Rensselaer Republican, Volume 20, Number 51, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 August 1888 — An Indian’s Trick. [ARTICLE]

An Indian’s Trick.

6t. Lout* Globe-Democrat. In 1882 and 1883, while traveling for a large St. Louis house in the Indian Territory, I learned more of Indian traits and Indian character than I could have found out from reading ICO Indian stories such as were written by J. Fenimore Cooper, Mark Twain and : Bill Nye. You never meet an Indian on the road in the Indian nations,, but ' our .-FJlI'iX? _j3.liic*ll y and suddenly emerges from tiie tall grass or brush of the wayside, stands on the highway ih front of you and says “How.” You tell him you are well and he says “Whisky.” When he is informed that you are out of that drug he puts to you the single word interrogative, “bacco?” You hand him your plug, expecting him to cut or bite off a small corner, and in a second the whole plug disappears between his molars in his capacious mouth. My Indian li ( qst, ,wlio spoke fair English, advised me to cut the' Vemaining plugs I had ih small pieces and give only one piece at a time. Six different times between Muskogeaand Okmulgee, in the Creek Country, at places a quarter of a mile apart, did the same Indian spring out of the grass on the road in front of me and greet me,with a friendly “How?” He had cut a circuit in the grass each time to come out ahead of me, and lie used slight dis guises of dress, thinking that I did nm recognize him as the man who took first chuck of tobacco. But I made him run about eight miles for about a plug and a half of tobacco.