"Ta-wan-ne-ars thanks you, Englishman." He extended his hand.
"Your kindness was the greater because you obeyed it by instinct."
I regarded him with increasing amazement. Who was this savage who talked like a London courtier?
"I helped you," I said, "because you were a stranger in a strange city, and by the laws of hospitality your comfort should be assured."
"That is the law of the Indian, Englishman," he answered pleasantly; "but it is not the law of the white man."
"It is the law our religion teaches," I remonstrated, feeling that I must defend this indictment of my race.
"Your religion teaches it to you and you try to apply it to yourselves," he objected. "But you do not even try to apply it to the Indian. The Indian is a savage. He is in the way of the white man. He must be pushed out."
I took his hand in mine.
"All white men do not feel so," I said.
"Not all," he assented. "But most."