The Washington herald., 1915-10-03
Copyright, 1915.

AA>NA
true Romance to touch the hem Of her robe.
Up from ships men come. and from waste
places and forest and road and garret and GEL
lar to maunder to me in strangely distributed
words Of the things they have seen and consid-
ered The recording Of their tales is no more
than matter of ears and fingers. There are
only two things dread-deafness and writer S
cramp. The hand is yet steady; let the ear bear
the blame if these printed words be not in the
order they were delivered to me by Hunky Ma
gee. true camp-follower of fortune.
Biography shall claim you but an instant-l
first knew Hunky when he was head-waiter at
Chubb's little beefsteak restaurant end cafe on
Third avenue. There was only one waiter be-
sides.
Then, successfully. caromed against him in
the little streets of the Big City after his trip to
Alaska, his voyage as cook with treasure-seek-
ing expedition to the Caribbean and his failure
as pearl fisher in Inc Arkansas River. Be-
tween these dashes into the land of adventure
he ususalIy came back to Chubb's for while.
Chubb's was port for him when gales blew too
high; out when you dined there and Hunky
went for your steak you never knew whether
he would come to anchor in the kitchen or In the
Malayan Archipelago. You wouldn't care for
his description-he was soft of voice and hard
of face. and rarely had to use more than one
eye to quell any approach to disturbance
among Chubb's customers.
One night found Hunky standing at cor
ner Of Twenty-third street and Third avenue
after an absence of several months. In ten
minutes we had little round table between us
in quiet corner, and my ears began to get
busy. leave out my sly ruses and feints to
draw Hunkys vvord-of-mouth blows-it all
came to something like this
Speaking of the next election. said Hunky.
did you ever know much about Indians? No?
don't mean the Cooper. Beadle, cigar store, or
Laughing Water kind mean the modern In
dian-the kind that takes Greek prizes In col
leges and scalps the halfback on the other side
in football games The kind that eats maca-
rooms and tea in the afternoons with the daugh-
Ter of the professor of biology, and fills up on
grasshoppers and fried rattlesnake when they
get back to the ancestral wickiup.
We'll, they amt SO bad. like EN- better
than most foreigners that have come over in the
last few hundred years. One thing about the
Indian is this: when he mikes with the white
race he swaps all his own vices for them of the
palefaces-and he retains ali his own virtues
Well, his virtues are enoug to call out the re-
serves whenever he lets EN- loose But the i'm
pcrted foreigners adopt our virtues and keep
their own vices-and it's going to take our
whole standing army some day to police that
sang.
But lei NE tell you about the trip took to
Mexico with High Jack Snake feeder. Cherokee
twice removed. graduate Of Pennsy lvania
college and the latest thing IN pointed-toed
rubber-heeled, patent kid moccasins and Ma
dras hunting shirt with turned-back cuffs. He
was a friend Of mine met him in Iahlequah
when was out there during the land boom. and
we got thick He had got all there was out of
colleges and had come back to lead his people
out of Egypt He was man of hrst-class style
and wrote essays. and had been invited to
visit rich guys houses In Boston and such
places.
There was Cherokee girl in Muscogee that
High Jack was foolish about. He took me to
see her few times Her name was Florence
Blue Feather-but you want to clear your mind
of all ideas of squaws with nose-rings and army
blankets. This young lady was winter than
you are. and better educated that ever was
You couldn't have told her from any of the
girls shooping in the swell Third avenue stores