straight down a hundred foot on top of a pile of rocks
he'd depart like a Christian, but my red friend and brother
promptly wriggled off behind the boulders.

"I dassen't shoot. There might be a twenty of 'em in hearing, and,
besides, no need of worryin' poor Percy, trustin' E. G. W., any
sooner than I had to.

"'It seems to me, Washington,' says Percy, 'that's _very_ rough
play.'

"'Percy,' says I, 'as you may have read, an Injun don't care so
much about being hurt as he does for supportin' his family pride.
If I'd only chucked him fifteen foot or so he'd thought I didn't
respect his powers of endurance proper, and like enough wouldn't
'a' spoke to me if we met.'

"'Well, of course, _you_ know all about these things,' he says.
'But to me it is very surprising.'

"'Percy,' says I to him again, real earnest, 'if a man took note of
all the things in this world that are surprisin' it wouldn't be no
time before every tree in the forest looked like an exclamation
mark to him.'

"'I suppose,' says Percy, waggin' his head, wise, 'that's quite
true.'

"And if there'd been fifty million Injuns ready to fricassee us the
next minute I couldn't 'a' helped havin' another attack of that
bronco-kitus that troubled me so.

"But your Uncle Zeke wasn't so cussed hilarious for the next four
days. I expected that Injun back with his friends every minute,
and what with watchin' all night and joshin' Percy all day I was
plumb wore out. He made me kind of mad by not noticin' things was
wrong, although that's the impression I'd labored to create upon
him, as he'd say.

"The Injun didn't come, and he didn't come till I got mad at him,
too. How was I to know that he finished up my idee by fallin'
over, further down? So I fumed and I fussed, and I yearned inside
of me to get square with somebody. And at last my chance come.

"Afternoon, hot and clear as usual. Percy asleep under a rock, and
then, horses' footsteps! I jumped for the edge, and, boys, for a
minute my sight give out. It wasn't Injuns; it was a lot of Uncle
Sam's durned soldiers. I never expected to be so glad to see a
soldier; I thought I despised 'em.

"I looked at 'em for a full half minute, thinking,' God bless old
Percy's blistered nose, he's safe!' and then I done what I hadn't
orter did out of that, desire to get even. I slid down the
mountain and whanged away over their heads. It was like pokin'
your finger in a hornets' nest. Up comes them sold