Bannock people

“ The Indians of Walker river and Pyramid lake claim the Bannock as their cousins,1049 and say that they speak the same language. As a rule they have been peaceable and friendly toward the whites, although in the early sixties they several times came into collision with miners and emigrants, hostility being frequently provoked by the whites themselves. The northern Paiute are more warlike than those of the south, and a considerable number of them took part with the Bannock in the war of 1878. ”

“ At the formation of the "Society of the Friends of the Blacks," at Paris, by Lafayette, Brissot, Barnave, Condorcet, and Gregoire, the name of Banneker was again and again referred to to prove the equality of the races. Indeed, the genius of the "Negro Philosopher" did much towards giving liberty to the people of St. Domingo. In the British House of Commons, Pitt, Wilberforce, and Buxton often alluded to Banneker by name, as a man fit to fill any position in society. ”

“ Then she laughed. “Is that the way you get your contributors?”
“Often, as the spider said to the fly,” grinned Banneker the shameless. “Take a thousand words or more and let us have your picture.”
“No. Not that. I’ve seen my friends’ pictures too often in your society columns. By the way, how comes it that a paper devoted to the interests of the common people maintains that aristocratic feature?”
“Oh, the common people eat it alive. Russell Edmonds is largely responsible for keeping it up. You should hear his theory. It’s ingenious. I’ll send for him.” ”

“ Banneker believed in the divinity of reason, and in the omnipotence of the human understanding with Liberty for its handmaid. The intellect impregnated by science and multiplied by time, it appeared to him, must triumph necessarily over all the resistance of matter. He had faith in liberty, truth, and virtue. His remains still rest in the slave state where he lived and died, with no stone to mark the spot or tell that it is the grave of Benjamin Banneker. ”

“ Banneker was annoyed at himself for flushing. “They disseminate news. We’ve got to have news, to carry on the world. Only a small fraction of it is—well, malodorous. Would you destroy the whole system because of one flaw? You’re not fair.”
“Fair? Of course I’m not. How should I be? No; I would not destroy the system. Merely deodorize it a bit. But I suppose the public likes the odors. It sniffs ’em up like—like Cyrano in the bake-shop. A marvelous institution, the public which you and I serve. Have you ever thought of magazine work, Mr. Banneker?” ”

“ Go, and be quick, lest my war-party overtake you on the trail.”
The Bannock left without a word, taking the trail across the prairie toward the land of his tribe.
“The gift was given, but there was that given with it that made it bitter. And now may I bury this dead body?”
“It is only a Bannock; who cares what is done with it?” replied Snoqualmie. “But remember, my debt is paid. Ask of me no more gifts,” and the chief turned abruptly away.
“Who will help me bury this man?” asked Cecil. No one replied; and he went alone and cut the thongs that bound the body to the stake. ”

“ But at this the wee bannock began dodging about, and it dodged so craftily that the goodwife overset the churn in trying to grip it, and before she set it straight again the wee bannock was off, trundling away down the hill till it came to a mill-house where the miller was sifting meal. So in it ran and sate down by the trough.
"Ho, ho!" says the miller. "It's a sign o' plenty when the likes of you run about the country-side with none to look after you. But come in by. I like bannock and cheese for supper, so I'll give ye a night's quarters." ”

“ Banneker laughed. “Oh, Io! It’s such a relief to get a clear view and an honest one from some one else. There’s no one in the office except Russell Edmonds, and he’s away now.... You think McClintick is right? So do I.”
“But so are you. You had to do as you did about the story. If any one is to blame, it is Mr. Marrineal. Yet how can one blame him? He had to protect his mother. It’s a fearfully complicated phenomenon, a newspaper, isn’t it, Ban?”
“Io, the soul of man is simple and clear compared with the soul of a newspaper.” ”

“ What?”
“We’re a pariah caste, Edmonds, we reporters. People look down on us.”
“Oh, that be damned! You can’t afford to be swayed by the ignorance or snobbery of outsiders. Play the game straight, and let the rest go.”
“But we are, aren’t we?” persisted Banneker.
“What! Pariahs?” The look which the old-timer bent upon the rising star of the business had in it a quality of brooding and affection. “Son, you’re too young to have come properly to that frame of mind. That comes later. With the dregs of disillusion after the sparkle has died out.” ”

