"Do wif it!" echoed Ike. "Wy, I'd sit right down an' gib it all a inside passage. I'd a heap sight rudder hab one good, squar meal dan a hundred scrimpsy ones. Dar ain't no pleasure in stoppin' jest when yeh wants to keep right on eatin'."
"Nevertheless we must all do it, Ike. We are not eating for pleasure, but to keep alive till we get out of this place."
"Wa'al, if we ebber does git out, an' I can sit down before grub an' eat all I wants, dat grub will suffer—if I has any strent left," and Ike sat down and watched Maj with a hungry look that boded no good to that faithful creature.
Sam had often been surprised at Ulna's gentle manners and the excellent English he spoke; he seemed so little like the wild Indians he had read about that he was anxious to know something of his life, but from feelings of delicacy he had never asked him about his past up to this time. By way of passing the time before setting the guard, he asked Ulna where he had learned English so well.
"In the Mission School at Taos," said Ulna. "My father, who was a brother of our chief, Uray, was killed in the Sierra Madre Mountains, by the Hill, or Arizona, Apaches, when I was a little child."
"And your mother?" suggested Sam.
"She could read and write, and she could speak Spanish and English as well as the language of her own people; all this she had learned in the school at Taos, to which place the good missionaries took her when she was a child; that was long before the white man crowded into this land."
"Is your mother living?"
"Yes, and my sister; she is a year older than I, and she is very good. Two years ago my mother, who still lived at Taos, married a white man—a Mexican. I did not like him and I ran away and joined the tribe. But I did not like the ways of our people, though I felt that their free life on the hills and along the great rivers was the only one to live. Yes, I have much of the white man's knowledge, and I am glad of it. Still, my heart has ever hungered for the free life of the Ute. No matter what befalls me, I do not complain; the Great Spirit rules and directs all," and as Ulna ceased speaking, he uncovered his head and raised his handsome, expressive face to the stars.
"I thank you for telling me this," said Sam, taking the young Indian's hand and pressing it warmly, while he added: "It does not make me love you any the less or more, Ulna, but somehow I think that the more good people know of each other the warmer friends they become."