nd scared the blue somethings out of me. But just go and
ask whatever is become of Firm. He was riled with them greasers. It was
all I could do to keep the boy out of a difficulty with them. And if
they camp any where nigh, it is like enough he may go hankerin' after
them. The grand march of intellect hathn't managed yet to march old
heads upon young shoulders. And Firm might happen to go outside the
law."

The thought of this frightened me not a little; for Firm, though mild
of speech, was very hot of spirit at any wrong, as I knew from tales of
Suan Isco, who had brought him up and made a glorious idol of him. And
now, when she could not say where he was, but only was sure that he must
be quite safe (in virtue of a charm from a great medicine man which she
had hung about him), it seemed to me, according to what I was used to,
that in these regions human life was held a great deal too lightly.

It was not for one moment that I cared about Firm, any more than is the
duty of a fellow-creature. He was a very good young man, and in his way
good-looking, educated also quite enough, and polite, and a very good
carver of a joint; and when I spoke, he nearly always listened. But of
course he was not to be compared as yet to his grandfather, the true
Sawyer.

When I ran back from Suan Isco, who was going on about her charm, and
the impossibility of any one being scalped who wore it, I found Mr.
Gundry in a genial mood. He never made himself uneasy about any trifles.
He always had a very pure and lofty faith in the ways of Providence, and
having lost his only son Elijah, he was sure that he never could lose
Firm. He had taken his glass of hot whiskey and water, which always made
him temperate; and if he felt any of his troubles deeply, he dwelt on
them now from a high point of view.

"I may 'a said a little too much, my dear, about the badness of
mankind," he observed, with his pipe lying comfortably on his breast;
"all sayings of that sort is apt to go too far. I ought to have made
more allowance for the times, which gets into a ticklish state, when a
old man is put about with them. Never you pay no heed whatever to any
harsh words I may have used. All that is a very bad thing for young
folk."

"But if they treated you badly, Uncle Sam, how can you think that they
treated you well?"

He took some time to consider this, because he was true in all his
thoughts; and then he turned off to something else.

"Why, the smashin