Somehow Agnes felt grateful toward Smith, whose charitable purpose doubtless was to prevent her being taken in. But she was sorry for the fine tradition and hated to give it up.
"But _didn't_ one ever jump off a cliff or--anything?" she asked.
Smith struck out with a free-arm swing and cracked his whip so loudly that three female heads were at once protruded from the windows below.
"What I want to know," said he argumentatively, "is, who seen 'em jump?"
"I don't know," she admitted; "but I suppose they found their bodies."
"Don't you believe it!" depreciated Smith. "Indian maidens ain't the jumpin' kind. I never seen one of 'em in my day that wouldn't throw down the best feller she ever had for a red umbreller and a dime's worth of stick candy."
"I'm sorry for the nice stories your knowledge of the Indian character spoils," she laughed.
"The thing of it in this country is, miss, not to let 'em take you in," Smith continued. "That's what they're out for--to take in suckers. No matter how wise you may be in some other place, right here in this spot you may be a sucker. Do you git my words?"
"I think so," she responded, "and thank you. I'll try to keep my eyes open."
"They's places in this country," Smith went on, for he liked to talk as well as the next one, once he got under way, "where you could put your pocketbook down at the fork of the road with your card on top of it and go back there next week and find it O. K. But they's other places where if you had your money inside of three safes they'd git at it somehow. This is one of that kind of places."
They had been dropping down a slope scattered with gray lava chunks and set with spiked soapweed, which let them to the river level. Ahead of them, twisted cottonwoods and red willows marked the brink of the stream.
"This is the first bench," said Smith, "and it's mainly good land. Before the books was opened for registration the gover'ment give the Indians choice of a homestead apiece, and they picked off all this land down here. Oh, well, on up the river they's a little left, and if I draw a low number I know where to put my hand on a piece."
"It looks nice and green here," said she, admiring the feathery vegetation, which grew as tall as the stage along the roadway.