ad given the lie to his leading and abiding conviction--that eternal
truth embodied in the words, "Dar's reason in all things." Burlman
Rennuls was in a fog; the Fighting Nigger was in a fog; in a fog was the
entire man of Big Black Burl.

Chapter XII.

HOW BIG BLACK BURL AND GRUMBO FIGURED AFTER THE FIGHT.

Now, it had always been the Fighting Nigger's belief--creed, so to
speak--that Indians, though possessed (by some strange chance or
mischance) of the power of speech, with a few other faculties in common
with colored people and the rest of mankind, had, nevertheless, neither
souls nor human feelings. According to his view, they were a sort of
featherless biped-beast--an almost hairless orang-outang, with short
arms and long legs, having an unquenchable thirst for human blood; whom,
therefore, it was the duty of every Christian body--black, yellow, and
white--to shoot down and scalp wherever they were to be found on top of
the earth. But the creed he had so long adhered to, fought for, and
gloried in had now on a sudden been knocked, picked, and crumpled up
into a cocked hat by this young barbarian, whose conduct in the
nobleness of soul it had displayed was utterly unlike any thing he had
ever witnessed, heard of, or dreamed of, in this race. Big Black Burl
took off his bear-skin war-cap, for the first time since quitting home,
and with the back of his sweaty hand wiped his sweaty brow, put the cap
on again, and from under its shaggy shadow took another look at the fog.

"U-gooh!" exclaimed the Fighting Nigger, at last so far recovering the
power of speech as to be able to force an unspellable interjection
through the nose; at the same time scratching his back with the knuckle
of his thumb. "Neber seed de like in all my bo'n days. 'Pon my honor,
ef dis young varmint don't carry on like a white man: couldn't a done
dat thing mo'e ginteel'y myse'f. Burlman Rennuls"--jumping at
solutions--"dar's black or white blood in dis young Injun; shore's you
bo'n, dar's black or white blood in dis young Injun. Ef dar' wusn't he
wouldn't be gwine on dis way like a white man--min', I tell you!" And
Burlman Rennuls walked out of the fog; the Fighting Nigger walked out of
the fog--out of the fog, into the clear, unmisted light of reason,
walked, by a short cut, the entire man of Big Black Burl.

Thus satisfied in his own mind that, let the matter be viewed on either
side--the black side or the white side--there existed a