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stands for war," said Eric meditatively, then, with an inspiration, "in those days a country was rich if it had soldiers. Does the red mean soldiers, Dan?" "Soldiers, right," the old man answered. "The Quipucamayocuna--" "The what, Dan?" "Knot officers," explained the other, "kept track of him all. They counted tens, single knot meant ten; double knot, hundred. Now read him. Cross-knotting is for groups." Eric worked for a quarter of an hour and then looked up. "I've got it," he said. "What is he?" "In this town," said the boy, "there were seven regiments of soldiers, I've got down the exact number of men in each regiment. Some had plenty of food in the regimental storehouse, some had only a little. But--if I get it right--there was money belonging to each regiment in a treasure-house, somewhere, like a bank. I suppose they could exchange this for food. And, if I've read it right, there was one regiment which had money but no men. I suppose they were wiped out in battle." "Very good," answered the puzzle-maker, looking pleased. "You keep accounts, your own money?" "Of course," answered the boy, pulling out a little diary from his pocket. "Here, string," said the old man. "Write your week's accounts in quipu." Thoroughly interested, Eric took up a pile of colored strings, from the corner and started to convert his week's accounting into quipu. He worked for half an hour, but couldn't make it come out right. It proved an exasperating puzzle, because it seemed impossible and yet conveyed the suggestion that there ought to be some way of doing it. Already Eric had so keen a sense of the old man's comments that he hated to say that he couldn't do it. But, after a while, red in the face and quite ashamed, he said, "I can't do it, Dan." "No, he is not possible," said the puzzle-maker cheerfully. "That's what I wanted you to find. The quipu is wonderful but he's not wonderful enough, eh?" "We'd have trouble trying to handle a big modern banking business by it, all right," the boy agreed. "But, Dan, how about this studying I'm supposed to do?" "You know Latin numerals?" the old man replied. "Of course!" Eric answered indignantly. "I couldn't even tell the time if I didn't!" "Write 'Four,'" came the order. Promptly the boy wrote "IV." "Now look at watch." "It's got four ones there," Eric said ruefully. "The 'IV' form is late," said the puzzle-maker. "I show you something. Copy c
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