The old man paused and relighted the cigar Bill had given him. “We’d of done so, too, if it hadn’t be’n fer Jake gettin’ him a big idee. You see, these Siwashes, they had a treasure—a sort of charm or magic, they thought it was—an’ they thought it kep’ folks young; as long as they had it they wouldn’t never grow old. Their chief was a young man about my age. His name was Nootlakwatl. The name bein’ hard to say, before we learnt their lingo we called him Ignatz, an’ we kep’ on callin’ him that. He got rummed up an’ told us about this treasure an’ how it was kep’ in a little wooden box wrapped in strips of moosehide. We figgered it must be awful valuable if they thought so much of it. Hell, they’d trade five thousan’ dollars’ worth of gold for a pound of powder, but they wouldn’t trade their
