er arrived.

[Illustration: _Copyrighted by E. S. Curtis, Seattle_

"PICKING PROGRESSED TO AN END, AND THE INDIANS HELD THEIR LAST FEAST AND
DEPARTED"]

The new man was business from the ground up. He knew where he could sell
hops, and for what price. He inspected the valley crop of hops and
frankly announced his intention to pay twenty-one cents. Then the other
buyers rushed in to get a share, and the result was an agreement by
which the new broker got half the crop at twenty-one cents and the late
lamented fourteen-cent raiders divided the other half among themselves
at twenty-three cents, the money to be distributed through the Elliott
Bay National to all ranchers at the average of twenty-two cents.

Kitsap telephoned the news to the reservation, and the priest sent the
son of Peter Coultee on his spotted cayuse to ride into the village with
the news. DeQuincey's Royal Mail with the news of Waterloo did not
create more enthusiasm than the Indian's triumphant shout. As he dashed
along he yelled to the white men:

"Hops sold at twenty-two cents!"

To the Indian ranchers he called out the same news in the jargon:

"_Hops marsh mox-taltum-tee-mox._"

Down the street he rode, yelling and winning yells in return. The news
spread from street to street, men carried it into the valley, and that
night many a heart among the ranches beat quicker and many a voice at
the firesides murmured the name of "Kitsap."

The town marshal made the trip to Seattle and delivered the
six-hundred-dollar wager to Kitsap. The Indian told the cashier the
terms of the wager and asked to be excused on the following Saturday,
that he might assemble the reservation children and scatter the Lamson
money.

"It will be a great event to them," said Kitsap. "I shall take all of
Lamson's five hundred dollars in dimes, and the whole reservation will
come out to see the fun."

The cashier granted the leave of absence gladly.

"If you will hold the event in the afternoon, I think the president
would be pleased to go out and see it," said he.

Kitsap needed no other hint, but went boldly to the president and
invited him to witness the scattering of the coins.

"With pleasure," replied the president.

"Come on the three o'clock train, and I will have a carriage for you,"
said Kitsap.

The reservation had been waiting for twenty-cent hops as a band of
children wait for the circus. Five thousand dimes to be thrown to less
than three hundred c