[Overland by John William De Forest]@TWC D-Link book
Overland

CHAPTER IV
16/20

Then, looking at Coronado, they grunted, nodded, and sat in silence, waiting for his terms.
"Send that boy away," said the Mexican, pointing to a youth of twelve or fourteen, better dressed than most Apache urchins, who had joined the little circle.
"It is my son," replied Manga Colorada.

"He is learning to be a chief." The boy stood upright, facing the group with dignity, a handsomer youth than is often seen among his people.

Coronado, who had something of the artist in him, was so interested in noting the lad's regular features and tragic firmness of expression, that for a moment he forgot his projects.
Manga Colorada, mistaking the cause of his silence, encouraged him to proceed.
"My son does not speak Spanish," he said.

"He will not understand." "You know what money is ?" inquired the Mexican.
"Yes, we know," grunted the chief.
"You can buy clothes and arms with it in the villages, and aguardiente." Another grunt of assent and satisfaction.
"Three hundred piastres," said Coronado.
The chiefs consulted in their own tongue, and then replied, "The way is long." "How much ?" Manga Colorada held up five fingers.
"Five hundred ?" A unanimous grunt.
"It is all I have," said Coronado.
The chiefs made no reply.
Coronado rose, walked to his horse, took two small packages out of his saddle-bags and slipped them slily into his boots, and then carried the bags to where the chiefs sat in council.

There he held them up and rolled out five _rouleaux_, each containing a hundred Mexican dollars.


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