e top of his
voice. This was Jones' idea of a good time, and his method of
contributing his share to the sanguinary ornamentation of the embryo
metropolis.

Malita made Jones a good wife, and attended to his creature comforts to
the best of her ability, and when Jones returned to the cabin in an
inebriated condition she soothed him, and put him to bed, looking upon
such incidents as a matter of course. For a year or more they lived
contentedly, and a little boy was born to them.

On the Reservation lived an Indian named Tixinopa, a splendid specimen
of a savage athlete, and the most noted runner and hunter in his tribe.
Like many of his race, while hating the white man, he loved the white
man's fire-water, and it made him surly and quarrelsome. He was a
natural leader, and often, at night, he spoke with fiery eloquence of
the wrongs of his race, sowing the seeds of unrest and rebellion.

Tixinopa was the only cloud which disturbed the domestic horizon of the
Jones family. He haunted the vicinity of the cabin, and was continually
asking Malita for whiskey and tobacco when Jones was away, until at last
Jones intimated to him gently that his presence was, to say the least,
undesirable. Being a child of the woods and hills, he did not have at
his command a large vocabulary of diplomatic phrases to enable him to do
this politely, in fact, he was blunt.

In describing the interview to Malita afterwards he said:

"I told him if he cum around here any more I'd smash his head, an' he
grunts an' draws himself up this a-way, and looks ugly and says, 'he's a
big Injun,' and I told him to go to hell!"

For some time Tixinopa kept away from the cabin, but one day he
appeared and demanded whiskey. He was half drunk, and his bloodshot eyes
blinked at Malita as he swayed unsteadily in the doorway.

"No, Tixinopa, there is no whiskey."

Tixinopa's eyes grew ugly. "You lie, you half-breed squaw; but be it so,
I will take the boy away until you remember where it is."

So saying he lifted the baby by the arm and swung him on to his
shoulder. The child cried out with pain from its twisted arm. Malita's
heart sunk with a dreadful fear.

"Give the child to me, Tixinopa, do not be so rough; see, you have hurt
him."

[Illustration: MALITA.]

She tried to take the boy, but Tixinopa pushed her away roughly and she
fell to the ground. Up she sprang and threw herself upon him, trying to
get the boy, and in the struggle she scratched h