Page:Allan Dunn--Dead Man's Gold.djvu/105

Rh fussin' over dead things. Then Indians warn't any account. 'Cept in magic."

"In magic?'" asked Stone. He was not sleepy. Harvey's remark about writing the book smacked of more than just curiosity. Stone saw that while he might pass for an author and, without demonstration, Healy for a photographer, Lefty Larkin's general air of partnership and intimacy, which could not be offset, did not fit in. Under all the circumstances he thought it well not to switch the subject. "You mean their medicine men, I suppose?" he said.

"Yep. I've seen 'em do curious things with my own eyes. They ain't over and above eager to exhibit afore a white man but they didn't know I was on deck on some of them occasions. But their own men was close up to 'em an' they don't use any paraphernalia. I tell ye, Hermann the Great was a dub to 'em. I've seen 'em read the future blowin' cigarette smoke over a bowl of water, an' find out witches the same way. I've seen 'em suck out a big chunk of buckhorn cactus through an eagle quill from a man's mouth. Seen the quill swell an' the shaman cough up the cactus after he'd sucked it out through the stem. I've seen 'em plant a kernel of corn an' sing it to full growth in plain view. Takes all day, that trick. They plant it at sunrise and at noon it's tosseled out. At sunset the ears are on it in the silk. The corn grows with the song. If the shaman quits chanting the corn stops growin'. I've seen 'em dance bare-footed on live coals an' stroke each other with cedar-bark torches in the fire-dance.