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Updated: May 15, 2025
Sleeping bucks awoke, scowling at the uproar; and the horse of Good Indian, hating always the smell and the litter of an Indian camp, pitched furiously into the very wikiup of old Hagar, who hated the rider of old.
Without speaking, they plodded through the dust up the grade, left it, and followed the dim trail through the sagebrush and rocks to the Indian camp which seemed asleep also, except where three squaws were squatting in the sharply defined, conical shadow of a wikiup, mumbling desultorily the gossip of their little world, while their fingers moved with mechanical industry one shining black head bent over a half-finished, beaded moccasin, another stitching a crude gown of bright-flowered calico, and the third braiding her hair afresh with leisurely care for its perfect smoothness.
"Where's Rachel?" he asked suddenly, the words following involuntarily his thought. Peppajee sucked hard upon his pipe, took it away from his mouth, and knocked out the ashes upon a pole of the wikiup frame. "Yo' no speakum Rachel no more," he said gravely. "Yo' ketchum 'Vadnah; no ketchum otha squaw. Bad medicine come. Heap much troubles come. Me no likeum. My heart heap bad."
Squaw Rachel ketchum bad heart along yo'. Heap cry all time. No sleepum, no eatum all time heap sad. Ketchum bad spirit, mebbyso. Ketchum debbil. Sun go 'way, ketchum knife, go Hagar wikiup. Killum Hagar so." He thrust out his arm as one who stabs. "Killum himself so." He struck his chest with his clenched fist. "Hagar heap dead. Rachel heap dead. Kay bueno. Mebbyso yo' heap bad medicine. Yo' go."
"Long time ago, when yo' hair black," he began deliberately, with a sonorous lingering upon his vowels, "yo' all time my frien'. I yo' frien' all same. Yo' no likum otha white man. Yo' all time bueno. Yo' house all same my wikiup. Me come eat at yo' house, talk yo' all same brotha. Yo' boys all same my boys all time my frien'. Me speakum all time no lie, mebbyso."
Peppajee Jim had meditated long in the shade of his wikiup, and now, when the sun changed from a glaring ball of intense, yellow heat to a sullen red disk hanging low over the bluffs of Snake River, he rose, carefully knocked the ashes from his little stone pipe, with one mechanical movement of his arms, gathered his blanket around him, pushed a too-familiar dog from him with a shove of moccasined foot, and stalked away through the sagebrush.
Good Indian spoke briefly with the good-looking young squaw, who had a shy glance for him when he came up; afterward he took hold of his hat by the brim, and ducked through the low opening of a wikiup which she smilingly pointed out to him. "Howdy, Peppajee? How you foot?" he asked, when his unaccustomed eyes discerned the old fellow lying back against the farther wall. "Huh!
I had seventy-five hundred, all in the long green, in that dinky satchel of mine, when I came to this wikiup to join Wynn and Hogan. Them two were layin' for me. The minute I stepped in at the door they bowled me over. I went down like a log, and when I came to myself I was lyin' on this bed, lashed hand and foot, and with a towel tied so tight over my face that I could hardly breathe.
Mebbyso ketchum dog dog kay bueno, mebbyso me killing. Good Injun Grant no heap yell, no shoot all time mebbyso no drunk. No breakum wikiup. Horse all time kay bueno, Hagar " "Shont-isham!" Phoebe, looking at her attentively, despaired of getting any nearer the truth from any of them. There was a sudden check to Hagar's shrewish clamor.
Papooses stood nakedly about, and regarded the uproar solemnly, running to peer into the wikiup and then scamper back to their less hardy fellows. Only the bucks stood apart in haughty unconcern, speaking in undertones when they talked at all. Good Indian commanded Miss Georgie to remain just outside the camp, and himself rode in to where the bucks were gathered.
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