But the star of the politician was once more in the ascendant. For two years there had been not one depredation, not one outrage from the Indians, for whose good conduct the general had given his personal word. They were self-supporting, and from the products of their farms they not only kept themselves, but supplied the neighboring towns. It was a state of affairs entirely unsatisfactory to the politician. So he set about correcting it.
His methods were explained to Cairness by an old buck who slouched up to the cabin and sat himself down cross-legged in front of the door. He meant to share in the venison breakfast Cairness was getting himself.
"So long as these stones of your house shall remain one upon the other," began the Apache, "so long shall I be your friend. Have you any tobacco?" Cairness went into the cabin, got a pouch, and tossed it to him. He took a package of straw papers and a match from somewhere about himself and rolled a cigarette deftly.
"I have been lied to," came the muttering voice from the folds of the red I. D. blanket, which almost met the red flannel band binding down his coarse and dirty black hair. It was early dawn and cold. Cairness himself was close to the brush fire.
"I have been cheated."
Cairness nodded. He thought it very likely.
"The Sun and the Darkness and the Winds were all listening. He promised to pay me dos reales each day. To prove to you that I am now telling the truth, here is what he wrote for me." He held it out to Cairness, a dirty scrap of wrapping-paper scrawled over with senseless words.
"Yes," said Cairness, examining it, "but this has no meaning."
"That is a promise," the Indian insisted, "to pay me dos reales a day if I would cut hay for him."