“For what?  Had you injured him?”

“That’s the way he looked at it.  One day I caught the varmint stealin’ my best hoss.  He’d have got away with him, too, if I hadn’t come home just as I did.  I might have shot him—­most men would—­but I hate to take a man’s life for stealin’; and I took another way.  My whip was lyin’ handy, and I took it and lashed the rascal over his bare back a dozen times, and then told him to dust, or I’d serve him worse.  He left, but there was an ugly look in his eyes, and I knew well enough he’d try to get even.”

“How long ago was this?”

“Most a year.  It’s a long time, but an Indian never forgets an injury or an insult, and I knew that he was only bidin’ his time.  So I always went armed, and kept a good lookout.  It was only this mornin’ that he caught me at a disadvantage.  I’d been taking a walk, and left my gun at home.  He was prowlin’ round, and soon saw how things stood.  He’d have killed me sure, if you hadn’t come in the nick of time.”

“I am glad I was near,” said Herbert, “but it seems to me a terrible thing to shoot a man.  I’m glad it wasn’t I that killed him.”

“Mebbe it was better for me, as he was my enemy,” said Jack Holden.  “It won’t trouble my conscience a mite.  I don’t look upon an Indian as a man.”

“Why not?”

“He’s a snake in the grass—­a poisonous serpent, that’s what I call him,” said Jack Holden.

Herbert shook his head.  He couldn’t assent to this.

“You feel different, no doubt.  You’re a tenderfoot.  You ain’t used to the ways of these reptiles.  You haven’t seen what I have,” answered Holden.

“What have you seen?” asked Herbert, judging correctly that Holden referred to some special experience.

“I’ll tell you.  You see, I’m an old settler in this Western country.  I’ve traveled pretty much all over the region beyond the Rockies, and I’ve seen a good deal of the red men.  I know their ways as well as any man.  Well, I was trampin’ once in Montany, when, one afternoon, I and my pard—­he was prospectin’—­came to a clearin’, and there we saw a sight that made us all feel sick.  It was the smokin’ ruins of a log cabin, which them devils had set on fire.  But that wasn’t what I referred to.  Alongside there lay six dead bodies—­the man, his wife, two boys, somewhere near your age, a little girl, of maybe ten, and a baby—­all butchered by them savages, layin’—­in the hunter’s vernacular—­in their gore.  It was easy to see how they’d killed the baby, by his broken skull.  They had seized the poor thing by the feet, and swung him against the side of the house, dashin’ out his brains.”

Herbert shuddered, and felt sick, as the picture of the ruined home and the wretched family rose before his imagination.

“It was Indians that did it, of course,” proceeded Holden.  “They’re born savage, and such things come natural to them.”

“Are there no good Indians?” asked the boy.