He dug his toe into the turf in the court-house yard under the locust-tree, and did not say anything till Jim Leonard asked him if he was afraid to go off and live with the Indians, because if he was going to be a cowardy-calf like that, it was all that Jim Leonard wanted to do with him.
Pony denied that he was afraid, but he said that he did not know how to talk Indian, and he did not see how he was going to get along without.
Jim Leonard laughed and said if that was all, he need not be anxious. “The Indians don’t talk at all, hardly, even among each other. They just make signs; didn’t you know that? If you want something to eat you point to your mouth and chew; and if you want a drink, you open your mouth and keep swallowing. When you want to go to sleep you shut your eyes and lean your cheek over on your hand, this way. That’s all the signs you need to begin with, and you’ll soon learn the rest. Now, say, are you going with the Indians, or ain’t you going? It’s your only chance. Why, Pony, what are you afraid of? Hain’t you always wanted to sleep out-doors and not do anything but hunt?”
Pony had to confess that he had, and then Jim Leonard said: “Well, then, that’s what you’ll do if you go with the Indians. I suppose you’ll have to go on the warpath with them when you get out there; and if it’s against the whites you won’t like it at first; but you’ve got to remember what the whites have done to the Indians ever since they discovered America, and you’ll soon get to feeling like an Indian anyway. One thing is, you’ve got to get over being afraid.”
That made Pony mad, and he said: “I ain’t afraid now.”
“I know that,” said Jim Leonard. “But what I mean is, that if you get hurt you mustn’t hollo, or cry, or anything; and even when they’re scalping you, you mustn’t even make a face, so as to let them know that you feel it.”
By this time some of the other fellows began to come around to hear what Jim Leonard was saying to Pony. A good many of the Indians had gone off anyway, for the people had stopped sticking quarters into the ground for them to shoot at, and they could not shoot at nothing. Jim Leonard saw the fellows crowding around, but he went on as if he did not notice them. “You’ve got to go without eating anything for weeks when the medicine-man tells you to; and when you come back from the warpath, and they have a scalp-dance, you’ve got to keep dancing till you drop in a fit. When they give a dog feast you must eat dog stew until you can’t swallow another mouthful, and you’ll be so full that you’ll just have to lay around for days without moving. But the great thing is to bear any kind of pain without budging or saying a single word. Maybe you’re used to holloing now when you get hurt?”
Pony confessed that he holloed a little; the others tried to look as if they never holloed at all, and Jim Leonard went on:
“Well, you’ve got to stop that. If an arrow was to go through you and stick out at your back, or anywhere, you must just reach around and pull it out and not speak. When you’re having the sun-dance—I think it’s the sun-dance, but I ain’t really certain—you have to stick a hook through you, right here”—he grabbed Pony by the muscles on his shoulders—“and let them pull you up on a pole and hang there as long as they please. They’ll let you practise gradually so that you won’t mind hardly anything. Why, I’ve practised a good deal by myself, and now I’ve got so that I believe if you was to stick me with—”
All of a sudden something whizzed along the ground and Jim Leonard stooped over and caught one of his feet up in his hand, and began to cry and to hollo: “Oh, oh, oh! Ow, ow, ow! Oh, my foot! Oh, it’s broken; I know it is! Oh, run for the doctor, do, Pony Baker! I know I’m going to die! Oh, dear, oh dear, oh dear!”