m any. They tell me them buryin' hills is
great places fer their lookouts, an' sometimes their folks'll go up on
top o' them hills and set there a few days, or maybe overnight,
a-hopin' they'll dream something. They want to dream something that'll
give 'em a better line on how to run off a whole cavvie-vard o' white
men's hosses, next time they git a chanct."

"Ye're a d----d Philistine, Curly," said Battersleigh calmly.

"I'm sorry for them," repeated Franklin, thoughtfully, as he sat idly
fingering the lump of clay that lay between his feet. "Just think, we
are taking' away from these people everything in the world they had.
They were happy as we are--happier, perhaps--and they had their little
ambitions, the same as we have ours. We are driving them away from
their old country, all over the West, until it is hard to see where
they can get a foothold to call their own. We drive them and fight
them and kill them, and then--well, then we forget them."

Curly had a certain sense of politeness, so he kept silence for a time.
"Well," said he at length, "a Injun could tan hides better'n a white
man kin--at least some white men."

"I'm not so sure of that," said Franklin, rousing and replying stoutly.
"The white man wins by dodging the issue. Now, look you, the Indian
squaw you tell me about would probably hack and hack away at this hide
by main strength in getting the flesh off the inside. I am sure I
shall do it better, because I shall study which way the muscles run,
and so strip off the flesh along those lines, and not across them."

"I didn't know that made any difference," said Curly. "Besides, how
kin you tell?"

"Well, now, maybe there are some things you don't know, after all,
Curly," said Franklin. "For instance, can you tell me how many boss
ribs there are in the hump of a buffalo?"

"Well, no--o," admitted Curly. "But what's the difference, so long ez
I know they're all good to eat ?"

"Plainly, a d----d Philistine," said Battersleigh again, striking a
match for his pipe. "But I'm not sure but he had you there, Ned, me
boy."

"I'll show you," said Franklin eagerly. "Here it is on the hide. The
hump came to here. Here was the knee joint--you can see by the whirl
in the muscles as plainly as you could by the curl in the hair
there--you can see it under a wolf's leg, the same way; the hair
follows the lines of the muscles, you know. Wait, I could almost make
you a dummy out of the clay. No