gravitation, I think they call it. Smart, wasn't it? Now, if you or
me'd a been hit, it'd just a made us mad, like as not, and set us
a-cussing. But men are so different. One man's meat's another man's
pison. See what a double chin he's got. No beard on him, either,
though a goatee would have been becoming to such a round face. He
hasn't got on a sword, and I reckon he was no soldier; fit some when
he was a boy, maybe, or went out with the home-guard, but not a
regular warrior. I ain't one myself, and I think all the better of him
for it.

"Ah, here we are! Look at that! Smith and Pocahontas! John Smith.
Isn't that just gorgeous? See how she kneels over him and sticks out
her hands while he lays on the ground and that big fellow with a club
tries to hammer him up. Talk about woman's love! There it is. Modocs,
I believe. Anyway, some Indians out West there somewheres; and the
publisher tells me that Shacknasty, or whatever his name is, there,
was going to bang old Smith over the head with that log of wood, and
this girl here, she was sweet on Smith, it appears, and she broke
loose and jumped forward, and says to the man with the stick, 'Why
don't you let John alone? Me and him are going to marry; and if you
kill him, I'll never speak to you again as long as I live,' or words
like them; and so the man, he give it up, and both of them hunted up a
preacher and were married, and lived happily ever afterward. Beautiful
story, ain't it? A good wife she made him, too, I bet, if she _was_ a
little copper-colored. And don't she look just lovely in that picture?
But Smith appears kinder sick. Evidently thinks his goose is cooked;
and I don't wonder, with that Modoc swooping down on him with such a
discouraging club.

"And now we come to--to--ah--to Putnam--General Putnam. He fought in