"Hello, Appah, you look as if you had swallowed a hair rope. What is it?"
And the young chief of police smiled provokingly into the glowering face of the medicine-man. It was war. The two men knew it: the woman knew it, and Ladd, who had just stepped from his house opposite, knew it.
"Wait a minute, you two," he said in a firm, quiet tone that implied acquiescence. "Better leave this to me."
"I understood that Appah was looking for me," drawled the youngster insolently, then he turned and looked squarely into the glittering eyes of the Indian.
"Always at home to my friends, old chap, only"—and he removed his hat and ran a finger through the hole in it—-"don't send up your card; just come yourself."
If Appah knew what was meant, not a quiver of an eyelash betrayed it. There was an obvious pause, then Calthorpe added in a patronizing tone not lost on his enemy:
"A rotten bad shot by the way; it doesn't do you credit." Nothing hurts the Indian like ridicule. Most of us are vulnerable. Poor Achilles! What a pitiful weakness for a warrior—in the heel! Perhaps the story is intended to convey the impression that some one laughed at Achilles' feet and he died. The deaths we die from ridicule! Lingering and conscious! We arm ourselves with contempt for others, but alas for the Achilles spot. Centuries of cultivated philosophy do not protect us. Only love, that love which looks past time into eternity, arms us against the sting of ridicule.
Poor Appah! The woman had laughed at him, and now the man! He did not attempt to reply in kind.
"Maybe so Injin," he said with a movement of the hand toward the store where Wah-na-gi had disappeared.
After a dignified pause during which he looked from one to the other to make sure they knew what he meant, he continued: