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104 "I can't say you're givin' me a heap of information," he said, "I've packed yore outfit three mornin's now and, outside of a camera, I ain't seen much in the writin' an' sketchin' line an' I have noticed a pick or two, not to mention a shovel or so with a couple of flasks of mercury and a few other things, sech as that box marked explosives, that made me fancy you might be goin' to do a leetle prospectin'. More 'n that, I fancy it ain't the first time you've handled a pick or sledge, Mr. Stone. Yore hands are nice-shaped enough but they've got calluses on 'em that never came from pushin' a pen. But it was squar' to tip me. I ain't denyin' it's goin' to make things more difficult—if they happens to be any gold up this cañon which, personally, I doubts. They ain't any in Stone Cañon, I know that. But the Indians might leave you alone if they thought you was jest takin' picters an' sech, providin' we made our talk good. But gold's different, whether they know it's there or not. In the first place, it's only their shamans who are allowed to tech it. They do git some of it, despite Gov'mint regulations, an' trade it for rifles an' booze an* ca'tridges. They know the value of it all right and they consider all the gold nigh their reservations their proputty. Sacred metal, sort of. Gift from the gods, the shamans say. Also they figger that, if any amount was found nigh their reservations, they'd be turned off to some other place while the white men established a diggings, an' they're sort of sick about bein' moved on.

"They's one thing thet ain't gen'ally known, but