Page:Hugh Pendexter--Tiberius Smith.djvu/89

 "'Big medicine,' replied Tib, setting the baby on his tired shoulder and jumping over the ropes.

"The spectators instinctively started to stop us, but Chuck, quite a square sport, once the battle had been fought, hung dizzily to the ropes and with bowing head waved them back. 'Let them all go. Methodist! Big medicine!' he muttered.

"'Owee! owee!' coughed the tribe.

And with the tot in his arms my patron led the way down the Little Seal until we found the men and the boat. I looked back once and saw that Chief Chuck McBurr was still clinging to the ropes of the ring, while his children seemed intent on packing up and moving away. Maybe they were deserting a leader whose medicine was so weak, but it was almost pathetic to see the big man lingering on the scene of his downfall.

"And although we never went back for the gold, and although that was the only time Tib ever shied his castor into a ring, he always regrets he had to use the hammer-head, until I reminded him of the boy baby kicking up his heels in his father's home in Tuvak.