He might as well have expended his eloquence upon the dead adobe walls. The chiefs stared at him vacantly. When Stephens ceased there was a pause, and then Tostado took up the subject.
"It is quite true what you say, Sooshiuamo. You are our friend. The American Government is our friend; it has protected us from the Mexicans when they tried to ride roughshod over us, and we are grateful to the American Government. But the stories about a silver mine are foolishness. These Mexicans must have been yarning to you; they are idle talkers. We have no mine. We never had a mine. We don't know anything about mines, and never did." And again all the chiefs chorused:
"We know nothing of a mine; nothing whatever."
For a whole hour Stephens argued with them. Vain effort. No solid rock was ever more impenetrable than an Indian who has made up his mind, and the baffled and wearied prospector gave it up in despair.
His thoughts drifted away to earlier days when he first found himself in the midst of that wonderful rush to the El Dorado of this century, the Far Western goldfields. He thought of his hopes, his failures, and his struggles; how he had always intended "when he had made his pile," to go back East and marry a nice girl of his own race, and settle down comfortably. When he had made his pile!--the will-o'-the-wisp that has led many a man such a weary dance through the sloughs of life. He had to admit to himself that he had lowered his figure. He had set it at first at a million, a brownstone front, and a seat in the United States Senate. It had come down step by step in the last ten years, till it stood now at ten thousand dollars,--enough to buy a nice little place back East, and stock it, and have something left on hand; but, alas! he was not half-way yet even to that goal--and now there was offered him a mud home, an Indian squaw, and a corn patch. "Not yet, I reckon," said he to himself, with a grimmer smile than ever. "I've not come to that quite yet. Not but what these Indians are the honestest and most virtuous folks to live among that ever I knew. But I can't quite go turning squawman yet."
"Much obliged to you, Tostado," said he in response to a renewed offer, "but I don't want to settle down just now. No, thank you. I have business to see after far away, beyond the country of the Navajos. Not that I don't like you here. I consider you as my friends. You know that. Perhaps some other day I may think about settling down, but now I have other business. But I am much obliged to you, all the same."