'thar's your bank ag'in; only
it's thirty thousand stronger than it is four hours ago.'

"'Your bank, ladybird, you means!' says Cherokee.

"'Well, our bank, then,' retorts Nell. 'What's the difference?
Don't you-all tell me we're partners?' Then Nell motions to Black
Jack. 'The drinks is on me, Jack,' she says; 'see what the house
will have.'"

CHAPTER IV.

How The Raven Died.

"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 cu'rous 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 waggon 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 buck-skins, 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 Lootenent--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