medicine in the nation couldn't save him.

"Thar's forty Osage and forty Creek bucks at the three cottonwoods to
see that the dooelists get a squar' deal. The Lance an' Black Cloud is
thar; each has a bow an' four arrows; each has made medicine all night
that he may kill his man.

"But the dooel strikes a obstacle.

"Thar's a sombre, sullen sport among the Osages who's troo name is the
'Bob-cat,' but who's called the 'Knife Thrower.' The Bob-cat is one of
the Osage forty. Onknown to the others, this yere Bob-cat--who it
looks like is a mighty impressionable savage--is himse'f in love with
the dead Sunbright. An' he's hot an' cold because he's fearful that in
this battle of the bows the Lance'll down Black Cloud an' cheat him,
the Bob-cat, of his own revenge. The chance is too much; the Bob-cat
can't stand it an' resolves to get his stack down first. An' so it
happens that as Black Cloud an' the Lance, painted in their war
colours, is walkin' to their places, a nine-inch knife flickers like a
gleam of light from the hand of the Bob-cat, an' merely to show that he
ain't called the 'Knife Thrower' for fun, catches Black Cloud flush in
the throat, an' goes through an' up to the gyard at the knife-haft.
Black Cloud dies standin', for the knife p'int bites his spine.

"No, son, no one gets arrested; Injuns don't have jails, for the mighty
excellent reason that no Injun culprit ever vamoses an' runs away.
Injun crim'nals, that a-way, allers stands their hands an' takes their
hemlock. The Osages, who for Injuns is some shocked at the Bob-cat's
interruption of the dooel--it bein' mighty onparliamentary from their
standp'ints--tries the Bob-cat in their triboonals for killin' Black