"All right, professor." Calvin rose reluctantly, and as he stood in the door he said, in a low voice, to Jennie, "Now if you want me any time just send for me."
"Hold the sheriff level—that's what you do for us."
"I'll see that he don't get gay," he replied, and his hearty confidence did them all good.
After the sheriff and his deputy went out, Elsie said: "Oh, it was wonderful! That old man who spoke last must be the Edwin Booth of the tribe. He was superbly dramatic."
"He took my words very deeply to heart. That was Grayman, one of the most intelligent of all my head men; but he has had a great deal of trouble. He comprehends all too much of the tragedy of his situation."
Elsie sat with her elbows on the table, gazing in silence towards the empty fireplace. She looked weary and sad.
Curtis checked himself. "I regret very deeply the worry and discomfort all this brings upon you."
"Oh, I'm not thinking of myself this time, I am thinking of the hopeless task you have set yourself. You can't solve this racial question—it's too big and too complicated. Men are simply a kind of ferocious beast. They go to work killing each other the way chickens eat grasshoppers."
"Your figure is wrong. If our Christian settlers only killed Indians to fill their stomachs they'd stop some time; but they kill them because they're like the boy about his mother—tired of seeing 'em 'round."
There was a time when Elsie's jests were frankly on the side of the strong against the weak, but she was becoming oppressed with the suffering involved in the march of civilization. "What a fine face Grayman has; I couldn't help thinking how much more refined it was than Winters! As for the cowboys, they were hulking school-boys; I was not a bit afraid of them after they were dismounted."