“ Banneker must have admitted that to himself. Too much a man of the world in many strata not to be adjustable to any of them, nevertheless he felt more attuned to and at one with his environment amidst the suave formalism of Sherry’s than in the more uneasy and precarious elegancies of an East-Side Tammany Association promenade and ball.
Some of the youngsters of The Ledger said that he was climbing.
He was not climbing. To climb one must be conscious of an ascent to be surmounted. Banneker was serenely unaware of anything above him, in that sense. ”

“ After they were done shaking hands with all the train they all came and shook hands with me, mounted their ponies, and rode away as fast as their horses could run.
We pulled on for Fort Bridger, all going smoothly, for we were in the Bitter creek country and had no fear of Indians in that section. The day we arrived at Fort Bridger we sent four men on ahead to ascertain, if possible, where Bannock was. Here they met, by chance, some men from what was then called East Bannock and from them we learned just where Bannock was located, it being on a west tributary of the Missouri river. ”

“ For another, that you’ve got the broadest door to society open to you, if Junior follows up his hint about the yacht.”
“I haven’t the time,” returned Banneker with honest indifference. He sipped his coffee thoughtfully. “Cressey,” he said, “if I had a newspaper of my own in New York, do you know what I’d do with it?”
“Make money.”
“I hope so. But whether I did or not, I’d set out to puncture that bubble of the Masters power and supremacy. It isn’t right for any man to have that power just through money. It isn’t American.” ”

“ The services rendered to science, to liberty, and to the intellectual character of the negro by Banneker, are too great for us to allow his name to sleep and his genius and merits to remain hidden from the world. Benjamin Banneker was born in the State of Maryland, in the year 1732, of pure African parentage; their blood never having been corrupted by the introduction of a drop of Anglo-Saxon. ”

“ Mrs. Bannockburn laughed. "I must say!" she exclaimed. "You to complain of things being done quickly! I've done all you told me," she continued. "Everything. I sent a notice to the Post Office about the telephone directory, telling them to alter the name. I sent to Kelly's about the London Directory. I told all the tradespeople. I got the cards. I even went further and ordered a few silver labels for your walking-sticks and umbrellas. I thought you would like that."
Mr. Bannockburn puffed at his cigar and said nothing. ”

“ Sure there never was a bannock baked like the bannock o' Tollishill."
On the third day after this, an old man and a fair lad, before the sun had yet risen, were observed crossing the English Border. They alternately carried a wallet across their shoulders, which contained a few articles of apparel and a bannock. They were dressed as shepherds, and passengers turned and gazed on them as they passed along; for the beauty of the youth's countenance excited their admiration. ”

“ But it’s not a proper work for a gentleman. And, in any case, Ban, you are that, by the grace of your ancestral gods.
Little enough did Banneker care for his ancestral gods: but he did greatly care for the maintenance of those standards which seemed to have grown, indigenously within him, since he had never consciously formulated them. As for reporting, of whatever kind, he deemed Miss Van Arsdale prejudiced. Furthermore, he had met the society reporter of The Ledger, an elderly, mild, inoffensive man, neat and industrious, and discerned in him no stigma of the lickspittle. ”

“ It is necessary to break their spirit with cruelty before they are of any use, and then they are apt to relapse at [Pg 43] any time. When one escapes from captivity it is said that he will travel hundreds of miles with unerring instinct back to the plains whence he was taken.
The fact that a large portion of the land included in Bannock county was set apart for and inhabited by Indians retarded its settlement for many years. The Indians were hostile to the white men, few of whom settled in the vicinity, except employes of the stage lines running from Salt Lake to Butte, government agents, etc. ”

