“‘Which the Great Father is too many for Crooked Claw,’ says this parent, commentin’ on his helplessness.  Bill’s gone canterin’ to his old gent to remonstrate, not hungerin’ for learnin’, an’ Crooked Claw says this to Bill:  ‘The Great Father is too many for Crooked Claw; an’ too strong.  You must go to school as the Great Father orders; it is right.  The longest spear is right.’

“Bill is re-branded, ‘Bill Connors,’ an’ then he’s done bound down to them books.  After four years Bill gradyooates; he’s got the limit an’ the philanthrofists takes Bill’s hobbles off an’ throws him loose with the idee that Bill will go back to his tribe folks an’ teach ’em to read.  Bill comes back, shore, an’ is at once the Osage laughin’-stock for wearin’ pale-face clothes.  Also, the medicine men tells Bill he’ll die for talkin’ paleface talk an’ sportin’ a paleface shirt, an’ these prophecies preys on Bill who’s eager to live a heap an’ ain’t ready to cash in.  Bill gets back to blankets an’ feathers in about a month.

“Old Black Dog, a leadin’ sharp among the Osages, is goin’ about with a dab of clay in his ha’r, and wearin’ his most ornery blanket.  That’s because Black Dog is in mournin’ for a squaw who stampedes over the Big Divide, mebby it’s two months prior.  Black Dog’s mournin’ has got dealt down to the turn like; an’ windin’ up his grief an’ tears, Osage fashion, he out to give a war-dance.  Shore; the savages rings in a war-dance on all sorts of cer’monies.  It don’t allers mean that they’re hostile, an’ about to spraddle forth on missions of blood.  Like I states, Black Dog, who’s gone to the end of his mournful lariat about the departed squaw, turns himse’f on for a war-dance; an’ he nacherally invites the Osage nation to paint an’ get in on the festiv’ties.

“Accordin’ to the rooles, pore Bill, jest back from school, has got to cut in.  Or he has his choice between bein’ fined a pony or takin’ a lickin’ with mule whips in the hands of a brace of kettle-tenders whose delight as well as dooty it is to mete out the punishment.  Bill can’t afford to go shy a pony, an’ as he’s loth to accept the larrupin’s, he wistfully makes ready to shake a moccasin at the baile.  An’ as nothin’ but feathers, blankets, an’ breech-clouts goes at a war-dance—­the same bein’ Osage dress-clothes—­Bill shucks his paleface garments an’ arrays himse’f after the breezy fashion of his ancestors.  Bill attends the war dance an’ shines.  Also, bein’ praised by the medicine men an’ older bucks for quittin’ his paleface duds; an’ findin’ likewise the old-time blanket an’ breech-clout healthful an’ saloobrious—­which Bill forgets their feel in his four years at that sem’nary—­he adheres to ’em.  This lapse into aboriginal ways brews trouble for Bill; he gets up ag’inst the agent.

“It’s the third day after Black Dog’s war-dance, an’ Bill, all paint an’ blankets an’ feathers, is sa’nterin’ about Pawhusky, takin’ life easy an’ Injun fashion.  It’s then the agent connects with Bill an’ sizes him up.  The agent asks Bill does he stand in on this yere Black Dog war-dance.