paleface. The Western Injuns at least--for I ain't posted none on
Eastern savages, the same bein' happily killed off prior to my
time--the Western Injuns lays the bee, the wild turkey, an' that weed
folks calls the 'plantain,' at the white man's door. They-all descends
upon the Injun hand in hand. No, the Injun don't call the last-named
veg'table a 'plantain;' he alloodes to it as 'the White Man's Foot.'

"Thar's traits dominant among Injuns which it wouldn't lower the
standin' of a white man if he ups an' imitates a whole lot. I once
encounters a savage--one of these blanket Injuns with feathers in his
ha'r--an' bein' idle an' careless of what I'm about, I staggers into
casyooal talk with him. This buck's been East for the first time in
his darkened c'reer an' visited the Great Father in Washin'ton. I asks
him what he regyards as the deepest game he in his travels goes
ag'inst. At first he allows that pie, that a-way, makes the most
profound impression. But I bars pie, an' tells him to su'gest the
biggest thing he strikes, not on no bill of fare. Tharupon,
abandonin' menoos an' wonders of the table, he roominates a moment an'
declar's that the steamboat--now that pie is exclooded--ought to get
the nomination.

"'The choo-choo boat,' observes this intelligent savage, 'is the
paleface's big medicine.'

"'You'll have a list of marvels,' I says, 'to avalanche upon the people
when you cuts the trail of your ancestral tribe ag'in?'

"'No,' retorts the savage, shakin' his head ontil the skelp-lock whips
his y'ears, an' all mighty decisive; 'no; won't tell Injun nothin'.'