Truthful James to the Editor

Which it is not my style     To produce needless pain     By statements that rile     Or that go gin the grain,     But heres Captain Jack still a-livin, and Nye has no skelp on his brain!     On that Caucasian head     There is no crown of hair;     It has gone, it has fled!     And Echo sez Where?     And I asks, Is this Nation a White Mans, and is generally things on the square?     She was known in the camp     As Nyes other squaw,     And folks of that stamp     Hez no rights in the law,     But is treacherous, sinful, and slimy, as Nye might hev well known before.     But she said that she knew     Where the Injins was hid,     And the statement was true,     For it seemed that she did,     Since she led William where he was covered by seventeen Modocs, and slid!     Then they reached for his hair;     But Nye sez, By the law     Of nations, forbear!     I surrenders no more:     And I looks to be treated, you hear me? as a prisner, a prisner of war!     But Captain Jack rose     And he sez, Its too thin!     Such statements as those     Its too late to begin.     Theres a Modoc Indictment agin you, O Paleface, and youre goin in!     You stole Schonchins squaw     In the year sixty-two;     It was in sixty-four     That Long Jack you went through,     And you burned Nasty Jims rancheria, and his wives and his papooses too.     This gun in my hand     Was sold me by you     Gainst the law of the land,     And I grieves it is true!     And he buried his face in his blanket and wept as he hid it from view.     But youre tried and condemned,     And skelpings your doom,     And he paused and he hemmed     But why this resume?     He was skelped gainst the custom of nations, and cut off like a rose in its bloom.     So I asks without guile,     And I trusts not in vain,     If this is the style     That is going to obtain     If heres Captain Jack still a-livin, and Nye with no skelp on his brain?