Pecks Bad Boy with the Cowboys | Page 6

the men
worked for them that they might live in luxury, and how they had
servants to do their cooking, and maids to dress them, and carriages to
ride in, and lovers to slave for them, it is not to be wondered at that
those poor creatures, who never had a kind word from their masters,
and who were looked upon as lower than the dogs, should look upon Pa
as the grandest man that ever lived, and I noticed, myself, that they
gave him glances of love and admiration, and when they would snuggle
up closer to pa, he would put his hand on their heads and pat their hair,
and look into their big black eyes sort of tender, and pinch their brown
cheeks, and chuck them under the chin, and tell them that the great
father loved them, and that he hoped the time would come when every
good Indian would look upon his squaw, the mother of his children, as
the greatest boon that could be given to man, and that the now despised
squaw would be placed on a pedestal and honored by all, and
worshiped as she ought to be.
[Illustration: The Squaws Seemed to Be Worshiping Pa.]
That was all right enough, but Pa never ought to have gone so far as to
advise them to strike for their rights, and refuse to be longer looked
upon as beasts of burden, but demand recognition as equals, and refuse
longer to be drudges. I could see that trouble was brewing, for every
squaw insisted on kissing the great father, and then there came a
baneful light in their eyes, and they drew away together and began to
talk excitedly, and Pa said he guessed they were organizing a woman's
rights union. Pa and the Carlisle Indian and I went out for a stroll in the
forest, and were gone an hour or so, and Pa got tired and he and I went
back to camp before the Carlisle Indian did, and when we got in sight
of camp we could see by the commotion that the squaw strike was on,
'cause the squaws were talking loud and the Indians were getting their
guns and it looked like war. We crawled up close, and the squaws drew
butcher knives and made a rush on the Indians, and the Indians
weakened, and the squaws tied their hands and feet, and then the
squaws had a war dance, and they told the Indians that they were now
the bosses, and would hereafter run the affairs of the tribe, like white
women did, and that the Indians must do the cooking, and do the work,

while the squaws sat in the tents to be waited on, and that they would
never do another stroke of hard work that an Indian could do. I never
saw such a lot of scared Indians in my life, but when the squaws put the
butcher knives to their necks, and looked fierce, and grabbed the
Indians by the hair and looked as though they were going to scalp them,
the Indians agreed to do all the work, and just then Pa and I came up,
and the squaws hailed Pa as their deliverer, and they fell on his neck
and hugged him, and they placed a camp chair for him, and put a tiger
skin cloak around him, and a necklace of elk's teeth around his neck,
and all kneeled down and seemed to be worshiping him, while the
Indians looked on in the most hopeless manner, and then the Carlisle
Indian came and said the squaws had made Pa the chief squaw of the
tribe, and that the Indians had agreed to do the work hereafter. Pa
counted the elk teeth on his necklace and figured that he could sell
them for two dollars apiece, and pay the expenses of the trip. Then the
squaws cut the strings that bound the Indians, and set them to work
cooking dinner, and it was awful the way the spirit seemed to be
knocked out of the Indians, just by a little rising on the part of the
downtrodden squaws. The Indians cooked dinner, and waited on the
squaws, and Pa and all of us whites, and after dinner the squaws
ordered the horses and the squaws and us whites went off on a wolf
hunt, with the dogs, where Pa was to show his bravery to the squaws
instead of the Indians. The squaws gave Pa the old chief's horse, and
the best one in the tribe, and leaving the chief to wash the dishes, and
the Indians to clean up the camp, and clean some fish for supper, the
victorious squaws with Pa at the head, and the rest of us whites on