"Say, Bill," protested Buck Higgins, "'f you couldn't shoot no straighter'n you c'n talk you'd be a mighty poor risk for a insurance comp'ny. Nev' mind this here Jennie's history from th' time of th' flood. Get down t' th' present day."
"Well," Bill continued reluctantly, "I tells Jennie 'bout Injun an' Whitey's bein' 'bout t' be added to her string o' pupils, an' what d'ye s'pose she responds? That there ain't nothin' doin' with Injun. That Whitey, bein' a paleface, is entitled t' absorb all th' knowledge he c'n hold, but that Injun, bein' copper-colored, has got t' get along with other brunettes of his kind, back in some school east of here, 'specially designated by a patern'l gov'ment."
"Did she say all them words?" demanded Charlie Bassett.
"Just like that," Bill replied. "'S though she knew 'em by heart. Must 'a' bin some circular, or somep'n' she'd learned aforehand."
"Well, what d'ye think o' that?" Jim Walker exploded. "Think o' that John Big Moose, an' all he knows, an' him bein' allowed t' learn folks in some Eastern high school, an' that there Jennie Adams, what don't know enough t' tell time by a kitchen clock, not bein' puhmitted t' learn Injun nothin'. It ain't right."
Bill Jordan leaned back, well satisfied with the effect he had produced. "'Course it ain't right," he said. "Th' reason for it is that th' cemetery o' learnin' where John's goin' t' teach is a private institootion, an' this here shack o' Jennie's is controlled by th' gov'ment. I ain't no anarkiss, but—"
"What's an anarkiss?" interrupted Buck.
"A feller what's ag'in' th' gov'ment," explained Bill. "You can't make me b'lieve that our Injun ain't as good as th' scholards at Jennie's emporium. Take that potato-faced brother Jim of hers, f'r instance, that's a coyote in 'pearance an' a rattlesnake at heart. Why, Injun's a—a—prince of timber buck too compared t' him."
Bill did not know what a Prince of Timbuctoo was, and neither did the other punchers, but it sounded impressive, and served to vent his feelings against a law which affected his friend Injun—for as such Bill, and all the men in the bunk house, regarded the boy.
There may have been reasons why the Indian children were kept from association with whites. But in the minds of these men of the plains, who knew both the bad and the good in the red men, and the bad and the good in the white men of that day and that country, the reasons were not founded on justice. Furthermore, they were conceived by lawmakers far away. So the cowboys vented their feelings against what seemed to them rank injustice.