[Illustration: "I was all over that Injun.">[
"Percy was surprised and displeased. He put on his specks and trotted quick to the edge.
"'Washington,' says he, 'you have hurt that man!'
"'Oh, I guess not,' says I. 'He's used to this country.'
"I hadn't hurt him half as much as I'd liked. If you slapped a white man straight down a hundred foot on top of a pile of rocks he'd depart like a Christian, but my red friend and brother promptly wriggled off behind the boulders.
"I dassen't shoot. There might be a twenty of 'em in hearing, and, besides, no need of worryin' poor Percy, trustin' E. G. W., any sooner than I had to.
"'It seems to me, Washington,' says Percy, 'that's very rough play.'
"'Percy,' says I, 'as you may have read, an Injun don't care so much about being hurt as he does for supportin' his family pride. If I'd only chucked him fifteen foot or so he'd thought I didn't respect his powers of endurance proper, and like enough wouldn't 'a' spoke to me if we met.'
"'Well, of course, you know all about these things,' he says.
'But to me it is very surprising.'
"'Percy,' says I to him again, real earnest, 'if a man took note of all the things in this world that are surprisin' it wouldn't be no time before every tree in the forest looked like an exclamation mark to him.'