“I’m dying,” I cried out.
“Pound your ear and forget it,” was the reply.
“But I am dying,” I insisted.
“Then why worry?” came the voice. “You’ll be dead pretty quick an’ out of it. Go ahead and croak, but don’t make so much noise about it. You’re interruptin’ my beauty sleep.”
So angered was I by this callous indifference, that I recovered self-control and was guilty of no more than smothered groans.—From “The Star Rover.” Copyrighted by The Macmillan Co., New York, and used with their kind permission.
A SON OF COPPER SIN
By Herman Whitaker
Within his bull’s-hide tepee, old Iz-le-roy lay and fed his little fire, stick by stick. He was sick, very sick—sick with the sickness which is made up of equal parts of hunger, old age, fever and despair. Just one week before his tribe had headed up for Winnipegoos, where the whitefish may be had for the taking and the moose winter in their yards. But a sick man may not travel the long trail, so Iz-le-roy had remained at White Man’s Lake. And Batiste, his son, stayed also. Not that it was expected of him, for, according to forest law, the man who cannot hunt had better die; but Batiste had talked with the gentle priest of Ellice, and had chosen to depart from the custom of his fathers.
And things had gone badly, very badly, since the tribe had marched. North, south, east and west, the round of the plains, and through the leafless woods, the boy had hunted without as much as a jack-rabbit falling to his gun. For two days no food had passed their lips, and now he was gone forth to do that which Iz-le-roy had almost rather die than have him do—ask aid of the settlers.
“Yea, my son,” the old warrior had faltered, “these be they that stole the prairies of our fathers. Yet it may be that Big Laugh, best of an evil brood, will give us of his store of flour and bacon.”