Howling Wolf nodded and smiled again—though he understood only his name.
“Fighter, are you?” queried the cowboy, “Eat men up—hey?”
“How, how!” repeated the old man as pleasantly as he was able, though his eyes were growing stern.
“I’d like to hand him out a package just for luck. He’s too good-natured. What say?”
“Oh, come along Bill,” urged his companions. As they rode by the next wagon, wherein sat a younger man, Bill called out, “Get out o’ the road!”
“Go to hell!” replied the driver, Harry Turtle, a Carlisle student. “You are a big fool.”
Bill drew his revolver and spurred his horse against Harry’s off pony and bawled, “I’d cut your hide into strips for a cent!”
Harry rose in his wagon and uttered a cry of warning which stopped every team, and his eyes flamed in hot anger. “You go!” he said, “or we will kill you.” The cowboys drew off, Brindle Bill belching imprecations, but his companions were genuinely alarmed and rode between him and the wagons and in this way prevented an outbreak. Howling Wolf reproved young Turtle and said: “Do not make any reply to them. We must be careful not to anger the white men.”
They reached the railway safely and, having unloaded their freight, went into camp about a half mile from the town on the river flat beneath some cottonwood trees.
To every white man that spoke to him Howling Wolf replied pleasantly and was very happy to think he was serving the agent and also earning some money. The citizens were generally contemptuous of him, and some of them refused his extended hand, but he did not lay that up against them. It had been long since he had seen a white man’s town and he was vastly interested in everything. He was amazed at the stores of blankets and saddles and calico which he saw. He looked at the gayly painted wagons with envy, for he had no wagon of his own and he saw that to travel on the white man’s road a wagon was necessary. He looked at harnesses also with covetous eyes. Every least thing had value to him, the pictures on the fences, on the peach cans, on the tobacco boxes, the pumps, the horse troughs and fountains—nothing escaped his eager eyes. He was like a boy again.