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Page 38
''He draws aside a silk fibre curtain in a corner of the room and
shows me a pile of buckskin sacks.
"'Forty of 'em,' says Shane. 'One arroba in each one. In round
numbers, $220,000 worth of gold-dust you see there. It's all mine.
It belongs to the Grand Yacuma. They bring it all to me. Two hundred
and twenty thousand dollars--think of that, you glass-bead peddler,'
says Shane--' and all mine.'
"'Little good it does you,' says I, contemptuously and hatefully.
'And so you are the government depository of this gang of money-less
money-makers? Don't you pay enough interest on it to enable one of
your depositors to buy an Augusta (Maine) Pullman carbon diamond worth
$200 for $4.85 ?'
"'Listen,' says Patrick Shane, with the sweat coming out on his brow.
' I'm confidant with you, as you have, somehow, enlisted my regards.
Did you ever,' he says, 'feel the avoirdupois power of gold--not the
troy weight of it, but the sixteen-ounces-to-the-pound force of it?'
"'Never,' says I. 'I never take in any bad money.'
"Shane drops down on the floor and throws his arms over the sacks of
gold-dust.
"'I love it,, says he. 'I want to feel the touch of it day and night.
It's my pleasure in life. I come in this room, and I'm a king and a
rich man. I'll be a millionaire in another year. The pile's getting
bigger every month. I've got the whole tribe washing out the sands in
the creeks. I'm the happiest man in the world, W. D. I just want to
be near this gold, and know it's mine and it's increasing every day.
Now, you know,' says he, 'why my Indians wouldn't buy your goods.
They can't. They bring all the dust to me. I'm their king. I've
taught 'em not to desire or admire. You might as well shut up shop.'
"'I'll tell you what you are,' says I. 'You're a plain, contemptible
miser. You preach supply and you forget demand. Now, supply,' I goes
on, 'is never anything but supply. On the contrary,' says I, 'demand
is a much broader syllogism and assertion. Demand includes the rights
of our women and children, and charity and friendship, and even a
little begging on the street corners. They've both got to harmonize
equally. And I've got a few things up my commercial sleeve yet,' says
I, 'that may jostle your preconceived ideas of politics and economy.
"The next morning I had McClintock bring tip another mule-load of
goods to the plaza and open it up. The people gathered around the
same as before.
"I got out the finest line of necklaces, bracelets, hair-combs, and
earrings that I carried, and had the women put 'em on. And then I
played trumps.
"Out of my last pack I opened up a half gross of hand-mirrors, with
solid tinfoil backs, and passed 'em around among the ladies. That was
the first introduction of looking-glasses among the Peche Indians.
"Shane walks by with his big laugh.
"'Business looking up any?' he asks.
"'It's looking at itself right now,' says I.
"By-and-by a kind of a murmur goes through the crowd. The women had
looked into the magic crystal and seen that they were beautiful, and
was confiding the secret to the men. The men seemed to be urging the
lack of money and the hard times just before the election, but their
excuses didn't go.
"Then was my time.
"I called McClintock away from an animated conversation with his mules
and told him to do some interpreting.
"'Tell 'em,' says I, 'that gold-dust will buy for them these befitting
ornaments for kings and queens of the earth. Tell 'em the yellow sand
they wash out of the waters for the High Sanctified Yacomay and Chop
Suey of the tribe will buy the precious jewels and charms that will
make them beautiful and preserve and pickle them from evil spirits.
Tell 'em the Pittsburg banks are paying four per cent. interest on
deposits by mail, while this get-rich-frequently custodian of the
public funds ain't even paying attention. Keep telling 'em, Mac,'
says I, 'to let the gold-dust family do their work. Talk to 'em like
a born anti-Bryanite,' says I. 'Remind 'em that Tom Watson's gone
back to Georgia,' says I.
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