The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-08-14

alarm her. He drank the milk awkWardly.
But by the laws of courtesy. even among
the most savage tribes. she felt he was at
that moment. at least, harmless. A timid
smile tluttered around her mouth as she
said:
"When ye hung up them things I
thought We might be havin' suthing to
swap or sell. That is, F" with tactful polite
ness, "mother was wantin' new skillet,
and it would hev' been handy if you had
one. But" with an apologize glance at
his equipments. 'if it amt your business.
it's all right, and no offence"
give got lot O. skillets." said the
teamster, with marked condescension,
land she can have one; they're all that's
left outer heap O. traders stuff captured
by Injins, tother side of Laramie. We had
big light to get 'em back; lost two of our
best men-skelped at Bloody creek-and
had to drop a dozen redskins in their
tracks-me and another man-iyin' fiat in
er wagon, and firm under the flaps of the
canvass. l don't know ez they waz
with it, he added, in a gloomy retrospect,
''but I've got to get rid of 'em, l reckon,
somehow, afore | work over to Deadman's
guich again."
The young girls eyes frightened timidly
with feminine mingling of imaginative
was, after all, so young and amiable look
ing for such hardships and adventures.
And with all this he-this Indian fighter!
was a little afraid of her!
''Then that's why you carry that knife
and sx-shooter," she said, "but you won't
want 'em now here in the settlement"
That's ez maybe" said the stranger
as if recklessly accepting dangerous risk,
unbuckled his revolver and handed it alb
stractedly to the young girl. But the
sheath of the bowie knife was fixture in
his body belt and he was obliged to with
draw the glittering blade by itself, and to
hand it to her in all its naked terrors. The
young girl received the weapons with a
smiling complacency. Upon such affairs
rs these the skeptical reader will remem-
Der that Mars had once hung his battered
shield" his lance and his uncontrolled
crest"
Nevertheless the warlike teamster was
not without embarrassment. Muttering
something about the necessity of 'look-
ing after his stock" he achieved hesitat-
ing bow, backed awkwardly out of the
door. and receiving from the conquering
hands of the young girl his weapons again,
was obliged to carry them somewhat in
gloriously in his hand across the road.
and put them on the wagon seat, where in
company with the culinary articles they
seemed to lose their distinctively aggres-
sive character. Here although his cheek
counter, his voice regained some of its
hoarse severity as he drove the oxen from
the muddy pool into which
they had luxuriantly wandered,
and brought their fodder from
the wagon. Late as the sun was setting
he lit a corn-cob pipe, and somewhat os-
tentatiously strolled down the road with a
furtive eye lingering upon the still open
door of the farm house. Presently two
angular figures appeared from 1.-THE
farmer and his wife-intent on barter
These he received with his previous
gloomy preoccupation, and slight varia-
ton of the story he had told their daugh-
ter. 1t is possible that his suggestive in
difference piqued and heightened the bar
gaining instincts of the woman, for she
not only bought the skillet, but purchased
a clock and roll of carpeting. Still more,
in some etfuslon of rustic courtesy, she
extended an invitation TO him to
sup with them. which he de-
clined and accepted in the same
preferred Hospitality by confidentially
showing them couple of dried scalps~
presumably of Indian origin. 1t was in
the same moment of human weakness,
that he answered their polite query as to
what they might call him." by intima-
ting that his name was Red Jim"-a title
of achievement by which he was generally
kuoNu. WHICH ioT Tue present. inuSt su1Ilce
them. But. during the repast that followed,
this was shortened to "Mister Jim," and
even familiarity by the elders. to plain
Jim" Only the young girl habtually
used the formal prefix. in return for the
Miss Phebe"that he called her.
With three such sympathetic and I'M
experienced auditors the gloomy embar-
rassment of Red JIM was soon dissi-
pated. although it could hardly be said
that he was generally communicative.
Dark tales of Indian warfare, of night at
tacxs and wild stampedes, In which te had
always taken a prominent part, flowed
freely from h,s lips, and little else of his
past history or present prospects. And
even his narratives of adventure We're
more or less fragmentary and imperfect in
detail. "fou waz saying" said the farm
er, with slow, matter-of-iact, New England
deiiberation, ''ez how you guessed You
waz beguiled amongst the Injins by your
Mexican partner-a poS'ful influential
man-and yet you waZ the only one es-
capped the gen'ral slarterin'. How came
the Injins to kill him-their friend?"