'Wall, I guess that air the savagest beast I ever see--'cept once when
an Apache squaw had an edge on a half-breed what they nicknamed
"Splinters" 'cos of the way he fixed up her papoose which he stole on a
raid just to show that he appreciated the way they had given his mother
the fire torture. She got that kinder look so set on her face that it
jest seemed to grow there. She followed Splinters mor'n three year till
at last the braves got him and handed him over to her. They did say that
no man, white or Injun, had ever been so long a-dying under the tortures
of the Apaches. The only time I ever see her smile was when I wiped her
out. I kem on the camp just in time to see Splinters pass in his checks,
and he wasn't sorry to go either. He was a hard citizen, and though I
never could shake with him after that papoose business--for it was
bitter bad, and he should have been a white man, for he looked like
one--I see he had got paid out in full. Durn me, but I took a piece of
his hide from one of his skinnin' posts an' had it made into a
pocket-book. It's here now!' and he slapped the breast pocket of his
coat.

Whilst he was speaking the cat was continuing her frantic efforts to get
up the wall. She would take a run back and then charge up, sometimes
reaching an incredible height. She did not seem to mind the heavy fall
which she get each time but started with renewed vigour; and at every
tumble her appearance became more horrible. Hutcheson was a kind-hearted
man--my wife and I had both noticed little acts of kindness to animals
as well as to persons--and he seemed concerned at the state of fury to
which the cat had wrought herself.

'Wall, now!' he said, 'I du declare that that poor critter seems quite
desperate. There! there! poor thing, it was all an accident--though that