“While Hardrobe an’ his boy Bloojacket is with me, I’m impressed partic’lar by the love they b’ars each other.  I never does cut the trail of a father an’ son who gives themse’fs up to one another like this Hardrobe an’ his Bloojacket boy.  I can see that Bloojacket regyards old Hardrobe like he’s the No’th Star; an’ as for Hardrobe himse’f, he can’t keep his eyes off that child of his.  You’d have had his life long before he’d let you touch a braid of Bloojacket’s long ha’r.  Both of ’em’s plenty handsome for Injuns; tall an’ lean an’ quick as coyotes, with hands an’ feet as little as a woman’s.

“While I don’t go pryin’ ’round this Hardrobe’s private affairs—­savages is mighty sensitive of sech matters—­I learns, incidental, that Hardrobe is fair rich.  He’s rich even for Osages; an’ they’re as opulent savages as ever makes a dance or dons a feather.  Later, I finds out that Hardrobe’s squaw—­Bloojacket’s mother—­is dead.

“‘See thar?’ says Hardrobe one day.  We’re in the southern border of the Osage country on the Grayhoss at the time, an’ he p’ints to a heap of stones piled up like a oven an’ chimley, an’ about four foot high.  I saveys thar’s a defunct Osage inside.  You-all will behold these little piles of burial stones on every knoll an’ hill in the Osage country.  ‘See thar,’ says this Hardrobe, p’intin’.  ’That’s my squaw.  Mighty good squaw once; but heap dead now.’

“Then Hardrobe an’ Bloojacket rides over an’ fixes a little flag they’ve got in their war-bags to a pole which sticks up’ards outen this tomb, flyin’ the ensign as Injuns allers does, upside down.

“It’s six months later, mebby—­an’ it’s now the hard luck begins—­when I hears how Hardrobe weds a dance-hall girl over to Caldwell.  This maiden’s white; an’ as beautiful as a flower an’ as wicked as a trant’ler.  Hardrobe brings her to his ranch in the Osage country.

“The next tale I gets is that Bloojacket, likewise, becomes a victim to the p’isenous fascinations of this Caldwell dance-hall damsel, an’ that him an’ Hardrobe falls out; Hardrobe goin’ on the warpath an’ shootin’ Bloojacket up a lot with a Winchester.  He don’t land the boy at that; Bloojacket gets away with a shattered arm.  Also, the word goes that Hardrobe is still gunnin’ for Bloojacket, the latter havin’ gone onder cover some’ers by virchoo of the injured pinion.

“As Colonel Sterett says, these pore aborigines experiences bad luck the moment ever they takes to braidin’ in their personal destinies with a paleface.  I don’t blame ’em none neither.  I sees this Caldwell seraph on one o’casion myse’f; she’s shore a beauty! an’ whenever she throws the lariat of her loveliness that a-way at a gent, she’s due to fasten.

“It’s a month followin’ this division of the house of Hardrobe when I runs up on him in person.  I encounters him in one of the little jim-crow restauraws you-all finds now an’ then in the Injun country.  Hardrobe an’ me shakes, an’ then he camps down ag’in at a table where he’s feedin’ on fried antelope an’ bakin’ powder biscuit.