ntinued Shorty.

"What was his name?" inquired Monty Scruggs.

"John Ross."

"Humph, not much of a name," said Monty in a disappointed tone, for he
had been an assiduous reader of dime novels. "'Tain't anything like
as fine as Tecumseh, and Osceola, and Powhatan, and Jibbeninosay, and
Man-Afraid-of-Gettin'-His-Neck-Broke. Wasn't much of a big Injun."

"Deed he was," answered Si. "He and his fathers before him run' this
whole neck o' woods accordin' to the big Injun taste, and give the Army
o' the United States all they wanted to do. Used to knock all the other
Injuns around here about like ten-pins. The Rosses were bosses from the
word go."

"Don't sound right, though," said Monty regretfully. "And such a
shack as that don't look like the wigwam of a great chief. 'Tain't any
different from the hired men's houses on the farms in Injianny."

"Well, all the same, it's got to go for the scene of a cord o'
dime novels," said Shorty. "We've brung in civilization and modern
improvements and killed more men around here in a hour o' working time
than the ignorant, screechin' Injuns killed since the flood."

"Do them rijimints look like the 200th Injianny?" anxiously inquired
Harry Joslyn, pointing to some camps on the mountain-side, where the men
were drilling and engaged in other soldierly duties.

"Them," snorted Shorty contemptuously. "Them's only recruits that ain't
got licked into shape yet. When you see the 200th Injianny you'll see a
rijimint, I tell you. Best one in the army. You ought to be mighty proud
you got a chanst to git into sich a rijimint."

"We are; we are," the boys assured him. "But we're awful anxious to see
jest what it's like."

"Well, you'll see in a little while the boss lot o' boys. Every one of
'em fightin' cocks, thoroughbred--not a dunghill feather or strain
in the lot. Weeded 'em all out long ago. All straight-cut gentlemen.
They'll welcome you like brothers and skin you out of every cent o' your
bounty, if you play cards with 'em. They're a dandy crowd when it comes
to fingerin' the pasteboards. They'll be regler fathers to you, but you
don't want to play no cards with 'em."

"I thought you said they wuz all gentlemen and would be regler brothers
to us," said Harry Joslyn.

"So they will--so they will. But your brother's the feller that you've
got to watch clostest when he's settin' in front o' you with one little
pair. He's the feller that's most likely to know all you know about th