It made the Injuns awful sick—
He killed them all so mighty slick.
Hurrah, for Baldy!"
For fully five minutes Sam Barringford kept up his wild talking and singing, much to the Indians' astonishment. They crowded around, and looked at one another.
"Why sings the white hunter like this?" asked one.
Instead of answering the old frontiersman began to tell a wild and wonderful tale of a bear who stole a gun and shot an Indian who had killed her cubs. Then he began to sing once more, in a wilder fashion than ever. He rolled his eyes, and worked his ears back and forth—a trick he had learned when a boy—and clicked his teeth together.
"He is mad—he has lost his reason," said one of the warriors.
"He is only shamming," cried Falling Star.
"No, no, he has surely lost his reason," said another Indian. "Hark to him!"
"We cannot burn one who is mad," said an old warrior, gravely. "It would bring evil upon us."