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Page 20
"'Here, you pappoose,' says John Tom, 'what are you gunning for with
that howitzer? You might hit somebody in the eye. Come out, Jeff, and
mind the steak. Don't let it burn, while I investigate this demon with
the pea shooter.'
"'Cowardly redskin,' says the kid like he was quoting from a favorite
author. 'Dare to burn me at the stake and the paleface will sweep you
from the prairies like--like everything. Now, you lemme go, or I'll
tell mamma.'
"John Tom plants the kid on a camp-stool, and sits down by him. 'Now,
tell the big chief,' he says, 'why you try to shoot pellets into your
Uncle John's system. Didn't you know it was loaded?'
"'Are you a Indian?' asks the kid, looking up cute as
you please at John Tom's buckskin and eagle feathers.
"'I am,' says John Tom. 'Well, then, that's why,' answers the boy,
swinging his feet. I nearly let the steak burn watching the nerve of
that youngster.
"'O-ho!' says John Tom, 'I see. You're the Boy Avenger. And you've
sworn to rid the continent of the savage redman. Is that about the way
of it, son?'
"The kid halfway nodded his head. And then he looked glum. 'Twas
indecent to wring his secret from his bosom before a single brave had
fallen before his parlor-rifle.
"'Now, tell us where your wigwam is, pappoose,' says John Tom--'where
you live? Your mamma will be worrying about you being out so late. Tell
me, and I'll take you home.'
"The kid grins. 'I guess not,' he says. 'I live thousands and thousands
of miles over there.' He gyrated his hand toward the horizon. 'I come on
the train,' he says, 'by myself. I got off here because the conductor
said my ticket had ex-pirated.' He looks at John Tom with sudden
suspicion 'I bet you ain't a Indian,' he says. 'You don't talk like a
Indian. You look like one, but all a Indian can say is "heap good" and
"paleface die." Say, I bet you are one of them make-believe Indians that
sell medicine on the streets. I saw one once in Quincy.'
"'You never mind,' says John Tom, 'whether I'm a cigar-sign or a Tammany
cartoon. The question before the council is what's to be done with you.
You've run away from home. You've been reading Howells. You've disgraced
the profession of boy avengers by trying to shoot a tame Indian, and
never saying: "Die, dog of a redskin! You have crossed the path of the
Boy Avenger nineteen times too often." What do you mean by it?'
"The kid thought for a minute. 'I guess I made a mistake,' he says. 'I
ought to have gone farther west. They find 'em wild out there in the
canyons.' He holds out his hand to John Tom, the little rascal. 'Please
excuse me, sir,' says he, 'for shooting at you. I hope it didn't hurt
you. But you ought to be more careful. When a scout sees a Indian in his
war-dress, his rifle must speak.' Little Bear give a big laugh with a
whoop at the end of it, and swings the kid ten feet high and sets him on
his shoulder, and the runaway fingers the fringe and the eagle feathers
and is full of the joy the white man knows when he dangles his heels
against an inferior race. It is plain that Little Bear and that kid are
chums from that on. The little renegade has already smoked the pipe of
peace with the savage; and you can see in his eye that he is figuring on
a tomahawk and a pair of moccasins, children's size.
"We have supper in the tent. The youngster looks upon me and the
Professor as ordinary braves, only intended as a background to the camp
scene. When he is seated on a box of Sum-wah-tah, with the edge of the
table sawing his neck, and his mouth full of beefsteak, Little Bear
calls for his name. 'Roy,' says the kid, with a sirloiny sound to it.
But when the rest of it and his post-office address is referred to, he
shakes his head. 'I guess not,' he says. 'You'll send me back. I want to
stay with you. I like this camping out. At home, we fellows had a camp
in our back yard. They called me Roy, the Red Wolf! I guess that'll do
for a name. Gimme another piece of beefsteak, please.'
"We had to keep that kid. We knew there was a hullabaloo about him
somewheres, and that Mamma, and Uncle Harry, and Aunt Jane, and the
Chief of Police were hot after finding his trail, but not another word
would he tell us. In two days he was the mascot of the Big Medicine
outfit, and all of us had a sneaking hope that his owners wouldn't turn
up. When the red wagon was doing business he was in it, and passed up
the bottles to Mr. Peters as proud and satisfied as a prince that's
abjured a two-hundred-dollar crown for a million-dollar parvenuess. Once
John Tom asked him something about his papa. 'I ain't got any papa,' he
says. 'He runned away and left us. He made my mamma cry. Aunt Lucy says
he's a shape.' 'A what?' somebody asks him. 'A shape,' says the kid;
`some kind of a shape--lemme see--oh, yes, a feendenuman shape. I
don't know what it means.' John Tom was for putting our brand on him,
and dressing him up like a little chief, with wampum and beads, but I
vetoes it. 'Somebody's lost that kid, is my view of it, and they may
want him. You let me try him with a few stratagems, and see if I can't
get a look at his visiting-card.'
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