TEN INDIANS
After one Fourth of July, Nick, driving home late from town in the big wagon with Joe Garner and his family, passed nine drunken Indians along the road. He remembered there were nine because Joe Garner, driving along in the dusk, pulled up the horses, jumped down into the road and dragged an Indian out of the wheel rut. The Indian had been asleep, face down in the sand. Joe dragged him into the bushes and got back up on the wagon-box.
“That makes nine of them,” Joe said, “just between here and the edge of town.”
“Them Indians,” said Mrs. Garner.
Nick was on the back seat with the two Garner boys. He was looking out from the back seat to see the Indian where Joe had dragged him alongside of the road.
“Was it Billy Tabeshaw?” Carl asked.
“No,”
“His pants looked mighty like Billy.”
“All Indians wear the same kind of pants.”
“I didn’t see him at all,” Frank said. “Pa was down into the road and back up again before
168
