We entered the house of “Too-toot-na Jack,” the champion oarsman. He welcomed his vanquished rival in the boat-race above referred to, and his friend, and offered one an arm-chair, and stools to the remainder. His wife came in, and Jack said, “This is my woman, Too-toot-na Jinney. She is no fool either. She has a cooking-stove in the kitchen.” Jinney was much older than her husband; but that was not unusual. She was a thrifty housewife, and was a financier,——had saved nearly one thousand silver half-dollars; and what she lacked in personal charms, on account of tattooed chin and gray hairs, she made up, like many a fairer woman, in the size of the buckskin purse wherein she kept her coin. Jack seemed fully to appreciate the good qualities of his “woman;” not because he had access to her fortune, but because _she_ was old and _he_ was young, and the chances were that _he_ would be at _her_ funeral.
That hope has made many a better fellow than Too-toot-na behave with becoming reverence for his wife. But “many a slip ’twixt cup and lip” applies to all kinds of people. Jack never realized on _his investment_. _He_ went _first_, and Jinney is now a rich widow, and has no doubt marriage offers in abundance.
We were present on “court day,” the agent holding it for the adjustment of all kinds of difficulties among his people. In such cases he appoints juries from among the bystanders, always taking care to select such as had no tribal affinities with the parties to the suit. He had a sheriff in every tribe, and on occasions where their own friends were interested he summoned others to act. He _himself_ was the _court and high sheriff_, and always _sat_ with a large hickory cane, called “Old Moderator.”
My readers may smile at this kind of a gavel; but it was a practical and useful thing to have in such courts,——much more potential than Blackstone or any other kind of commentaries, unless, indeed, it be the last revised edition of Samuel Colt.
The records of that court were sometimes made on untanned parchment; by which I mean, my poor, unsophisticated reader, that these Indian citizens would sometimes forget very willingly to observe the decorum due before that august tribunal, and fall to making a record for themselves and on one another with fists, clubs, whips, knives, pistols, and other lively weapons, until the good Judge Simpson completed that record by a vigorous application of the aforesaid hickory club, and some of the citizens had editions for personal adornment.
