Other editions of book The Good Indian Illustrated

It was somewhere in the seventies when old Peaceful Hart woke to a realization that gold-hunting and lumbago do not take kindly to one another, and the fact that his pipe and dim-eyed meditation appealed to him more keenly than did his prospector's pick and shovel and pan seemed to imply that he was growing old. He was a silent man, by occupation and by nature, so he said nothing about it; but, like the wild things of prairie and wood, instinctively began preparing for the winter of his life. Where he had lately been washing tentatively the sand along Snake River, he built a ranch. His prospector's tools he used in digging ditches to irrigate his new-made meadows, and his mining days he lived over again only in halting recital to his sons when they clamored for details of the old days when the Indians were not mere untidy neighbors to be gossiped with and fed, but enemies to be fought, upon occasion.

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There is a saying--and if it is not purely Western, it is at least purely American--that the only good Indian is a dead Indian. In the very teeth of that, and in spite of tho fact that he was neither very good, nor an Indian--nor in any sense "dead"-- men called Grant Imsen "Good Indian" to his face; and if he resented the title, his resentment was never made manifest--perhaps because he had grown up with the name.

There is a saying--and if it is not purely Western, it is at least purely American--that the only good Indian is a dead Indian. In the very teeth of that, and in spite of tho fact that he was neither very good, nor an Indian--nor in any sense "dead"-- men called Grant Imsen "Good Indian" to his face; and if he resented the title, his resentment was never made manifest--perhaps because he had grown up with the name.

In the first chapter we learn about the Hart Ranch, run by 'Peaceful' Tom Hart, his wife Phoebe and their five sons. There is the explanation of the cringe-worthy title of the book and the introduction to our brooding main character. He has gone through or at least to the second year of college, because his father, when he died in the Hart's ranch house, asked Phoebe to make sure Grant was educated as far as the bag of money he left her would last. But Grant is home again now, with a vocabulary to puzzle people when he wants to use it, and he is ready for something to happen in his life. Which of course it does, in the person of Evadna, a distant relative of Phoebe's from back east. She has been orphaned and has no place else to go. Phoebe is hoping for some matchmaking, but the two young people seem to hate each other from the start. And then things get complicated, with a shady lawyer trying to arrange to take over the ranch, someone shooting at Grant, and lots of galloping back and forth to town, and coded messages sent by telegraph.One fun character is the young lady telegraph operator named Georgie. There is mystery here, some romance, lots of lover's quarrels (that Evadna is SO self-centered!), rowdy young western men trying to protect their ranch from ruffians, dramatic moments, funny moments, a few 'You Go, girl!' moments, and more than once when I could only sigh and say 'Oh, no, not that'.

There is a saying--and if it is not purely Western, it is at least purely American--that the only good Indian is a dead Indian. In the very teeth of that, and in spite of tho fact that he was neither very good, nor an Indian--nor in any sense "dead"-- men called Grant Imsen "Good Indian" to his face; and if he resented the title, his resentment was never made manifest--perhaps because he had grown up with the name.

There is a saying--and if it is not purely Western, it is at least purely American--that the only good Indian is a dead Indian. In the very teeth of that, and in spite of tho fact that he was neither very good, nor an Indian--nor in any sense "dead"-- men called Grant Imsen "Good Indian" to his face; and if he resented the title, his resentment was never made manifest--perhaps because he had grown up with the name.