s it also
the tempered quality of steel. Nothing but gold, you see," he added,
"could lie around out-of-doors this way and not get tarnished by
oxidization."

"What's the reason that it's not some queer thing belonging to the folks
we're looking for?" Young asked; and his question expressed a thought
that already had found a lodging in my own mind. For such good-luck as
this would be I was quite willing to concede that Fray Antonio was right
in his unpleasantly positive views in regard to the shape of the Aztec
swords. And what Young said also put me sharply in mind of the graving
on the rock of the King's symbol, that we had found only in the same
moment to lose it again. To this matter I now adverted; and I said some
very unpleasant things about the Indians who had prevented us from
following the trail, that we had sought for so laboriously, when we did
find it at last--and who still, for we doubted not that the main body
was in wait for us lower down the valley, prevented us from returning to
the spot where we had seen the sign and thence systematically continuing
our search.

"If I was you, Professor," said Young as I ceased speaking, "I wouldn't
be so everlastin'ly down on these poor devils of Indians for what
they've done. They killed Dennis, an' that's a pretty bad business; an'
they got away with our two _mozos_, too; an' they've pretty well
battered th' rest of us. But I take it that we've about evened things up
by killin' eighteen of 'em--or six of their crowd dead for each one dead
in ours. I guess we can call that part of th' business about square. But
what I'm gettin' at is, if it hadn't been for the Indians we'd never
have come up this valley; an' so we'd never have struck th' King's
symbol trail at all."

"But what good did it do us to find it, when we could not follow it?" I
asked. "We cannot go back to examine the sign without risking our lives;
and unless we do examine it we cannot know where the next one is, and so
the trail is lost."

"I've just been waitin'," said Young, "t' see if I was th' only man in
this party that God-a-mighty'd given a pair of eyes to. I guess I am.
Suppose you just get up, Professor, an' turn around, an' take a look at
that place where there's a brown mark on th' side of th' rock; an'
suppose th' rest of you look there too. If that isn't th' King's symbol,
just as plain as th' noses in all your faces, I'll eat every dead Indian
in this canon."

And Young spoke the trut