Daily inter mountain. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1881-1901, 1899-11-06
\ N EDUCATED INDIAN ~ r.
n y II POKER PLAYER.

S~raN-naifed man was the speaker. AS he
p! spoke he reached down from behind the
ihdlans chair and got two h uge hands
around the bucks neck. The onlookers
formed a clearing. The Chicago youth
got himself on the outskirts of the bunch.
About three months ago. said the
keen-eyed man, dragging the huge. half
choked Indian to his feet, Il saw YOU at
Ihe Dales leave the prints of your dirty
iNlSetS on the face of a little Whiffet YOU
mad just tieeeed. l hankered then to con-
Ter a few personally conducted slaps of
my own make and manufacture on your
coppery jowl. but for some reason or 9TH
er | passed the banker up on that occa-
sion. Well, the slaps are coming to you
now. It's better late than never, and I'm
going to slap you into jerked beef, just
for luck
The buck was finally up against the
real thing, and he knew it. I'll bet that
his face was whittier than mine is now
when the big-framed man, who had the
devil of anger lurking in his eyes, sud-
denly loosed his right hand from around
the Indians neck. and, still clutching
nm by the left. swept the loose arm back
tor the momentum n brought his heavy
palm smac against the bucks left cheek
with a noise that sounded like the explo-
sion of a charge of blasting powder. The
slap ratified the Indians teeth and made
ms US HNAu JoSSIc oIl sue W Sue ike
the head of an automaton. Clutching the
Indians throat again with his right hand,
the big-framed man repeated the slap
ping performance OF the Indians right
check With his left hand, and left a welt
there that might have been made by a
cat-o'-nine-tails. The buck was too daz-
ed, in the first place, by the suddenness
of it all, to make a move: in the second
place. he was too coWardly.
1.-THE big-framed man-he was an ex-
pert mining engineer from Nevada. and
his name was Narus ~Pryor-slapped the
Indians face, first with his right hand
and then with his left, for three minutes,
with all his might, and then, getting be-
mind the buck. he proceeded to slap him
into the street. With first one hand and
then the other clutching the collar of the
Indians coat, he slapped him out of the
front door Of the hotel. Then he gave the
buck the knee in the small of the back,
and hoisted him across The pavement to
the middle of the street, where the In
dian spun around and fell for a moment
" I don't care what the indian Bureau
says about it, said the keen-eyed man,
standing in the doorway of the hotel. God
Almighty never intended that white men
should stand for such alligators as that
copper-mugged swindler, and
" stand clear, pard: he's going to plug
you. shouted a man from a second-StOry
window of the hotel.
"The Indian, pretending to be hurt, and
only half-risen to his feet, in the obscur-
ity of the middle of the street had got his
gun out, and the yell from the second
story reached Pryor just in time. AS it
was. the buck planted a ball in the front
door of the hotel, only two inches above
the big-framed mans head. By that time
Pryor's gun was working, and he drilled
six holes, forty-eight hundredths of an
inch in diameter plumb through the
swindling Umatilla's chest. Forty-five
minutes later he was acquitted by a
coroner's jury, on the grounds of self-de-
Tense and j~ustifiable homicide-a two-in-
one verdict.
This concluded the travelling inspec-
tor Of indian agencies, twas the finish of
just one mentally-burnished buck In
dian, and l know of several others"