Stephens's action in ramming down a charge of powder, and then tamping it, had not unnaturally reminded them of an operation which was the only one connected with gunpowder that they had experience of. "Why, he's loading it just like a gun," cried a voice from the crowd; "but what's he going to shoot?"
"Shoot?" retorted Stephens, without looking up, as he adjusted the fuse with his fingers; "why, I'm going to shoot the sky, of course. Don't you see how this hole points right straight up to heaven? You sit on the mouth of it when I touch her off, and it'll boost you aloft away up over the old sun there"; and raising his face he pointed to the brightly glowing orb which was already high overhead.
At his words a sort of shiver ran around the ring of red men. Religion is the strongest and the deepest sentiment of the Indian mind, and the rash phrase sounded as if some violation of the sanctity of what they worshipped was intended. What! Shoot against the sacred sky! Shoot with sacrilegious gunpowder against the home of The Shiuana, of "Those Above"? The deed might be taken as a defiance of those Dread Powers, and bring down their wrath upon them all.
"Bad medicine! witchcraft!" exclaimed a voice with the unmistakable ring of angry terror in it. To the Indian, witchcraft is the one unpardonable sin, only to be atoned for by a death of lingering torture.
A murmur of swift-rising wrath followed the accusing voice. The American was warned in a moment that he had made a dangerous slip, and he at once tried to get out of it with as little fuss as might be.
"You dry up!" he retorted indignantly. "Witchcraft be blowed! You ought to know better than to talk like that, you folks. I'm telling you truth now. That was only a little joke of mine, about shooting the sky. There's no bad medicine in that. We Americans don't know anything about such fool tricks as witchcraft. Here's all there is to it. I'm simply going to blast this rock for you. It's just an ordinary thing that's done thousands of times every day in the mines all over the United States."
"Ah, but there are great wizards among the Americans, and their medicine is very bad," cried the same voice of angry terror that had spoken before. "Are you working their works? are you one of them?"