e unexplored, and therefore more
alluring, mountain range._

VI

THE PROSPECTOR

Old Pogosa was seated in the shade of a farm-wagon, not far from the
trader's store at Washakie, eating a cracker and mumbling to herself,
when a white man in miner's dress spoke to her in a kindly voice and
offered her an orange. She studied him with a dim, shining, suspicious
gaze, but took the orange. Eugene, the grandson of her niece, stood
beside the stranger, and he, too, had an orange.

"Tell her," said the white man, "that I want to talk with her about old
days; that I am a friend of her people, and that I knew Sitting Bull and
Bear Robe. They were great chiefs."

As these words were interpreted to the old witch, her mouth softened a
little and, raising her eyes, she studied her visitor intently. At last
she said: "Ay, he was a great chief, Sitting Bull. My cousin. I came to
visit Shoshoni many moons ago. Never returned to my own people."

To this the miner replied, "They say your husband, Iapi, was one of the
sheep-eaters exiled to the mountains?"

Her eyes widened. Her gaze deepened. She clipped her forefinger in sign
of agreement. "It was very cold up there in winter. We were often
hungry, for the game had all been driven to the plain and we could not
follow. Many of our children died. All died but one."

The stranger, whose name was Wetherell, responded with a sigh: "My heart
is heavy when I hear of it. Because you are old and have not much food I
give you this money." And he handed her a silver dollar and walked away.

The next day, led by Eugene, Wetherell and Kelley, his partner, again
approached the old Sioux, this time with a generous gift of beef.

"My brother, here, is paper-chief," he explained. "As a friend of the
red people he wants to put in a book all the wrongs that the
sheep-eaters suffered."

In this way the gold-seekers proceeded to work upon Pogosa's withered
heart. Her mind was clouded with age, but a spark of her old-time
cunning still dwelt there, and as she came to understand that the white
men were eager to hear the story of the lost mine she grew forgetful.
Her tongue halted on details of the trail. Why should not her tale
produce other sides of bacon, more oranges, and many yards of cloth? Her
memory wabbled like her finger--now pointing west, now north. At one
time the exiles found the gold in the cabin in a bag--like shining sand;
at another it lay in the sand like shining sol