Short Fiction by O. Henry (librera reader txt) 📕

you from the prairies like⁠—like everything. Now, you lemme go, or I’ll tell mamma.’

“John Tom plants the kid on a campstool, and sits down by him. ‘Now, tell the big chief,’ he says, ‘why you try to shoot pellets into your Uncle John’s system. Didn’t you know it was loaded?’

“ ‘Are you a Indian?’ asks the kid, looking up cute as you please at John Tom’s buckskin and eagle feathers.

“ ‘I am,’ says John Tom. ‘Well, then, that’s why,’ answers the boy, swinging his feet. I nearly let the steak burn watching the nerve of that youngster.

“ ‘O-ho!’ says John Tom, ‘I see. You’re the Boy Avenger. And you’ve sworn to rid the continent of the savage redman. Is that about the way of it, son?’

“The kid halfway nodded his head. And then he looked glum. ’Twas indecent to wring his secret from his bosom before a single brave had fallen before his parlor-rifle.

“ ‘Now, tell us where your wigwam is, pappoose,’ says John Tom⁠—‘where you live? Your mamma will be worrying about you being out so late. Tell me, and I’ll take you home.’

“The kid grins. ‘I guess not,’ he says. ‘I live thousands and thousands of miles over there.’ He gyrated his hand toward the horizon. ‘I come on the train,’ he says, ‘by myself. I got off here because the conductor said my ticket had ex-pirated.’ He looks at John Tom with sudden suspicion ‘I bet you ain’t a Indian,’ he says. ‘You don’t talk like a Indian. You look like one, but all a Indian can say is “heap good” and “paleface die.” Say, I bet you are one of them make-believe Indians that sell medicine on the streets. I saw one once in Quincy.’

“ ‘You never mind,’ says John Tom, ‘whether I’m a cigar-sign or a Tammany cartoon. The question before the council is what’s to be done with you. You’ve run away from home. You’ve been reading Howells. You’ve disgraced the profession of boy avengers by trying to shoot a tame Indian, and never saying: “Die, dog of a redskin! You have crossed the path of the Boy Avenger nineteen times too often.” What do you mean by it?’

“The kid thought for a minute. ‘I guess I made a mistake,’ he says. ‘I ought to have gone farther west. They find ’em wild out there in the canyons.’ He holds out his hand to John Tom, the little rascal. ‘Please excuse me, sir,’ says he, ‘for shooting at you. I hope it didn’t hurt you. But you ought to be more careful. When a scout sees a Indian in his wardress, his rifle must speak.’ Little Bear give a big laugh with a whoop at the end of it, and swings the kid ten feet high and sets him on his shoulder, and the runaway fingers the fringe and the eagle feathers and is full of the joy the white man knows when he dangles his heels against an inferior race. It is plain that Little Bear and that kid are chums from that on. The little renegade has already smoked the pipe of peace with the savage; and you can see in his eye that he is figuring on a tomahawk and a pair of moccasins, children’s size.

“We have supper in the tent. The youngster looks upon me and the Professor as ordinary braves, only intended as a background to the camp scene. When he is seated on a box of Sum-wah-tah, with the edge of the table sawing his neck, and his mouth full of beefsteak, Little Bear calls for his name. ‘Roy,’ says the kid, with a sirloiny sound to it. But when the rest of it and his post-office address is referred to, he shakes his head. ‘I guess not,’ he says. ‘You’ll send me back. I want to stay with you. I like this camping out. At home, we fellows had a camp in our back yard. They called me Roy, the Red Wolf! I guess that’ll do for a name. Gimme another piece of beefsteak, please.’

“We had to keep that kid. We knew there was a hullabaloo about him somewheres, and that Mamma, and Uncle Harry, and Aunt Jane, and the Chief of Police were hot after finding his trail, but not another word would he tell us. In two days he was the mascot of the Big Medicine outfit, and all of us had a sneaking hope that his owners wouldn’t turn up. When the red wagon was doing business he was in it, and passed up the bottles to Mr. Peters as proud and satisfied as a prince that’s abjured a two-hundred-dollar crown for a million-dollar parvenuess. Once John Tom asked him something about his papa. ‘I ain’t got any papa,’ he says. ‘He runned away and left us. He made my mamma cry. Aunt Lucy says he’s a shape.’ ‘A what?’ somebody asks him. ‘A shape,’ says the kid; ‘some kind of a shape⁠—lemme see⁠—oh, yes, a feendenuman shape. I don’t know what it means.’ John Tom was for putting our brand on him, and dressing him up like a little chief, with wampum and beads, but I vetoes it. ‘Somebody’s lost that kid, is my view of it, and they may want him. You let me try him with a few stratagems, and see if I can’t get a look at his visiting-card.’

“So that night I goes up to Mr. Roy Blank by the campfire, and looks at him contemptuous and scornful. ‘Snickenwitzel!’ says I, like the word made me sick; ‘Snickenwitzel! Bah! Before I’d be named Snickenwitzel!’

“ ‘What’s the matter with you, Jeff?’ says the kid, opening his eyes wide.

“ ‘Snickenwitzel!’ I repeats, and I spat, the word out. ‘I saw a man today from your town, and he told me your name. I’m not surprised you was ashamed to tell it. Snickenwitzel! Whew!’

“ ‘Ah, here, now,’ says the boy, indignant and wriggling all over, ‘what’s the matter with you? That ain’t my name. It’s Conyers. What’s the matter with you?’

“ ‘And that’s not