Page:Life Amongst the Modocs.djvu/113

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this, nor did the Prince care, or he had not thrown away the weapon he wrung from his hand. The Prince pushed the child behind him, and advanced towards the short, fat Sydney convict, who had now turned, pistol in hand, in his direction.

u Keep your distance, you Sydney duck, keep your distance, or I will send you to hell across lots in a second."

There are some hard names given on the Pacific ; but when you call a man a " Sydney duck " it is well understood that you mean blood. If you call a man a liar to his face you must prepare to knock him down on the spot, or he will perform that office for you. If he does not, or does not attempt it, he is counted a coward and is in disgrace.

When you call a man a " Sydney duck," however, something more than blows are meant; that means blood. There is but one expression, a vile one, that cannot well be named, that means so much, or carries so much disgrace as this.

The man turned away cowed and baffled. He had looked in the Prince s face, and saw that he was born his master.

As for myself, I was not only helpless, but, as was always the case on similar occasions, stupid, awkward, speechless. I went up to the little girl, however, got a robe out of one of the lodges for they had not yet set fire to the village and put it around her naked little body. After that, as I moved about among the dead, or stepped aside to the ri