“‘The big lance Injun is the dominatin’ sperit of the bunch.  As he draws up to me—­he’s fifty foot in advance of the others—­he makes his lance shiver from p’int to butt.  It fairly sings a death song!  I can feel it go through an’ through me a score of times.  But I stands thar facin’ him; for, of course, I wants it to go through from the front.  I don’t allow to be picked up later with anything so onfashionable as a lance wound in my back.  That would be mighty onprofessional!

“’You onderstands that what now requires minutes in the recital don’t cover seconds as a play.  The lance Injun runs up to within a rod of me an’ halts.  His arm goes back for a mighty cast of the lance; the weepon is vibrant with the very sperit of hate an’ malice.  His eyes, through a fringe of ha’r that has fallen over ’em, glows out like a cat’s eyes in the dark.

“We stands thar—­I still puffin my pipe, he with his lance raised—­an’ we looks on each other—­I an’ that paint-daubed buck!  I can’t say whatever is his notion of me, but on my side I never beholds a savage who appeals to me as a more evil an’ forbiddin’ picture!

“’As I looks him over a change takes place.  The fire in his eyes dies out, his face relaxes its f’rocity, an’ after standin’ for a moment an’ as the balance of the band arrives, he turns the lance over his arm an’ with the butt presented, surrenders it into my hand.  You can gamble I don’t lose no time in arguin’ the question, but accepts the lance with all that it implies.  Bringin’ the weepon to a ‘Right Shoulder’ an’ with my mind relieved, I gives the word to my mule-skinner—­who’s onconscious of the transactions in life an’ death goin’ on behind his back—­an’ with that, we-all takes up our march an’ soon comes up on the escort where it’s ag’in fixed firm in the snow about a furlong to the fore.  My savages follows along with me, an’ each of ’em as grave as squinch owls an’ tame as tabby cats.

“’Joke? no; them Apaches was as hostile as Gila monsters!  But beholdin’ me, as they regyards it—­for they don’t in their ontaught simplicity make allowance for me bein’ implanted in the snow, gunless an’ he’pless—­so brave, awaitin’ deestruction without a quiver, their admiration mounts to sech heights it drowns within ’em every thought of cancellin’ me with that lance, an’ tharupon they pays me their savage compliments in manner an’ form deescribed.  They don’t regyard themse’fs as surrenderin’ neither; they esteems passin’ me the lance as inauguratin’ a armistice an’ looks on themse’fs as guests of honor an’ onder my safegyard, free to say “How!” an’ vamos back to the warpath ag’in whenever the sperit of blood begins to stir within their breasts.  I knows enough of their ways to be posted as to what they expects; an’ bein’, I hopes, a gent of integrity, I accedes to ’em that exact status which they believes they enjoys.