“Well,” he remarked, when his pipe was going well, “I never would advise a young man to begin to smoke, but I don’t know of anything in this world that has given me more comfort than tobacco, and that is one thing that the world has got to thank the Indians for.”
“Well, pretty nearly everybody smokes,” said Jack, “and I’ve often thought that maybe I’d like to, especially when I see you sitting there as you do now, Hugh. You seem to take such solid comfort in your pipe.”
“Yes,” assented Hugh, “I do; but then, suppose I’d never learned to smoke; don’t you suppose I’d be just as comfortable as I am now? A man don’t miss the things that he’s never enjoyed.”
“No, of course not,” replied Jack.
For a long time the three sat there, gazing at the little fire that flickered before them, Joe occasionally reaching over and carefully laying on it a stick of wood so that it constantly burned bright and warm.
At length Jack spoke up again and said, “Hugh, where were you in 1876, when the Custer massacre took place?”
“I was up camping with the Piegans, not far from the Sweet Grass Hills. I had been trading the year before with the Piegans, and instead of going into Benton and lying around there during the summer, I just stayed out in camp with the people. But look here, son,” he went on, “don’t make the mistake that pilgrims do and call that the Custer massacre; call it if you like the Custer fight or the Custer battle. It wasn’t what I understand a massacre to be; it was just a fair up-and-down fight, and the white men got licked and all of them got killed off. The white men went into that fight with their eyes wide open and knew what they were doing. They just tackled a job that was too big for them, that’s all. Now, you might call the Baker fight that I was telling you about a few days ago a massacre, because it was a surprise and because the troops attacked the camp, and killed off mostly women and children and old men. That’s my idea of a massacre, but the Custer fight was just a fight, and nothing else.”
“That’s so, Hugh,” said Jack, “I oughtn’t to have called it a massacre, but that’s what a good many people do call it, you know.”
“I know they do,” said Hugh, “but it’s a wrong name to give it, at least according to my idea.”
“Did you ever know General Custer?” asked Jack.