Rolling Stones Page: Illustration

48 RollnUg 'one
men and women. What have you done to me?' says lie.
'You've made me a Cherokee Moses. You've taught me
to hate the wigwams and love the white man's ways. I
can look over into the promised land and see Mrs. Con-
yers, but my place is - on the reservation.'
"Little Bear stands up in his chief's dress, and laughs
again. 'But, white man Jeff,' he goes on, 'the paleface
provides a recourse. 'Tis a temporary one, but it gives
a respite and the name of it is whiskey.' And straight off
he walks up the path to town again. 'Now,' says I in my
mind, 'may the Manitou move him to do only bailable
things this night!' For I perceive that John Tom is
about to avail himself of the white man's solace.
"Maybe it was 10:30, as I sat smoking, when I hear
pit-a-pats on the path, and here comes Mrs. Conyers run-
ning, her hair twisted up any way, and a look on her face
that says burglars and mice and the flour's-all-out rolled
in one. 'Oh, Mr. Peters,' she calls out, as they will,
'oh, oh!' I made a quick think, and I spoke the gist of it
out loud. 'Now,' says I, 'we've been brothers, me and
that Indian, but I'll make a good one of him in two
minutes if--
" 'No, no,' she says, wild and cracking her knuckles,
'I haven't seen Mr. Little Bear. 'Tis my - husband.
He's stolen my boy. Oh,' she says, 'just when I had him
back in my arms again! That heartless villain! Every
bitterness life knows,' she says, 'he's made me drink. My
poor little lamb, that ought to be warm in his bed, carried
off by that fiend!'

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