S.  “This is the most painful intelligence that I ever received.  If I felt certain about it, I would remain at home.”

Capt.  “Don’t let me induce you to throw the thing up.  I wouldn’t a told you, anyway, only you kind of drew the information out of me.  And as long as I’ve gone this far, I might as well tell you that I got a letter the other day from a man who’d just come from there, and he said the crops were short, eatable people were scarce, and not one of them savages had had a square meal for months.  When he left, they were sitting on the rocks, hungry as thunder, waiting for a missionary-society ship to arrive.  And now I must be going.  Good-bye.  I know I’ll never see you again.  Take a last look at me.  Good-morning.”

Then the captain hobbled off.

Mr. Spooner has concluded to stay at home and teach school.

* * * * *

Another rather more enthusiastic friend of the savage is Mr. Dodge.  He came into the office the Patriot one day and sought a desk where a reporter was writing.  Seating himself and tilting the chair until it was nicely balanced upon two legs, he smiled a serene and philanthropic smile, and said,

“You see, I’m the friend of the poor Indian; he regards me as his Great White Brother, and I reciprocate his confidence and affection by doing what I can to alleviate his sufferings in his present unfortunate situation.  Young man, you do not know the anguish that fills the soul of the red man as civilization makes successive inroads upon his rights.  It is too sacred for exhibition.  He represses his emotion sternly, and we philanthropists only detect it by observing that he betrays an increased longing for firewater and an aggravated indisposition to wash himself.  Now, what do you suppose is the last sorrow that has come to blast the happiness of this persecuted being?  What do you think it is?”

“I don’t know, and I don’t care.”

“I will tell you.  It is the increasing tendency of the white man to baldness.  As civilization pushes upward, the hair of the pale face recedes.  Eventually, I suppose, about every other white man will be bald.  I notice that even you are gradually being reduced to a mere fringe around the base of your skull.  Now, imagine how an Indian feels when he considers this tendency.  Is it any wonder that the future seems dark and gloomy and hairless to him?  The scalping operation to him is a sacred rite.  It is interwoven with his most cherished traditions.  When he surrenders it, he dies with a broken heart.  What then, is to be done?”

“Oh, do hush up and quit.”

“There is but one thing to be done to meet this grave emergency.  We cannot justly permit that grand aboriginal man who once held sway over this mighty continent to be filled with desolation and misery by the inaccessibility of the scalps of his fellow-creatures.  My idea, therefore, is to bring those scalps within his reach, even when they are baldest and shiniest.  But how?”