" He paused in his dribbling to retrieve the old man's cane as it had fallen in the grass, and placed it back into its leaning position against the be...ch. "This fell..."The old man laughed and nodded his thanks, "I'd have been looking for that before long... thank you." The two of them studied each other, the old man stroked his long white beard. "Do you go to school around here?" Yeah, I'm in the 7th grade." He again tried to bounce the ball through his legs, but instead bounced it into his. The man looked to be badly wounded, judging from the amount of blood on the ground. He had only gone about 20-25 feet before he dropped his Mississippi Rifle. Well, that was a help, but he surely still had his revolver. That meant five more bullets that we had to be careful of.Again, the topography forced him out into the road, so that probably kept him from hiding among the rocks and taking a pot shot at us. We had just started around a bend in this switchback when Abi caught sight of him as. If anyone asks about you, we will find it difficult to describe you, or even remember the name you gave us!”John smiled at this underhand conspiracy. “Goodbye, my friend. I hope your tribe survives any meeting with the army. You might decide to send your women on a long distance foraging expedition north of here the minute you hear of a possible visit by the army. A child could be sent to tell them if it is safe to return.”“Wise words indeed. Thank you.”Another tribe further on, and John heard. It was even worse when the other children would claim that I had beat them, as of coarse, the adults by this time "knew" who to believe. Unfortunately, (or maybe fortunately), these tricks never worked on Joben. He would cuff me up side the head if I tried to "work him", as he called it. His basic philosophy was that "life is tough, so be tougher".When I was perhaps ten or eleven summers, a major change came into our lives. Joben was hired by the mayor of a fledgling town to train the town.