Palisadian. [volume] (Cliffside Park, N.J.) 1906-current, 1908-06-01
ny APACHE CHUn

By Bailey Willard

but he solved the problem at last. A man
away off over the mountains spoke with
his finger to me and | spoke back to
him. This was his idea of it, and it was
not such bad one, either. The hum
mings of the wires overhead were the
voices of people with ponderous fingers,
bat they were not of this world.
How the cowboys laughed when they
saw Tads and me at the station.
THAT tenderfoot's a queer one,' they
said of me-
The despised Apache could not crawl
into their hearts-no, not even if he
were a six-year-old.
He'll steal everything the tenderfoots
GOT they pleasantly averred. But he
did not
When Tads left the station of an even
ing. his little brown feet battered straight
over the sands to the rancheria, a half
mile away. In time he wore narrow
trail over to the huts.
One day when the sun was high and
it was hot enough to fry eggs on the
sand, | went over to the rancheria with
the small barbarian. While he stood as
still as statue by the corner-post of
one of the uncouth brushroofed shacks
which Indians sometimes build of loaf
more than kindly fervor, | looked about
and caught something Of the idea of saw
age life on the desert. A couple of old
blankets were spread on the ground I'M
der an open shack and on these lounged
four of the happiest creatures | ever saw.
There were three young bucks who had
about as much clothing among them all
as would barely give one of them a pre-
suitable appearance if he should have
been set down in city street
A little apart lay a young girl, loose.
ly draped in a single piece of red wooden
cloth. with great yellow floral figures on
it-such stuff as one sees in cheap por-
tiers. The girls full, round face and
dark eyes We're turned toward me. One
brown round arm, bare to the shoulder,
stuck out of the portiere, and the hand,
with an argent ring, that shone white
on the dark middle finger, held to her
full lips a small jew's-harp on which she
was breathing lightly. sending forth a
sound that seemed to tickle the ears of
the others, for each face wore a teeth
showing smile The elbow of the other
arm glistened from under the coarse,
tumbled hair of this daughter of the des-
ert, for the arm was pillowing her hand.
Stubby bare feet and rather pretty ankles
peeped out from the other end of the
piece of drapery.
Nothing seized me stronger than the
wish that | had some paints and brush,
and knew how to handle them.
Round about the shack in the sand
was a wilderness of old oil cans, tin lard
pals. bits of mating, old boxes smoke
black pots and two or three crazy buc-
ketS.
lads went over to the girl. whom /
OWNED, was his sister, and, snatching the
jew sharp from her hand, he began some
very doleful music. This and the firm be-
lief that a thermometer stuck on the
shack pole would have proclaimed 40
degrees Fahrenheit, made my stay at the
rancheria very short. | walked away,
and to my ears as | went, the hot breeze
bore the sound of low laughter and
queer gutturals, together with the in
congrous melody from the harp But
TadS was bound that l should lose no
nctr from that precious instrument, and
SO he made after me and twanged it in a
deSu!atcIy way all the afternoon, sitting
0n a freight truck outside the station