And the brown skin was there to be noticed, though
you might pass it by, and the high cheek-bones and the
liquidly muddy eye. He had taken on the signs of
civilization at the level which he occupied; the farming
community had lent him its look of shrewdness in small
bargains and its rakish sophistication in garments, nor
could you always assume with certainty, except at Fox
County fairs and elections, that he was intoxicated. So
much Government had done for him in Fox County, where
the "Reservation," nursing the dying fragment of his
race, testified that there is such a thing as political
compunction. Out in the wide spaces of the West he still
protects his savagery; they know an Indian there today
as far as they can see him, without a second glance.
And in Moneida, upon polling-days, he still, as Alec
said, "made trouble." Perhaps it would be more to the
fact to say that he presented the elements of which
trouble is made. Civilization had given him a vote, not
with his coat and trousers, but shortly after; and he
had not yet learned to keep it anywhere but in his pocket,
whence the transfer was easy, and could be made in
different ways. The law contemplated only one, the straight
drop into the ballot-box; but the "boys" had other views.
The law represented one level of political sentiment,
the boys represented another; both parties represented
the law, both parties were represented by the boys; and
on the occasion of the South Fox election the boys had
been active in Moneida.
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