Page:Life Amongst the Modocs.djvu/137

 steel.

We went down again among the boulders in the bed of the creek. The Prince swung his pick, I shovelled the thrown-out earth, and the little Indians would come and look on and wonder, and lend a hand in an awkward sort of a way for a few minutes at a time, then go back to the cabin or high up on the hills in the sun, following whatever pursuit they chose.

The Prince did not take it upon himself to direct or dictate what they should do, but watched their natural inclinations and actions with the keenest interest.

He loved freedom too well himself to attempt to fetter these little unfortunates with rules and forms that he himself did not hold in too great respect ; and as for taxing them to labour, they were yet weak, and but poorly recovered from the effects of the famine on the Klamat.

Besides, he had no disposition to reduce them to the Christian slavery that was then being introduced, and still obtains, up about Mount Shasta, wherever any of the Indian children survive.

The girl developed an amiable and gentle nature, but the boy showed anything but that from the first. He always went out of the cabin whenever strangers entered, would often spend days alone, out of sight of everyone, and stubbornly refused to speak a word of English. At the end of weeks he was untamed as ever, and evidently untamable. The Prince had procured him a cheap suit