“Ah, yes! I ditn’t mention that. I am gommissioned to bring them some clodings and blankets. I sell them to them and git a gommission. That is why I say I am gommissioned.”
He waved his hands and smirked, then hoisted his bundle to his shoulder and went on.
At least ten times in getting out of Blossom Range White-eyed Moses was asked those questions and made those answers.
“It is foony,” he said to himself, when he hit the trail north of the town and plodded on toward the distant Ute village. “It is nopody’s pusiness vere I am going, yet eferpody makes it his pusiness.”
It took him three hours to reach the Ute village.
Just before coming to it he mounted to the top of a hill which gave him a good view of the backward way; there he remained for nearly an hour, watching, to make sure that he had not been followed.
Satisfied at last, White-eyed Moses took his way into the village, apparently without fear, though lately the Utes had been in no good temper toward the white men, chiefly because of the encroachments of miners and prospectors.
As the Utes gathered round him, the fiddler stood looking about.
He did not understand their language, so it was of no use to try to speak with them; but he had a universal language in his fiddle.