"Stocton sets a trap for Black Feather. He fills up the tin cup into
which he draws that Valley Tan with coal-oil--karoseen you-all calls
it--an' leaves it, temptin' like, settin' on top a whiskey bar'l. Shore!
it's the first thing Black Feather notes. He sees his chance an' grabs
an' downs the karoseen; an' Stocton sort o' startin' for him, this Black
Feather gulps her down plump swift. The next second he cuts loose the
yell of that year, burns up about ten acres of land, and starts for Red
River. No, I don't know whether the karoseen hurts him none or not; but
he certainly goes squatterin' across the old Red River like a wounded
wild-duck, an' he never does come back no more.

"But, son, as you sees, I don't know nothin' speshul or much touchin'
Injuns, an' if I'm to dodge the disgrace of ramblin' along in this
desultory way, I might better shift to a tale I hears Sioux Sam relate to
Doc Peets one time in the Red Light. This Sam is a Sioux, an a mighty
decent buck, considerin' he's Injun; Sam is servin' the Great Father as a
scout with the diag'nal-coat, darby-hat sharp I mentions. Peets gives
this saddle-tinted longhorn a 4-bit piece, an' he tells this yarn. It
sounds plenty childish; but you oughter b'ar in mind that savages,
mental, ain't no bigger nor older than ten year old young-ones among the
palefaces.

"'This is the story my mother tells me,' says Sioux Sam, 'to show me the
evils of cur'osity. "The Great Sperit allows to every one the right to
ask only so many questions," says my mother, "an' when they ask one more
than is their right, they die."

"'This is the story of the fate of _Kaw-kaw-chee_, the Raven, a Sioux
Chief who died long ago exackly as my mother told me. The Raven died
because he asked too many questions an' was too cur'ous. It began when