She shrank back from the wild figure.During his two years of hiding in the mountains,Willock had cared nothing for his personal appearance.His garments,on disintegrating had been replaced by skins,thus giving an aspect of assorted colors and materials rather remarkable.Only when driven by necessity had he ventured on long journeys to the nearest food-station,carrying the skins obtained by trapping,and bringing back fresh stores of provisions and tobacco on the pony purchased by the Spanish gold.
Willock was greatly disconcerted by her attitude.He said regretfully,I guess I've been so much with myself that I ain't noticed my outside as a man ought.Won't you make your home with me,child?He held out his rough hand appealingly.
She retreated farther,saying with disapproval,Much hair!Willock laid his hand on his breast,returning,Much heart!
Him white,said the Indian,swinging himself upon his horse.Him save your life.Sometime me come visit,come eat,come stay with you.
As he wheeled about,she held out her arms toward him,crying wildly,Don't go!Don't leave me!Him much hair!
The Indian dashed away without turning his head.
Good lord,honey,exclaimed Willock,at his wits'ends,don't cry!I can't do nothing if you CRY.Won't you come look at your new home?He waved eagerly toward the dugout.
Hole in the ground!cried the girl desperately.I want my tepee.Am I a prairie-dog?
No,honey,you ain't.You and me is both white,and we ought to live together;it ain't right for you to live with red people that kills and burns your own kith and kin.
She looked at him repellently through her streaming tears.Big hair!she cried.Big hair!
And must I cut it off?I'll make my head as smooth as yonder bald-headed mountain-peak if it'll keep you from crying.Course you ain't seen nobody with whiskers amongst them Indians,but THEY ain't your people.Your people is white,they are like me,they grows hair.But I'll shave and paint myself red,and hunt for feathers,if that's what you want.
Her sobbing grew less violent.Despite his ferocious aspect,no fear could remain in her heart at sight of that distressed countenance,at sound of those conciliatory tones.Willock,observing that the tempest was abating,continued in his most appealing manner:
I'm going to do whatever you say,honey,and you're going to be the queen of the cove.Ain't you never been lonesome amongst all them red devils?Ain't you missed your poor mammy as died crossing the plains?It was me that buried her.Ain't you never knowed how it felt to want to lay your head on somebody's shoulder and slip your little arms about his neck,and go to sleep like an angel whatever was happening around?I guess SO!Well,that's me,too.Here I've been for two long year,never seeing nothing but wild animals or prowling savages till the last few months when a settler comes to them mountains seven mile to the southwest.Looked like I'd die,sometimes,just having myself to entertain.
You lonesome,too?said the girl,looking up incredulously.She drew a step nearer,a wistful light in her dark eyes.
The man stretched out his arms and dropped them to his side,heavily.Like that,he cried--just emptiness!
I stay,she said simply.All time,want my own people;all time,Red Feather say some day take me to white people--want to go,all time.But Red Feather never tell me 'BIG HAIR.'Didn't know what it was I was looking for--never thought it would be something like you.
But you ain't afraid now,are you,little one?
She shook her head,and drawing nearer,seated herself on the ground before the dugout.You LOOK Big Hair,she explained sedately,but your speech is talk of weak squaw.
Somewhat disconcerted by these words,Willock sat down opposite her,and resumed his pipe as if to assert his sex.I seem weak to you,he explained,because I love you,child,and want to make friends with you.But let me meet a big man--well,you'd see,then!He looked so ferocious as he uttered these words,that she started up like a frightened quail,grasping her blanket about her.
No,no,honey,he cooed abjectly,I wouldn't hurt a fly.Me,I was always a byword amongst my pards.They'd say,'There goes Brick Willock,what never harmed nobody.'When they kept me in at school I never clumb out the window,and it was me got all the prize cards at Sunday-school.How comes it,honey,that you ain't forgot to talk like civilized beings?
Red Feather,him always put me with squaw that know English--that been to school on the reservation.Never let me learn talk like the Indians.Him always say some day take me to my own people.But never said 'BIG HAIR.'
Did he tell you your mother died two years ago?
Yes--father,him dead,too.Both died in the plains.Father was shot by robbers.Mother was left in big wagon--you bury her near this mountain.
Oh,ho!So your father was killed at the same time your mother was,eh?
Yes.
Well--all right.And now you got nobody but me to look after you--but you don't need no more;as long as I'm able to be up and about,nothing is going to hurt you.Just you tell me what you want,and it'll be did.
Want to be ALL like white people;want to be just like mother.Well,I'll teach you as fur up as I've been myself.Your style of talk ain't correct,but it was the best Red Feather could do by you.Him and you lay down your words like stepping-stones for your thoughts to step over;but just listen at me,how smooth and fine-textured my language is,with no breaks or crevices from the beginning of my periods to where my voice steps down to start on a lower ledge.That's the way white people talks,not that they got more to say than Injuns,but they fills in,and embodies everything,like filling up cabin-walls with mud.I'll take you by the hand right from where Red Feather left you,and carry you up the heights.
She examined him dubiously:You know how?
I ain't no bell-wether in the paths of learning,honey,but Red Feather is some miles behind me.What's your name?Lahoma.
Born that way,or Injunized?
