"Alas!" he sighed. "Is it thus I am to be defamed! And by a copper-colored aborigine! The thought is gall to my sensitive soul! I shall peek and pine over it! For days to come no sweet smile shall adorn my beautiful features!"
Joe looked puzzled.
"No say something bad," he declared. "When Red Cheek him talk-talk a heap lot other man that throw ball he got a lot mixed, no make good pitch. Red Cheek him help win game a heap."
Jack's face cleared at once.
"Crowfoot, you have poured soothing balm on my[Pg 247] wounded heart!" he cried. "I'm glad to know that I do amount to something, for, so help me! of late I have begun to wonder what I was made for!"
"Sit down, Joe," invited Frank. "We're going to have breakfast in a short time, and you are to eat with us."
"Ugh!" said the Indian, disdaining a chair and sitting on the floor with his back against the wall. "Joe him do so. Him a heap empty. Mebbe after him eat him tell Strong Heart something much good to hear."
When breakfast was over the old Indian lighted his rank pipe and smoked contentedly, still sitting on the floor, with his back against the wall.
Through the open door came the sounds of work at the mine. Frank was not yet running the mine day and night, with shifts of men, but it was his intention to do so later. Smoke was rising from the high pipe of the stamp-mill, and soon the stamps began to rumble and roar, awaking the echoes of the valley. The sound was a pleasant one in Merriwell's ears.
"This running a mine in Arizona is a snap," said Jack Ready, as he elevated his feet to the top of the table, in which the breakfast-dishes and remnants of the meal remained. "The hardest part of it seems to be washing the dishes. It's Gallup's turn this morning."