TIBERIUS SMITH
melling business, he soon came to be considered the only patent-medicine on the coast.
"Naturally he taught his son the game, and so it was handed down to the present polyglot, who now bossed the tribe.
"‘Taken all together, they are a bad combination, all right,' declared Finzer. 'Several of our boys who have stolen up there to find out where they mine the gold they sometimes bring here to swap for rum, tobacco, and gunpowder have forgotten to return. Chuck's people are not at home now, but when they return I am going to collect a few of my men and run them out. Only last night my best hunter was telling me the missionary at Tuvak had lost his one-year-old boy—been kidnapped, you know; and if Chuck McBurr wasn't in on the deal the youngster eloped by himself. Say, give us some more of those fights. They're great.'
"It was Finzer's chance remark about the gold-flakes, mined by the tenants of the Little Seal, that set Tib to yearning to discover their lode. 'Now that this Chuck, or whatever they style him, has led his children up north, why not sneak over to that stream and do some prospecting,' he began; and I knew he would have his way. For two days I stood him off, but as Finzer repeated there was no danger, the territory being deserted, I finally
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