The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1916-02-03

and that brought the shaver to their
lips. And behind it all arose the wall
ing Of the women and children.
This is terrible" Smoke muttered
I'm all het up." Shorty replied.
"I'm real sweaty. An now what r
We goin' to do with this ambulance
outft?'
Smoke shook his head. and then the
problem was solved for aim. An In,
dian crawled forward. .bts one eve fix
ed on Smoke Instead Of on the sled,
and in it Smoke could see the struggle
of sanity to assert itself. Shorty re-
membered having punched the other
eye, which was already swollen shut
The Indian raised himself on his elbow
and spoke:
"Me Carluk Me good Siwash. Me
savvy Boston man plenty. Me plenty
hungry. All people plenty hungry. All
people no savvy Boston man. Me saw
w. Me eat grub now. All people eat
grub now. We buy m grub. Got m
plenty gold. No got m grub. Sum-
mer salmon no come Milk river. Win
ter caribou no come. No grub. Me
make IN talk all people. Me tell m
plenty Boston man come Yukon. Bos-
ton man have plenty grub. Boston
man like m gold. We take m gold.
go Yukon, Boston man give m grub.
Plenty gold Me savvy Boston man
like m gold"
He began fumbling with wasted fin
gers at the drawstring of pouch he
took from his belt.
'Too much make IN noise," Shorty
broke in distractedly. you tell m
squaw, you tell m papoose. shut m up
mouth
Carluk turned and addressed the
wailing women. Other bucks, listen
ing, raised their voices authoritatively.
and slowly the squaws stilled and still
ed the children near to them. Carluk
paused from fumbling the drawstrings
and held up his fingers many times.
Him people make m die" he said.
And Smoke, following the count,
knew that seventy-fve of the tribe had
starved to death.
"AIe buy m grub" Carluk said as
he got the pouch open and drew out a
large chunk Of heavy metal. Others
were following his example. and on
every side appeared similar chunks.
Shorty stared.
Great jiminyv he cried. Copper!
Raw, red copper! An they think it's
goldr'
"And the poor devils banked every
thing on it." Smoke muttered. Look
at it. The chunk there weighs forty
pounds They've got hundreds of
pounds of it, and they've carried it
when they didn't have strength enough
to drag themselves. Look here, Shorty.
We've got to feed them"
Huh! Sounds easy. But how about
statistics? You an me has months
grub, which is six meals times thirty,
| which is 1S0 meals. Here's 200 In.
dams. with real. full grown appctit~s.
How can we give m one meal evenT'
There's the dog grub" Smoke an
swercd. "a couple Of hundred pounds
of dried salmon ought to help out
We've got to do 1t. They've pinned
their faith on the white man. yor
know"
Sure, an we can't throw m down,
| Shorty agreed. AN We got two nasty
| jobs cut out for US, each just abou'
twicet as nasty as the other. One Of
us has got to make a run of 1t to Niue
| luc an raise relief The other has tt
| stay here an run the hospital an mos
| likely be eaten. Don't let 1t slip youl
noodle that we've been six days gettin
here. an. travelin' light an all playet
ont. It can't be made back in less I
three days"
| For a minute Smoke pondered tht
miles of the way they had come. Vi
sioning the miles in terms OF finn