"Keeps me a 'good Indian,'" laughed Black Bear. "No knowing how savage I might be if I didn't dress for dinner 'most every night."
Russ knew all this was joking between the chief and the ranchman, and he saw that Daddy Bunker was very much amused. But the boy did not understand what the Indians were doing here in Cowboy Jack's ranch, and why they should dress up like wild savages in the daytime, and then dress in civilized clothes when evening came.
Russ Bunker had never been more puzzled by anything in his life before. He felt, of course, that Daddy Bunker would explain if he asked him; but Russ liked to find out things for himself.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE NEW PONIES
Out of a box Chief Black Bear took certain treasures that he gave to the four little Bunkers who visited his wikiup. He even sent some fresh-water mussel shells, polished like mother-of-pearl, to the absent Margy and Mun Bun, of whom Cowboy Jack told him.
"They are some nice kids," declared the ranchman, who sometimes used expressions and words that were not altogether polite; but he meant no harm. "Especially that Mun Bun. He went to sleep in a fence-corner to-day and got covered up with tumble-weed. But he's an all right boy."
Cowboy Jack seemed to think a great deal of the smallest of the Bunkers. He was frequently seen admiring Mun Bun. Even the other children noticed it, and Rose had once asked her mother:
"Why doesn't Mr. Scar—Scar—well, what-ever-it-iskil! Why doesn't he have children of his own?"