What surprised and angered him most was that none of the elders—not even his “mother”—made any move to stop the fight. Instead they just gathered around and cheered. None of them, it seemed, was on Francis’s side, and this didn’t help him keep his temper. Neither did the fact that he knew he couldn’t win against the three boys. After the first five minutes, he decided that if he was going to lose anyway, he might as well do as much damage as possible on the way down. He picked the largest of the Indian boys and went after him. The other two might as well not have been there. One jumped on his back and another grabbed at his legs, but it was all too late to save the boy Francis had concentrated on—he was underneath Francis when the other two forced him down. And for every blow the two boys should have landed, Francis gave the Indian boy under him one on the nose. Even if they killed him for it, he was going to make that boy sorry he’d ever picked a fight.

“Hoka-ha!”

Francis didn’t hear the yell, but the two boys on top of him jumped away. Francis just kept hammering away at the boy beneath him, who had now curled into a ball and covered his head with his arms.

“Hoka-ha,” came the gruff voice a second time. “It is enough! You fight with fists—the way a girl fights.”

Francis felt himself lifted roughly by the back of his belt and dropped in the dirt. Immediately he swung around and attacked the man who had lifted him. He was struck such a blow that it knocked him head over heels.

“It is enough! I will not say it again.”

Francis wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. He had expected to see a tall, or at least a strong-looking man. Instead he found himself looking at a short, wiry Indian with his hair in one braid. At the bottom of the braid there was one feather, hanging straight down. The man wore plain buckskins, unbeaded moccasins, and carried a rifle in his left hand. It was Francis’s rifle.

“Enough my foot,” he said, glaring up at the Indian. “They started it, not me. You want to start knocking somebody around, why not give them a lick or two? And if you’re so tough, why do you have to steal rifles from boys?”

In a sudden hush of the people gathered around the fighting area, Francis watched in horror as the Indian raised the muzzle of the rifle until it pointed dead between his eyes.