“Vell, he guessed it; that last holdt-up was like your work, he said; and he felt sure if you was round here you must be hiding with the Utes.”
“Yes; he knew I was friendly with them and old Iron Bow.”
“So it was, and he sent me.”
He took his fiddle and went outside.
Tim Benson came out, also; and, standing by him, announced to the Indians that the white man would furnish music if they desired to dance.
The Indians were willing enough, yet the thing was a failure; the Utes had no knowledge of any dancing steps suited to the music of White-eyed Moses, nor could the latter adapt his fiddling to the jerky hops of the Utes. Aside from this, dancing is not, with Indians, the light-hearted and light-heeled affair it is with white men, but something solemn, or fierce, or fanatical.
The Utes gave it up after a while. Yet White-eyed Moses continued to please them with his music; for they enjoyed the strains of his fiddle, even though they could not dance to them.
After the fiddling and the dance failure, White-eyed Moses went back into the tepee which was being used by the road agent, where they took up the thread of their talk. He also shaved Benson and gave him a haircut.
“This is going to be a risky thing,” Benson commented. “If I’m caught, it means the jail, and maybe hangin’, for me; but I’ll tackle it, anyhow. Juniper would do as much for me, likely.”