It was
the same old proposition of woman's prerogative to outdo a man. Jack
pondered over the trip from the Ute village across the divide and the
night camp in the willows. He looked a little sheepish and waited in
discreet silence.

"Is it necessary, Jack," asked his father, "that you should go to this
unheard-of mine with the old Indian? Why not let him go and return with
the treasure alone as he has done before?"

"He is too old to attempt the journey and it is his desire that Chiquita
be one of the party, as he will give the mine to her and myself
equally," answered Jack, not at all assured that the reply would make
matters any better.

"Have you such an unbounded faith in a crafty Indian as to believe that
he knows of any such fabulous treasure that even a nation might send an
army to snatch away from its rightful owners, and that he will lead you
to this mine simply to reward you for standing as press agent for his
equally crafty daughter?"

Jack saw that his father was beginning to tread upon dangerous ground,
that it would take but little to cause an unpleasant scene unless he
could overcome the prejudice now gaining ground with his parents. He
keenly felt the implied lack of confidence which both displayed, and for
a moment he was inclined to become a trifle skeptical himself, but he
quickly reasoned, "If I show any weakening they will hammer all the
harder."

"Father," he slowly began, "and mother, you are both ripe in the
experience of this world, with the civilized method of taking from the
untutored forest man his hunting ground, his home, by the simple process
of a representation from each state of a government; a proposition is
voted upon to drive this native farther and farther toward the setting
sun, farther and farther back, until now he lives in a barren country,
his larder empty and his proud mien broken. The remnant of former
greatness drooped to a low ebb of cunning, outmatched only by the
cunning of the frontier statesman, backed by the grasping political
land-grabber and office-holding despot bidding for votes--these jackals
whose blighting breath corrupt juries, legislatures and even the church
into a belief that it is justice to waylay the child of nature in the
onward march of civilization, to wrest from him the land which God gave
as an heritage. Yes, father, I have unbounded faith in Yamanatz that he
can and will show me the greatest mass of gold in one mine ever
uncovered by the han