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magnificent force until it vanished.
     
     
    One night Yozip stayed awake until the moon drew in its horns. He intended to count a thousand stars in the diamond sky but did not stop until 1,033. Dawn came serenely as he promised to do something splendid for his tribe.
     
     

    Fifty buffalo had been imported from Montana and caged in a corral. When they saw the Indians approaching they battered the logs with their heavy horns and, when the fence gave way, stampeded toward a ravine. Indian Head and thirty tribesmen carrying white-feathered lances were trapped amid the frightened animals and tossed like boats on a stormy sea. The buffalo scattered thunderously among the red men. They milled around frantically and the Indians, in self-protection, began to shoot their whirring arrows at the shaggy beasts. Yozip did not know what to do with himself or where to go. He had been given a tomahawk to bring down a buffalo, but he was a confirmed vegetarian and could not bring himself to crack open a buffalo’s skull.
    Indian Head shouted at him: “The trophy we must present to the chief is a buffalo’s head.”
    “So let us look for another trophy.”
    Indian Head raised his tomahawk at Yozip. The sight of the uplifted weapon incensed a bull, who let out a roar of fright and charged Indian Head’s pony. The bull struck the pony a blow on the hip. Indian Head’s horse screamed, reared, and dumped its rider at its feet. He went head down as though off a chute.
    Yozip jumped from Bessie’s back to the ground. With all his strength he lifted Indian Head and, before the massive bull could move, settled the youthful brave on Bessie’s back and clucked loudly. Holding the brave tightly with one arm he mounted his horse and pushed forward. The other braves surrounded them for protection, but the buffalo had disappeared down the side of the ravine.
    Yozip reined in Bessie, lifted Indian Head down, and began to try to revive him as the braves on their ponies looked on.
    Indian Head’s eyes fluttered as he came slowly to life. His expression, as he stared at Yozip, was one of surprised affection.
    A brave slapped the ex-peddler on the back.
    “You Big Chief,” he muttered.
    “Denks,” said Yozip.
     
     

    After being accepted as winner of the contests he had entered, and theoretically as a brave who had proved his courage in the face of peril, Yozip, after receiving the old chief’s congratulations and a reluctant peck on the cheek by his sister One Blossom, became depressed, feeling he had no fate other than to win and take his place among the Indians of the tribe.

FIVE
    Washington, D.C.
    THE CHIEF SAID he would send Yozip to Washington, D. C. “We have not been in touch with our American friends recently.”
    “Keep me here,” Yozip cried. “What do I know from strange cities ?”
    “It is in some respects an evil city. My father cursed it when that actor Booth shot Mr. Abraham Lincoln.”
    “So if it is evil why will you send there a man who is not far from a greenhorn? What can I tell them which they don’t know? Will they believe me if I tell them the truth?”
    “I am sending you there to tell them the truth.”
    The chief nodded at Indian Head, who nodded to One Blossom. She dipped her head to Yozip, to his surprise.
    “We wish you to represent our tribe,” said the chief. “We wish you to speak in our name for our cause. You must tell the Americans that we will never leave our land.”
    “How can I tulk with my short tongue? Where will I find the words? When I open my mouth to tulk they will laugh at me.”
    “No one will laugh at you. No one will laugh at the sound of your voice which speaks for all of us—the People. We wish you to speak to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs. He has asked me to sign a new paper that I will not sign. I don’t trust these papers which they send us. Others have signed and have been betrayed, but I will not sign though they threaten to move our tribe out of this