seemed to enjoy the flirtation. But she would
neither consent nor refuse. Hias Peter did not return that evening, and
the next day Johnny was at the works with greater cannonading, and with
more skookum tumtum than ever, and this time he was braver. He was just
on the point of putting his arm around the keeka's waist when the door
opened and Peter darkened the opening. They looked at one another for a
few moments like two panthers about to spring at each other's throats.
Hias Peter had a hias gun, and he raised it to his shoulder and glanced
in a very savage and threatening way along the barrel toward Cultus
Johnny's heart. Johnny dropped to the floor and begged for mercy. Now it
requires some courage to shoot a fellow-being down in cold blood,
although the punishment may be well deserved, so Peter lowered his
rifle.

"Klatawa!" (Go!) he commanded. "Hiak!" (Quick!) he shouted. Johnny
crawled on his hands and knees towards the door, and as he was creeping
over the threshold Peter gave him one awful kick that sent him rolling
on the ground outside. And turning to the woman: "Fooled!" he roared. "I
will shoot you down like a coyote next time," he said. As the Indian is
a man of few words, he drew himself up to his hias (large) size in front
of her. But the woman pleaded that she was not to blame. Johnny had
persisted in his attentions to her, and she could not drive him off. "If
you want to get rid of him, shoot him," said Peter.

Now, among the Indians, when you covet your neighbor's wife, or have
been too familiar with her, and you are caught with the goods, you do
not fly into a far country for fear of your life. You still hang around,
and the worst you can get is perhaps a pounding from the jealous
neighbor; and the sweet environment is worth the risk.

Johnny's skookum tumtum was somewhat out of commission for a while. When
he met Mrs. Peter on the street after that they grinned at each other a
few times without speaking; and by and by, when they thought Peter was
out of sight, they would stop and talk for a while. He asked her again
to fly to Kamloops with him, and she seemed to be swinging on the
balance. Johnny dwelt upon his worldly assets--his saddle, his bridle,
and all his skookum icties. Peter soon realized that his wife was eating
at his table and living in another man's tumtum, but he kept on chewing
his beans and bacon and dried soquas (salmon) in silence, and, but for
the intervention of Providence, Pete