“My father he teach me how to make letters.”
“And you made letters on a piece of bark and pinned them to the hotel door with a dagger?”
“All same. When me come from Alcazar me watch. See um Pa-e-has-ka, Yellow Hair, and rest Pa-e-has-ka’s pards come from Alcazar, meet Piute, hold powwow; then me put birch bark on hotel door. Hope mebbyso Pa-e-has-ka see um—no go to mine.”
“You came back to the Forty Thieves from Sun Dance?”
“Ai.”
“And you came into this level, took a candle, and wrote those words on the wall with the candle-smoke?”
“Ai. Me no like to think Pa-e-has-ka die. Pa-e-has-ka big brave. Wah-coo-tah like um.”
“Don’t be foolish, Wah-coo-tah,” said the scout. “Such talk is for zinga zingas (children).”
“Mebbyso Yellow Hair talk like that,” said Wah-coo-tah angrily, “you no say she talk like zinga zinga.”
“Yellow Hair has too much sense to talk in that way.”