“‘My people have long known of this gold which you white men love, fight for, suffer for, and die for. It is of no use to my people. It neither feeds them nor clothes them. The traders tell us they will give us food and clothing and much whisky for it. We know better. If they discover we have it, they will come with many soldiers and seize our country and drive us out and kill us. The white man knows no mercy in seeking gold. We have tried to cover it up and keep it secret. We fear we have been betrayed. Two or three times in recent moons white men have penetrated near to its hiding-place. The first seeker met his death, the second likewise. But more are coming. Our people are in peril. We must save them. We love our country, we love our simple life. We want none of your civilization, none of its cruelties, its vices, its death. With this gold tempting the white multitude, we shall become as chaff before the wind in front of you. So we say, Take the gold. We have nothing else to excite your cupidity, take it and let us live in peace.’ “I was fairly humiliated, lad, before that grand old savage. His words were simple; they were not spoken in anger. Yet he stood there melancholy, powerless before a relentless fate, looking fearlessly into a future full of peril for his people. There was something sublime in the dignity of the old Patagonian that I had never seen in any other man and for a moment I felt almost like going down in the dust before him. He came back presently to his usual mood and noticing, I suppose, my shamefacedness he assured me I was by no means included in the denunciation into which the contemplation of his people’s wrongs had led him. A renegade member of the tribe, it appeared, was held responsible for the betrayal of the secret. They asked me if I thought they had determined upon the right course to pursue. I told them they would be foolish to let such a vast treasure go without providing for certain lasting benefits to themselves in return. They might easily make themselves free of the traders, and secure all necessary annual supplies including harmless luxuries, besides providing for the practical exclusion of the white man’s liquor, which was already becoming a grave evil among them.