And the statement was true

For it seemed that she did,

Since she led William where he was covered by seventeen Modocs, and-slid!

Then they reached for his hair;

But Nye sez, "By the law

Of nations, forbear!

I surrenders-no more

And I looks to be treated,-you hear me?-as a pris'ner, a pris'ner of war!"

But Captain Jack rose

And he sez, "It's too thin!

Such statements as those

It's too late to begin.

There's a Modoc indictment agin you, O Paleface, and you're

goin' in!

"You stole Schonchin's squaw

In the year sixty-two;

It was in sixty-four

That Long Jack you went through,

And you burned Nasty Jim's rancheria, and his wives and

And he buried his face in his blanket and wept as he hid it

from view.

150

Truthful James to the Editor.

"But you're tried and condemned,

And skelping's your doom,"

And he paused and he hemmed

But why this resume?

He was skelped 'gainst the custom of nations, and cut off like a rose in its bloom.

So I asks without guile,

And I trusts not in vain,

If this is the style

That is going to obtain

If here's Captain Jack still a-livin', and Nye with no skelp

on his brain?

Look how the upland plunges into cover,
Green where the pines fade sullenly away.

Wonderful those olive depths! and wonderful, more

over

Second Tourist.

The red dust that rises in a suffocating way.

First Tourist.

Small is the soul that cannot soar above it,

Cannot but cling to its ever-kindred clay :

Better be yon bird, that seems to breathe and love it

Second Tourist.

Doubtless a hawk or some other bird of prey. Were we, like him, as sure of a dinner

That on our stomachs would comfortably stay;

Or were the fried ham a shade or two just thinner,

That must confront us at closing of the day: Then might you sing like Theocritus or Virgil,

Then might we each make a metrical essay; But verse just now-I must protest and urge-ill Fits a digestion by travel led astray

Chorus of Passengers.

Speed, Yuba Bill! oh, speed us to our dinner!
Speed to the sunset that beckons far away.

Second Tourist.

William of Yuba, O Son of Nimshi, hearken!
Check thy profanity, but not thy chariot's play.
Tell us, O William, before the shadows darken,
Where, and, oh! how we shall dine? O William,

say!

Yuba Bill.

It ain't my fault, nor the Kumpeney's, I reckon,
Ye can't get ez square meal ez any on the Bay,
Up at yon place, whar the senset 'pears to beckon-
Ez thet sharp allows in his airy sort o' way.

Thar woz a place wor yer hash ye might hev wrestled,
Kept by a woman ez chipper ez a jay—

Warm in her breast all the morning sunshine nestled; Red on her cheeks all the evening's sunshine lay.

Second Tourist.

Praise is but breath, O chariot compeller!

Yet of that hash we would bid

you

farther say.

Yuba Bill.

Thar woz a snipe-like you, a fancy tourist-
Kem to that ranch ez if to make a stay,
Ran off the gal, and ruined jist the purist
Critter that lived-

Inside there's a lady! Remember! No affray !

Yuba Bill.

Ef that man lives, the fault ain't mine or his'n.

Stranger.

Wait for the sunset that beckons far away,

Then as you will! But, meantime, friends, believe me, Nowhere on earth lives a purer woman; nay,

If my perceptions do surely not deceive me,

She is the lady we have inside to-day.

As for the man-you see that blackened pine tree,

Up which the green vine creeps heavenward away!

He was that scarred trunk, and she the vine that sweetly Clothed him with life again, and lifted