"I'll have a talk with old Paul Sam the first time I see him," he told Rennie. "He's as straight as they make them."
"Well, I guess he's the best of the bunch," Rennie admitted.
A day or two afterward Angus met Paul Sam on the range, looking for ponies. Though the Indian was old, he sat his paint pony as easily as a young man. In his youth he must have been as straight and clean-cut as a lance, and even the more than three score and ten snows which had silvered his hair had bent his shoulders but little. He was accompanied by his granddaughter, Mary, a girl of Jean's age, who, being his last surviving relative, was as the apple of his eye. He had sent her to mission school and denied her nothing. As he owned many horses and a large band of cattle, Mary had luxuries unknown to most Indian girls. She was unusually good-looking and a good deal spoiled, though Paul Sam, being of the old school, cherished certain primitive ideas concerning women.
He listened in silence to Angus' statement regarding the missing stock, surveying him with a shrewd old eye.
"You think Injun kapswalla them moos-moos?" he asked with directness.
"I didn't say anybody stole them. I'm just trying to find out what's become of them."
Paul Sam grunted. "All time white man lose moos-moos, lose kuitan, him tumtum Injun steal um," he said. "All time blame Injun. Plenty cultus Injun; plenty cultus white man, too."
"That's true," Angus admitted.
"You nanitch good for them moos-moos? Him all got brand?"
"Yes."