ing and eyes sparkling
with rage, offered to storm the rampart alone, shouting, "Oh, the nasty,
lousy nagurs! Let 'em get out of our way."

"Guess we'd better talk to the cusses," observed Glover. "Tain't the
handiest place I ever see for fightin'; an' I don't keer 'bout havin' my
ears 'n' nose bored any more at present."

"Stay where you are," said Thurstane. "I'll go forward and parley with
them."

CHAPTER XXX.

Thurstane had no great difficulty in making a sort of
let-me-alone-and-I'll-let-you-alone treaty with the embattled Hualpais.

After some minutes of dumb show they came down from their stronghold and
dispersed to their dwellings. They seemed to be utterly without curiosity;
the warriors put aside their bows and lay down to sleep; the old squaw
hurried off to pick up her bundle of fuel; even the papooses were silent
and stupid. It was a race lower than the Hottentots or the Australians.
Short, meagre, badly built, excessively ugly, they were nearly naked, and
their slight clothing was rags of skins. Thurstane tried to buy food of
them, but either they had none to spare or his buttons seemed to them of
no value. Nor could he induce any one to accompany him as a guide.

"Do ye think Godamighty made thim paple?" inquired Sweeny.

"Reckon so," replied Glover.

"I don't belave it," said Sweeny. "He'd be in more rispactable bizniss.
It's me opinyin the divil made um for a joke on the rest av us. An' it's
me opinyin he made this whole counthry for the same rayson."

"The priest'll tell ye God made all men, Sweeny."

"They ain't min at all. Thim crachurs ain't min. They're nagurs, an' a
mighty poor kind at that. I hate um. I wish they was all dead. I've kilt
some av um, an' I'm goin' to kill slathers more, God willin'. I belave
it's part av the bizniss av white min to finish off the nagurs."

Profound and potent sentiment of race antipathy! The contempt and hatred
of white men for yellow, red, brown, and black men has worked all over
earth, is working yet, and will work for ages. It is a motive of that
tremendous tragedy which Spencer has entitled "the survival of the
fittest," and Darwin, "natural selection."

The party continued to ascend the canon. At short intervals branch canons
exhibited arid and precipitous gorges, more and more gloomy with twilight.
It was impossible to choose between one and another. The travellers could
never see three hundred yards in advance. To right and left they were