“ Gordon, Banneker attained the sanctum of the capitalist.
“Well, well!” was the important man’s greeting as he shook hands. “Our young friend from the desert! How do we find New York?”
From Banneker’s reply, there grew out a pleasantly purposeless conversation, which afforded the newcomer opportunity to decide that he did not like this Mr. Vanney, sleek, smiling, gentle, and courteous, as well as he had the brusque old tyrant of the wreck. That green-whiskered autocrat had been at least natural, direct, and unselfish in his grim emergency work. ”

“ It isn’t as sporty as all that.” He rose to shake hands with a short, angular young man, dressed to a perfection as accurate as Banneker’s own, and excelling him in one distinctive touch, a coat-flower of gold-and-white such as no other in New York could wear, since only in one conservatory was that special orchid successfully grown. By it Banneker recognized Poultney Masters, Jr., the son and heir of the tyrannous old financier who had for years bullied and browbeaten New York to his wayward old heart’s content. ”

“ The town of Bannack was built on Grasshopper Creek where gold was discovered in 1862. It was the first capital after the region became a territory and it was there in December, 1864, that the first legislature met and divided the new territory into counties.
Fear of the Indians was so intense in Bannack that the town was picketed, and volunteers were on the lookout at night. Brother Van was preaching to a large congregation in the courthouse and guards watched the building in which he spoke.
“He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. ”

“ Sighting Banneker at luncheon a few days later, Horace Vanney went so far as to cross the room to greet and congratulate him.
“A master-stroke,” he said, pressing Banneker’s hand with his soft palm. “We’re glad to have you with us. Won’t you call me up and lunch with me soon?”
At The Retreat, after polo, that Saturday, the senior Masters met Banneker face to face in a hallway, and held him up.
“Politics is politics. Eh?” he grunted.
“It’s a great game,” returned the journalist. ”

“ I’m writing at my public.”
“I believe you’re right. It’s more difficult, though, isn’t it, to write for a hundred thousand people than at one?”
“Not if you understand them from study at first hand, as I do. That’s why the other fellows are five or ten-thousand-dollar men,” said Banneker, quite without boastfulness “while I’m—”
“A fifty-thousand-dollar a year man,” supplied Edmonds.
“Well, getting toward that figure. I’m on the target with the editorials and I’m going to hold on it. But our news policy is different. We still wobble there.” ”

“ Bannockburn. "Besides, a fire is so much more cheerful."
"Cheerful!" said Mr. Bannockburn with a snarl. "I'm glad something is cheerful."
"My dear," said his wife soothingly, "you're over-worried. You've had a hard day at the office. But I've got something to show you that will make you happy again." She smiled gaily.
"Happy!" Mr. Bannockburn echoed with abysmal bitterness. "Happy!" He groaned.
"Yes, happy," said his wife. "Now drink your tea," she added, "and then light a cigar and tell me all about it."
"Cigars!" said. Mr. Bannockburn; "I've done with cigars. At any rate with Havanas. ”

“ Banneker caught his breath. Had she given him her lips, it could hardly have meant more—perhaps not meant so much as this tranquil assumption of her right to share in the major concerns of his life.
“If you’ve been reading the paper,” he began, and waited for her silent nod before going on, “you know our attitude toward organized labor.”
“Yes. You are for it when it is right and not always against it when it is wrong.”
“One can’t split hairs in a matter of editorial policy. I’ve made The Patriot practically the mouthpiece of labor in this city ”

“ Therein, for once in an existence guided almost exclusively by prejudice, Horace Vanney was right. At the outset of a new career to which he was attuning his mind, Banneker had been injected into a situation typical of all that is worst in American industrial life, a local manufacturing enterprise grown rich upon the labor of underpaid foreigners, through the practice of all the vicious, lawless, and insidious methods of an ingrown autocracy, and had believed it to be fairly representative. ”

“ Banneker made a quick gesture of denial.
“I don’t know what you owe to Camilla Van Arsdale, but you’ve paid the debt. There won’t be much more to pay, Banneker.”
Banneker looked up sharply.
“No.” The visitor shook his graying head. “We’ve performed as near a miracle as it is given to poor human power to perform. It can’t last much longer.” ”