Page:A Wild-Goose Chase - Balmer - 1915.djvu/47

Rh Eric described that month as the greatest of his life. He had been fascinated, during his stay in the native villages, by the customs he observed, the legends and lore and superstitions told him and by the ideas and strange philosophies of life which controlled the primitive people. He had spent much time making notes of such things; but he had not imagined that this interest could lead him into work of account until now he found famous and honoured men come to those mountains to see what he had been viewing in the life of the villages and to learn from the people what they had begun to confide to him. The ethnologist of the party spent a good deal of time explaining to him the meaning and value of the incidents and characteristics which Eric had noted. The scientists invited him to accompany them when their work in the vicinity was over. They finally brought Eric to Washington where he prepared, with help of men at the Smithsonian Institution, for the work he had been doing ever since.

This never had involved him in a wish for money for himself till now. So dismay