Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: September 11, 2025
Back!" cried Ambrose. "For God's sake listen to me, men! Go to your lodges and talk until morning. The truth will be clear in the daylight! The police are coming. They will give you justice. "Justice is on your side now. If you break the white man's law he will wipe you out! Where is your leader? He knows the truth of what I say. Watusk is not here! He won't risk his neck!"
The breeze brought the sound of their light talk and deep laughter. The effect on the Indians was marked. Their jaws dropped, they looked at each other incredulously, they jabbered excitedly. Plainly they were divided between admiration and mystification. Watusk was demoralized. His hand shook, an ashy tint crept under his yellow skin, an agony of impotent rage narrowed his eyes.
Ambrose demanded four men of him to carry Tole's body to his father's house. Watusk kept him waiting while he listened to a communication from Myengeen. Ambrose guessed that it had to do with himself, for both men glanced furtively at him. Watusk finally turned away without having answered the white man. Ambrose, growing red, imperiously repeated his demand.
Ambrose asked Watusk about it. "This is the lame man's dance," his host explained. "What lame man?" asked Ambrose. "How did it begin?" Watusk shrugged. "It is very old," he said. The first man dropped out, and the second chose a new partner. Sometimes there were two or three couples dancing at once. Partners were chosen indiscriminately from either sex.
"Watusk testified that he had a conversation with the prisoner during the fire, but the confusion was so great he cannot remember what was said. This is very natural. "Myengeen, Tatateecha, and the other Indians who testified said that the prisoner did harangue them, and that they understood from his gestures that he was urging them to cross the river and revenge themselves.
Ambrose observed that each dancer laid two matches on the cold stove as he took his place, and when he retired from the dance picked them up again. He asked what that signified. Watusk shrugged again. "How do I know?" he said. "It is always done." Ambrose learned later that this was the invariable answer of the Kakisas to any question concerning their customs.
"Unlawful entry, conspiracy, burglary, and assault with intent to kill. To which we shall probably add treason." Ambrose made no answer. In his heart he had hoped that the empty charges at Fort Enterprise had fallen of their own weight before this. The inspector turned his attention back to Watusk. "Deliver over your arsenal!" he said.
The two drummers sat idle in a corner, and all the company sat in stolid silence. Only Watusk chatted and laughed. The women stared at Ambrose, and the men looked down their noses. All were somewhat embarrassed by the presence of a white man. Ambrose, looking around, was struck by the incongruity of the women's neat print dresses and the men's store clothes taken with their savage, walled faces.
You cannot go forward or back. Ask Company man if Kakisas shoot straight!" Inspector Egerton's answer was a hearty laugh. "Capital!" he cried. "Laugh!" cried Watusk furiously. "You no harder than ot'er man. You got no medicine to stop those bullets you sell us! No? If bullets go t'rough your red coats you die lak ot'er men I guess!"
In the end he had to go, just as a child must in the end obey a calm, imperative summons. He issued a petulant order. All the men except Ambrose's guard of six took their guns and filed out through the back of the pit. Watusk went last.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking