“‘They travels with me that day, eats with me that evenin’ when we makes our camp, has a drink with me all ’round, sings savage hymns to me throughout the night, loads up with chuck in the mornin’, offers me no end of flattery as a dead game gent whom they respects, says adios; an’ then they scatters like a flock of quail.  Also, havin’ resoomed business on old-time lines, they takes divers shots at us with their Winchesters doorin’ the next two days, an’ kills a hoss an’ creases my sergeant.  Why don’t I corral an’ hold ’em when they’re in my clutch?  It would have been breakin’ the trooce as Injuns an’ I onderstands sech things; moreover, they let me go free without conditions when I was loser by every roole of the game.’”

CHAPTER VII.

The Mills of Savage Gods.

“Thar might, of course, be romances in the West,” observed the Old Cattleman, reflectively, in response to my question, “but the folks ain’t got no time.  Romance that a-way demands leesure, an’ a party has to be more or less idlin’ about to get what you-all might style romantic action.  Take that warjig whereof I recently relates an’ wherein this yere Wild Bill Hickox wipes out the McCandlas gang—­six to his Colt’s, four to his bowie, an’ one to his Hawkins rifle; eleven in all—­I asks him myse’f later when he’s able to talk, don’t he regyard the eepisode as some romantic.  An’ Bill says, ’No, I don’t notice no romance tharin; what impresses me most is that she’s shore a zealous fight—­also, mighty busy.’

“Injuns would be romantic, only they’re so plumb ignorant they never once saveys.  Thar’s no Injun word for ‘romantic’; them benighted savages never tumblin’ to sech a thing as romance bein’ possible.  An’ yet said aborigines engages in plays which a eddicated Eastern taste with leesure on its hands an’ gropin’ about for entertainment would pass on as romantic.

“When I’m pesterin’ among the Osages on that one o’casion that I’m tryin’ to make a round-up of my health, the old buck Strike Axe relates to me a tale which I allers looks on as possessin’ elements.  Shore; an’ it’s as simple an’ straight as the sights of a gun.  It’s about a squaw an’ three bucks, an’ thar’s enough blood in it to paint a waggon.  Which I reckons now I’ll relate it plain an’ easy an’ free of them frills wherewith a professional racontoor is so prone to overload his narratives.

“The Black Cloud is a Osage medicine man an’ has high repoote about Greyhoss where he’s pitched his teepee an’ abides.  He’s got a squaw, Sunbright, an’ he’s plenty jealous of this yere little Sunbright.  The Black Cloud has three squaws, an’ Sunbright is the youngest.  The others is Sunbright’s sisters, for a Osage weds all the sisters of a fam’ly at once, the oldest sister goin’ to the front at the nuptials to deal the weddin’ game for the entire outfit.