So I spoke to him. Without paying any attention to me or what I had
said, or even seeming to be conscious of my presence, he rose,
straightened himself up, threw his head back, and said, as if he were
addressing the world in general: 'White man work, white man eat; Injun
no work, Injun eat; white man damn fool.'

"I laughed and said, 'You 've struck it, right at the bottom. Anybody
with as much wisdom as that deserves to be supported by the community.
Here 's a dollar for you.'

"He took the money as disdainfully as if he had been a prince and I a
subject paying back taxes, and without once looking at me stalked off
down the street. An hour afterwards I ran across Johnson, two other
bucks, and a squaw, sitting on the ground in the sun behind a barn,
playing poker. Johnson must have raked in everything the whole party
had, for that night the rest of them were sober and he was whooping
drunk. In consequence, he got locked up for a while. The police of
Virginia City always paid Johnson the compliment of locking him up when
he got drunk, for with whiskey inside of him he was more like a mad
devil than anything else.

"After he got out of jail I saw him standing around for several days
looking as lordly and unconscious as if he had been worth a million.
But the pangs of hunger must have set his wits to work. For pretty
soon he appeared on the streets with a wrinkled, decrepit, old Piute
tied to a string. He had fastened the string to the old fellow's arm
and he walked behind, holding the other end, but apparently as
unconscious of the whole business as if he 'd been the sole inhabitant
of Virginia City. He stalked along with his head in the air, and the
old fellow trotted out in front until Johnson yanked the string. Then