Evening star., 1909-04-25


1 grip grip and Main ali, Raaedo fifted him I'M" nto np
the seat Of my blackboard
and cushioned his back he
JRkz1-task. turned and
comely smile shone
in human countenance
Mean sort of trick they
played you, young un, /
said as the ponies trotted up
the trail to my headquarters;
but whatever were you do
ing with such battery?
His smile vanished and his lips hardened Brung
em eIong to pedde e sad az IN aaoa der hs ehok ad
me ticket drew me last bean, an been grubb1n on
handouts clear acrost the big fields But say, guv'-
nor he added with feeble ferceness they couldn't
do me that way in Cat Alley, damn eml an they
can't up here, sick or no sick! I'll get that big
butchers number yet. an I'll play it-sures there's
thieves in Hogan's cellar! But say, whskers,
where m goin an what's your game?' He said the
latter with dull little smile and turtlve sldeong
glance.
Il told him I'd a perch on the shoulder of yonder
painted bluff where he welcome to bunk and
feed And it won't cost you copper. sonny, |
added which information stiffened his back forth
with
He was queer little tke, was Isador Stein;
and then garruous as snian, but often
wrapped up in himself silent, watchful: cagily
the lads hardware nor did he refer to the incident
for long while. There moments though,
when l could see that the subject was thick in his
mind when his lips would tremble, his eyes blaze,
and the long fingers Of his thin bony hands twist and
wrthe.
THE day after had rugged up outdoor bunk for
him and put him on milk and egg diet he
dragged his feeble props into my shack and leaning
against work table tapped me on the shoulder and
said with one of those marvellous smiles that came
and passed in swift flashes over his dark sunken
cheeks:
Say, guv'nor, I'm beginnn to feel spryer, an
I'll stay up here if youseu II leave till git the gift
O. me pins back | can't see jest how I'm gon to
make good to youse. | amt much readin, writ
in an such, 'cept what picked up at the Newsboys
Home But, and his smile broke again in full radi
ance, i kin jig to beat the band
He started to dance, negotiated few ptifully
weak steps, then oppled over, his knees cavng like
cracked 1ilystems.
After that the young 'un had bad spell. and
bad washout down below one of my culverts to
give him much of my time; but | rode up to ST.
Mary and fetched down Little Blue Crane or Chico
Grullu, the Greasers called her, old Navajo
squaw with faded strain of Mexican in her ancestry
"All down slant of the Divide the fame of
Chico Grullu was large. She had picked up
weird patter of English that better for her
patients than any tonic. Moreover, she had
scheme of treatment whatever, save dogged insis-
tence the absorption of goats milk and foamy
omelet which her single culinary achievement
She shriveed and wrinkled a cypress
bough and older than Endor's witches; withal spry
weasel, stubborn wall eyed burro, and pos
sessed of habits of neatness that of
der and disrnay to her tribefolk. But the Navajo
strain out strong her instinct for gambling.
las as her charges commenced to brace up
and take notice, she would produce handful of dice
and pack of tattered cards thereat going through
pantomime that could be read in way,-if you
didn't gamble, you scarcely fit to survive
However, it didn't take that old Navajo squaw
long to rouse the interest of Isador Stein. She