Page:Life Among the Piutes.djvu/136

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Life Among the Piutes.

house, got his pistol, and came back and said, “Sarah, shall I shoot him? I never had any one talk to me in that way. If a white man talked to me like that, I would kill him right off.” I said, “You know best what to do.” My brother then spoke and said, “We have come a long way to hear good things from the Good Spirit man. Why talk of killing? Is that the kind of good man Mr. Parrish told us of? Of course, that is the kind of men that are called good,—men who talk to the Spirit Father three times a day, but who will kill us off as they would kill wild beasts.”

Brother stopped at that, and I said, “Brother wants to buy some things out of your store.” He took us there to get the things. As I walked along with him, he said, “Sarah, I will give the things to your brother, and you take the money, for they might think hard of me for it. It is not my fault, but the Big Father in Washington tells me to sell everything to your people.” After we went in I told them what he wanted me to do. They all laughed, and I told them when they got all the things, to go right to him and pay him. Brother bought one dollar’s worth of sugar, same of coffee, one sack of flour at two dollars. After they got all they wanted, Lee went to pay him. He took out his money and counted it out to him. When he handed it to him he pointed to me. Brother offered me the money. I said, “I am not the Big Father in Washington. I don’t own anything in the store, and why should I take the money?” At this I went out. I heard him say to brother, “Lee, you take the things; it’s all right.”

The same night he took Johnny and put handcuffs on him, saying, “I will send you to Camp Harney and have the soldiers hang you, for you are a very bad boy.” The boy did not cry or say anything, but his mother ran in crying, and threw her arms round him. She cried so hard I said, “Mr. Reinhard, I don’t know what you are thinking