savage.'

"Most likely them antipathies of mine ag'in Injuns is a heap
enhanced by what I experiences back on the old Jones an' Plummer
trail, when they was wont to stampede our herds as we goes drivin'
through the Injun Territory. Any little old dark night one of them
savages is liable to come skulkin' up on the wind'ard side of the
herd, flap a blanket, cut loose a yell, an' the next second thar's a
hundred an' twenty thousand dollars' worth of property skally-
hootin' off into space on frenzied hoofs. Next day, them same
ontootered children of the woods an' fields would demand four bits
for every head they he'ps round up an' return to the bunch. It's a
source of savage revenoo, troo; but plumb irritatin'. Them Injuns
corrals sometimes as much as a hundred dollars by sech treacheries.
An' then we-all has to rest over one day to win it back at poker.

"Will Injuns gamble? Shore! an' to the limit at that! Of course,
bein', as you saveys, a benighted people that a-way, they're some
easy, havin' no more jedgment as to the valyoo of a hand than Steve
Stevenson, an' Steve would take a pa'r of nines an' bet 'em higher
than a cat's back. We allers recovers our dinero, but thar's time
an' sleep we lose an' don't get back.

"Yes, indeed, son, Injuns common is as ornery as soapweed. The only
good you-all can say of 'em is, they're nacheral-born longhorns, is
oncomplainin', an' saveys the West like my black boy saveys licker.
One time--this yere is 'way back in my Texas days--one time I'm
camped for long over on the Upper Hawgthief. It's rained a heap, an'
bein' as I'm on low ground anyhow, it gets that soft an' swampy
where I be it would bog a butterfly. For once I'm took sick; has a