, and with an unmistakable air of good breeding) nodded and said: “Good-by!” and the man (well-mannered, well-groomed and self-complacent) gave him a silver quarter as he went back to the “Pullman.” “Henry, dear,” she asked, after they had settled themselves comfortably again in their compartment of the sleeping-car, “how do such creatures exist? Do they work, or only sit idly in the sun waiting for someone to give them one or two nickels?” “Oh, he is a confirmed beggar, one can see! They never work--these Paiutes. Mere animals are they, eating, drinking and sleeping as animals,” her husband replied. “So degenerate have they become since the days when they were a wild tribe and warriors that they go through life now in docile stupidity, without anything rousing them to what we would call a live interest in their surroundings. I doubt very much if, in the life of any one of them, there ever occurs any stirring event. Perhaps it is just as well, for at least it gives them a peaceful old age, and they can have no harassing recollections.” “And no happy ones, either,” the woman said. “Think what it must be to live out one’s allotted time of physical existence without ever experiencing the faintest romance--without even a gleam of what love means! I presume that the sense of attachment is unknown to them; such affection as----” “As ours?” he interrupted laughingly. “Well, rather unknown I should say.” The man looked with fond eyes into the eyes of the woman; then, as the train pulled out of the station, they saw the old Indian limping away toward his camp. * * * * * Are the individual histories of Indians--even Paiutes--even the “degenerate tribes”--uneventful or wholly devoid of human interest? Let us see. Old George can tell you a different story, it may be. From his point of view there is perhaps love; perhaps even romance. Much depends upon the standpoint one takes. The hills that look high from the valley, seem low looking down from the mountain. When I first knew George (he was “Young George” then), he was married and had children. Four; two boys and two girls. More than other Indians, he aped the Whites in their ways, and was reckoned (for a Paiute) a decent fellow. His camp was the best, his food the most plentiful, and his children the best kept and cleanest. The mother sewed well, and neither she nor the children ever went ragged. Among Indians they were as the hard-working, temperate laborer’s family is among the white men who work--work with their hands for a living.