"Boss," he began, "you sabez that story old Suma-theek tell you?"
Jim nodded. "Why don't you do it, then?" the old Indian went on.
Jim looked puzzled. Suma-theek jerked his thumb toward the distant tent house. "She much beautiful, much lonely, much young, much good. Why you no marry her?"
"She is married, Suma-theek," replied Jim gently.
"Married? No! That no man up there. She no his wife. Let him go. He bad in heart like in body. You marry her."
Jim continued to shake his head. "She belongs to him. The law says so."
Suma-theek snorted. "Law! You whites make no law except to break it. Love it have no law except to make tribe live. Great Spirit, he must think she bad when she might have good babies for her tribe, she stay with that bad cripple. Huh?"
"You don't understand, Suma-theek. There is always the matter of honor for a white man."
Suma-theek smoked his cigarette thoughtfully for a moment and then he said, wonderingly: "A white man's honor! He will steal a nigger woman or an Injun woman. He will steal Injun money or Injun lands. He will steal white man's money. He will lie. He will cheat. Where he not afraid, white man no have honor. But when talk about steal white man's wife, he afraid. Then he find he have honor! Honor! Boss, white honor is like rain on hot sand, like rotten arrow string, like leaking olla. I am old, old Injun. I heap know white honor!"
Old Suma-theek flipped his cigarette into the excavation and strode away. Jim rose slowly and looked over at the Elephant with his gray eyes narrowed, his broad shoulders set.