“I made up my mind Percy wasn’t goin’ to be scart if I could help it.  If he had to go let him go quick, without waiting.  They made me wait once, and while it didn’t come to nothing, I don’t think I should ever really care for it.

“‘He wants to rassel me,’ I answers.  ’Great people for sports, Injuns, and curious how they go at it.  He expects me to surprise him—­let’s see, how many have you got there?’

“I bent over, to get my legs loose, so I could jump, and also to get a quick peep at circumstances.  There wasn’t but the lone buck.  I worked the cat racket.  You know how a cat does?  She sits still, thinkin’ ‘I’m goin’ to move fast in a minute—­I sure am goin’ to move fast in a minute,’ until she gets such a head of steam on, she’s off before she knows it.  That’s just what I done, exactly.  I was all over that Injun, kicked his gun out of reach and heaved him over the steepest side before you could say ‘Keno.’

[Illustration:  “I was all over that Injun.”]

“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.