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How the Raven Died, by Alfred Henry Lewis

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How the Raven Died
by Alfred Henry Lewis, 1902



"WHICH if you-all is out to hear of Injuns, son," observed the Old Cattleman,
doubtfully, "the best I can do is shet my eyes an' push along regyardless, like
a cayouse in a storm of snow. But I don't guarantee no facts; none whatever; I
never does bend myse'f to severe study of savages, an' what notions I packs
concernin' 'em is the casual frootes of what I accidental hears an' what I sees.
It's only now an' then, as I observes former, that Injuns invades Wolfville; an'
when they does, we-all scowls 'em outen camp— sort o' makes a sour front, so as
to break 'em early of habits of visitin' us. We shore don't hone none to have
'em hankerin' 'round.
"Nacherally, I makes no doubt that if you goes clost to Injuns an' studies their
little game you finds some of 'em good an' some bad, some gaudy an' some sedate,
some cur'ous an' some indifferent, same as you finds among shore-enough folks.
It's so with mules an' broncos; wherefore, then, may not these differences exist
among Injuns? Come squar' to the turn, you-all finds white folks separated the
same. Some gents follows off one wagon track an' some another; some even makes a
new trail.
"Speakin' of what's opposite in folks, I one time an' ag'in sees two white
chiefs of scouts who frequent comes pirootin' into Wolfville from the Fort. Each
has mebby a score of Injuns at his heels who pertains to him personal. One of
these scout chiefs is all buckskins, fringes, beads an' feathers from y'ears to
hocks, while t'other goes garbed in a stiff hat with a little jim-crow rim— one
of them kind you deenom'nates as a darby— an' a diag'nal overcoat; one chief
looks like a dime novel on a spree an' t'other as much like the far East as he
saveys how. An' yet, son, this voylent person in buckskins is a Second
Lootenant— a mere boy, he is— from West P'int; while that outcast in the
reedic'lous hat is foaled on the plains an' never does go that clost to the
risin' sun as to glimpse the old Missouri. The last form of maverick bursts
frequent into Western bloom; it's their ambition, that a-way, to deloode you
into deemin' 'em as fresh from the States as one of them tomatter airtights.
"Thar's old gent Jeffords; he's that sort. Old Jeffords lives for long with the
Apaches; he's found among 'em when Gen'ral Crook— the old 'Gray Fox'— an'
civilization and Gatlin' guns comes into Arizona arm in arm. I used to note old
Jeffords hibernatin' about the Oriental over in Tucson. I shore reckons he's
procrastinatin' about thar yet, if the Great Sperit ain't done called him in. As
I says, old Jeffords is that long among the Apaches back in Cochise's time that
the mem'ry of man don't run none to the contrary. An' yet no gent ever sees old
Jeffords wearin' anything more savage than a long-tail black surtoot an' one of
them stove-pipe hats. Is Jeffords dangerous? No, you-all couldn't call him a
distinct peril; still, folks who goes devotin' themse'fs to stirrin' Jeffords up
jest to see if he's alive gets disastrous action. He has long gray ha'r an' a
tangled white beard half-way down his front; an' with that old plug hat an'