“Something or other was the matter with the boat. I s’pose like as not it wasn’t fastened as it orter been, fur the current worked it loose, and about a couple of hours afore daylight it went off down-stream.
“Of course in the mornin’ we found out what had happened, and I see’d, too, how it had come to git loose, and a couple of us started on a hunt arter it. We found it about three miles down the river, where it had cotched fast ag’in’ the limb of a tree, and we got in and tried to paddle it back. The Nez Perce was still sound asleep, and we took him along.
“But that was the greatest job I ever undertook,” added Old Ruff, with a sigh. “At the first off I sot down in the bow, and begun to paddle. I thought I was gittin’ along powerful well, but when I turned my head I found the starn hadn’t budged a bit. It had jist staid whar it was when we started, and the blamed thing was jist stretching out—stretching out.”
“And you want me to tell why it did so?” said Harry; “the rear of the boat must have remained fast in the limbs of the tree.”
“I knowed that as well as you do, but that ain’t the question at all. I’ll come to that bimeby. I unfastened the cotch, and then squatted in the starn and paddled harder than ever. I worked so hard, that I kept the rear part goin’ faster than the forrard, so that now and then I hit my nose ag’in the prow. That made it bulge into the qu’arest kind of shapes, and it bounced about so much that I didn’t git along very fast. But at last, I reached camp, whar thar was a good deal of fun when they found we had brought the Injin back with us. Some wanted to skulp him on the spot, but Colonel Stebbins said no. He hadn’t committed murder, but he had been cotched at burglary, and we should try ’im on that charge.
“So they got up what they called a court-martial, the colonel himself acting as boss—”
“Judge Advocate, he is called,” interrupted Harry, who was becoming quite interested in the narration.
“That’s it, and they had their lawyers, or whatever you’ve a mind to name ’em, and the Injin was fotched up. By that time he had worked off most of the whisky. He wasn’t sober, not by no means, but he was just drunk enough to be independent and sassy, and he was the smartest red-skin I ever sot eyes on. He could talk English as well as we, and he understood what they war drivin’ at from the fust.
“When they axed him to pick out a lawyer, he shook his head, and said he could lie as fast as any lawyer. That made ’em all laugh, and I could see that they didn’t mean to hurt the varmint. If he’d been a Blackfoot it would have gone hard with him, for they had bothered us a good deal; but the Nez Perces had never troubled us afore, and they’re a much better set of people anyway.
“I never could understand what made that red-skin so smart,” said Old Ruff, with a wondering shake of his head, “it beat my ca’clations all holler.”