them. Leaning it familiarly up against one of their teepes, I wander
among them and pry into their domestic affairs like a health-officer in
a New York tenement. I know I have no right to do this without saying,
"By your leave," but item-hunters the world over do likewise, so I feel
little squeamishness about it. Moreover, when I come back I find the
Indians are playing " tit-for-tat" against me. Not only are they curiously
examining the bicycle as a whole, but they have opened the toolbag and
are examining the tools, handing them around among themselves. I don't
think these Piutes are smart or bold enough to steal nowadays; their
intercourse with the whites along the railroad has, in a measure, relieved
them of those aboriginal traits of character that would incite them to
steal a brass button off their pale-faced brother's coat, or screw a nut
off his bicycle; but they have learned to beg; the noble Piute of to-day
is an incorrigible mendicant. Gathering up my tools from among them, the
monkey-wrench seems to have found favor in the eyes of a wrinkled-faced
brave, who, it seems, is a chief. He hands the wrench over with a smile
that is meant to be captivating, and points at it as I am putting it
back into the bag, and grunts, " Ugh. Piute likum. Piute likum!" As I
hold it up, and ask him if this is what he means, he again points and
repeats, " Piute likum;" and this time two others standing by point at
him and also smile and say, " Him big chief; big Piute chief, him;"
thinking, no doubt, this latter would be a clincher, and that I would
at once recognize in " big Piute chief, him " a vastly superior being
and hand him over the wrench. In this, however, they are mistaken, for
the wrench I cannot spare; neither can I see any lingering trace of
royalty about him, no kingliness of mien, or extra cleanliness; nor is
there anything winning about his smile - nor any of their smiles for that
matter. The Piute smile seems to me to be simply a cold, passionless
expansion of the vast horizontal slit that reaches almost from one ear
to the other, and separates the upper and lower sections of their