“Gee, I’m goin’ to be an Indian!” laughed Sid. “I’ll build a whicki-up of my own and live here forever! I’m an adopted Blackfoot, anyhow.”
“Why don’t you be an ethnologist, Sid?” urged Scotty, inspired by his chum’s enthusiasm.
“Gee-roo, I’d be more than that!” came back Sid. “Instead of just studying their songs and customs, I’d want to do something practical toward letting the Indian live in his own way. It’s the only thing that will preserve the race contented and happy.”
“How, Snakes!—You happy?” chuckled Jake, calling out to the old buck at Sid’s words.
The Apache lifted his great head, and a coppery grin broke on his eagle features. “Plenty happy!” his deep bass voice replied. “Major Hinchm’n heap good to red man!”
“Yet this ole redskin and yore pappy and Major Hinchman, Sid, was on the war path after each other, red hot, only forty years ago! Waal; times hev changed! We must be oozin’ along, now, or there won’t be no deer on the saddle, boys.”
“You see how ’tis,” said Jake with obvious pride in his master’s system as they rode off, “them Injuns is happy, clean through. ’Cause why? They’ve got their freedom, an’ can live as they likes. Ef every ranch in Arizona would adopt a few, we’d have no need for reservations, whar they’re always discontented. It don’t take much to feed an Injun an’ keep him happy. That young buck’s as good a herdsman as we’ve got. The squaw makes baskits, an’ the ole feller does a bit of huntin’, mostly sage hens and jacks. They’re wuth their keep; yit we kin sorter look after ’em if they gits into any trouble. That’s what Hinchman’s preachin’, everywhar he goes.—Whoa, boys! We pickets the horses here, fellers, an’ gits up this coulée afoot after them deer,” he broke off, throwing a leg over his mount.
They picketed the ponies out in a bit of grass swale, and separated, going in pairs up different flanks of the red butte. The sparse mesquite and bear oak grew stunted and thick, up here, and it was all cut up with little ravines of dense clay soil and friable rock. Moisture and dew from the river, condensed at night, evidently kept it going, for even cottonwood grew in the depths of the gullies.
“Good deer country, son,—for these parts. They lies low up here and comes down at night to drink. Watch out for a track in the clay,” cautioned Big John as he and Sid climbed along, rifles at ready.
A blue-tailed, green lizard darted across their path. Sid was watching it disappear under some loose stones, when the sudden “Whew! Whew!” of a startled deer made him jump with rifle half to shoulder.