git
action in that little difficulty o' his'n? You could a-broke the whole
Cheyenne tribe, if you could a-got a-bettin' with 'em before that
fight."

"Odds was a hundred to one against us, shure," said Battersleigh,
seating himself in the doorway of the shack. "Ye may call the big boy
loco, or whativer ye like, but it's grateful we may be to him. An'
tell me, if ye can, why didn't the haythins pile in an' polish us all
off, after their chief lost his number? No, they don't rush our works,
but off they go trailin', as if 'twas themselves had the odds against
'em, och-honin' fit to set ye crazy, an' carryin' their dead, as if the
loss o' one man ended the future o' the tribe. Faith, they might
have-- Ned, ye're never stretchin' that hide right."

"Them Cheyennes was plenty hot at us fer comin' in on their huntin'
grounds," said Curly, "an' they shore had it in fer us. I don't think
it was what their chief said to them that kep' them back from jumpin'
us, ater the fight was over. It's a blame sight more likely that they
got a sort o' notion in their heads that Juan was bad medicine. It
they get it in their minds that a man is _loco_, an' pertected by
spirits, an' that sort o' thing, they won't fight him, fer fear o'
gettin' the worst of it. That's about why we got out of there, I
reckon. They'd a-took our hosses an' our guns an' our meat, an' been
blame apt not to a-fergot our hair, too, if they hadn't got the idee
that Juan was too much fer 'em. I'll bet they won't come down in there
again in a hundred years'"

"I felt sad for them," said Franklin soberly.

Curly smiled slowly. "Well, Cap," said he, "they's a heap o' things
out in this here country that seems right hard till you git used to
'em. But what's the ust carin' 'bout a dead Injun here or there? They
got to go, one at a time, or more in a bunch. But now, do you know
what they just done with ole Mr. White Calf? Why, they taken him out
along with 'em a ways, till they thought we was fur enough away from
'em, an' then they probably got a lot of poles tied up, or else found a
tree, an' they planted him on top of a scaffold, like jerked beef, an'
left him there fer to dry a-plenty, with all his war clothes on and his
gun along with him. Else, if they couldn't git no good place like
that, they likely taken him up on to a highish hill, er some rocky
place, an' there they covered him up good an' deep with rocks, so'st
the wolves wouldn't bother hi