Now and then some passenger with a shred of soul and self-respect left to him turned to offer remonstrance; but the blue uniform on the towering figure, the fierce and conquering glare of his eye and the ready impact of his ham-like hands glued together the lips that would have spoken complaint.

When the train was full, then he exhibited to all who might observe and admire his irresistible genius as a ruler of men.  With his knees, with his elbows, with his shoulders, with his resistless feet he shoved, crushed, slammed, heaved, kicked, flung, pounded the overplus of passengers aboard.  Then with the sounds of its wheels drowned by the moans, shrieks, prayers, and curses of its unfortunate crew, the express dashed away.

“That’s him.  Ain’t he a wonder?” said Kansas Bill admiringly.  “That tropical country wasn’t the place for him.  I wish the distinguished traveller, writer, war correspondent, and playright, Richmond Hobson Davis, could see him now.  O’Connor ought to be dramatized.”

[Illustration:  O. Henry in Austin, Texas, 1896]

THE ATAVISM OF JOHN TOM LITTLE BEAR

[O.  Henry thought this the best of the Jeff Peters stories, all the rest of which are included in “The Gentle Grafter,” except “Cupid a la Carte” in the “Heart of the West.”  “The Atavism of John Tom Little Bear” appeared in Everybody’s Magazine for July, 1903.]

I saw a light in Jeff Peters’s room over the Red Front Drug Store.  I hastened toward it, for I had not known that Jeff was in town.  He is a man of the Hadji breed, of a hundred occupations, with a story to tell (when he will) of each one.

I found Jeff repacking his grip for a run down to Florida to look at an orange grove for which he had traded, a month before, his mining claim on the Yukon.  He kicked me a chair, with the same old humorous, profound smile on his seasoned countenance.  It had been eight months since we had met, but his greeting was such as men pass from day to day.  Time is Jeff’s servant, and the continent is a big lot across which he cuts to his many roads.

For a while we skirmished along the edges of unprofitable talk which culminated in that unquiet problem of the Philippines.

“All them tropical races,” said Jeff, “could be run out better with their own jockeys up.  The tropical man knows what he wants.  All he wants is a season ticket to the cock-fights and a pair of Western Union climbers to go up the bread-fruit tree.  The Anglo-Saxon man wants him to learn to conjugate and wear suspenders.  He’ll be happiest in his own way.”

I was shocked.

“Education, man,” I said, “is the watchword.  In time they will rise to our standard of civilization.  Look at what education has done for the Indian.”

“O-ho!” sang Jeff, lighting his pipe (which was a good sign).  “Yes, the Indian!  I’m looking.  I hasten to contemplate the redman as a standard bearer of progress.  He’s the same as the other brown boys.  You can’t make an Anglo-Saxon of him.  Did I ever tell you about the time my friend John Tom Little Bear bit off the right ear of the arts of culture and education and spun the teetotum back round to where it was when Columbus was a little boy?  I did not?