“I’m standin’ at the counter across the room.  Jest as I turns my back, thar’s the crack! of a rifle to the r’ar of the j’int, an’ Hardrobe pitches onto the floor as dead as ever transpires in that tribe.  In the back door, with one arm in a sling, an’ a gun that still smokes, ca’m an’ onmoved like Injuns allers is, stands Bloojacket.

“‘My hand is forced,’ he says, as he passes me his gun; ’it’s him or me!  One of us wore the death-mark an’ had to go.’

“‘Couldn’t you-all have gone with Crook ag’in?’ I says.  ’Which you don’t have to infest this yere stretch of country.  Thar’s no hobbles or sidelines on you; none whatever!’

“Bloojacket makes no reply, an’ his copper face gets expressionless an’ inscrootable.  I can see through, however; an’ it’s the hobbles of that Caldwell beauty’s innocence that’s holdin’ him.

“Bloojacket walks over to where Hardrobe’s layin’ dead an’ straightens him round—­laigs an’ arms—­an’ places his big white cow hat over his face.  Thar’s no more sign of feelin’, whether love or hate, in the eyes of Bloojacket while he performs these ceremonies than if Hardrobe’s a roll of blankets.  But thar’s no disrespects neither; jest a great steadiness.  When he has composed him out straight, Bloojacket looks at the remainder for mebby a minute.  Then he shakes his head.

“‘He was a great man,’ says Bloojacket, p’intin’ at his dead father, with his good hand; ‘thar’s no more like him among the Osages.’

“Tharupon Bloojacket wheels on the half-breed who runs the deadfall an’ who’s standin’ still an’ scared, an’ says: 

“‘How much does he owe?’ Then he pays Hardrobe’s charges for antelope steaks an’ what chuck goes with it, an’ at the close of these fiscal op’rations, remarks to the half-breed—­who ain’t sayin’ no more’n he can he’p,—­’Don’t touch belt nor buckle on him; you-all knows me!’ An’ I can see that half-breed restauraw party is out to obey Bloojacket’s mandates.

“Bloojacket gives himse’f up to the Osages an’ is thrown loose on p’role.  But Bloojacket never gets tried.

“A week rides by, an’ he’s standin’ in front of the agency, sort o’ makin’ up some views concernin’ his destinies.  He’s all alone; though forty foot off four Osage bucks is settin’ together onder a cottonwood playin’ Injun poker—­the table bein’ a red blanket spread on the grass,—­for two bits a corner.  These yere sports in their blankets an’ feathers, an’ rifflin’ their greasy deck, ain’t sayin’ nothin to Bloojacket an’ he ain’t sayin’ nothin’ to them.  Which jest the same these children of nacher don’t like the idee of downin’ your parent none, an’ it’s apparent Bloojacket’s already half exiled.

“As he stands thar roominatin,’ with the hot August sun beatin’ down, thar’s a atmosphere of sadness to go with Bloojacket.  But you-all would have to guess at it; his countenance is as ca’m as on that murderin’ evenin’ in the half-breed’s restauraw.