“`Tell `em, says I to McClintock, `it ain`t money I want tell `em I`ll take gold-dust. Tell `em I`ll allow `em sixteen dollars an ounce for it in trade. That`s what I`m out for the dust.`
“Mac interprets, and you`d have thought a squadron of cops had charged the crowd to disperse it. Every uncle`s nephew and aunt`s niece of `em faded away inside of two minutes.
“At the royal palace that night me and the King talked it over.
“ `They`ve got the dust hid out somewhere,` says I, `or they wouldn`t have been so sensitive about it.`
“ `They haven`t,` says Shane.` What`s this gag you`ve got about gold? You been reading Edward Allen Poe? They ain`t got any gold.`
“`They put it in quills,` says I, `and then they empty it in jars, and then into sacks of twenty-five pounds each. I got it straight.`
“`W. D.,` says Shane, laughing and chewing his cigar, `I don`t often see a white man, and I feel like putting you on. I don`t think you`ll get away from here alive, anyhow, so I`m going to tell you. Come over here.`
“He draws aside a silk fiber curtain in a corner of the room and shows me a pile of buckskin sacks.
Gold-dust
“ `Forty of `em,` says Shane. `One arroba in each one. In round numbers, $220,000 worth of gold-dust you see there. It`s all mine. It belongs to the Grand Yacuma. They bring it all to me. Two hundred and twenty thousand dollars think of that, you glass-bead peddler,` says Shane `and all mine.`
“ `Little good it does you,` says I, contemptuously and hatefully. `And so you are the government depository of this gang of moneyless moneymakers? Don`t you pay enough interest on it to enable one of your depositors to buy an Augusta (Maine) Pullman carbon diamond worth $220 for $4.85?`
“`Listen,` says Patrick Shane, with the sweat coming out on his brow. `I`m confident with you, as you have, somehow, enlisted my regards. Did you ever,` he says, `feel the avoirdupois power of gold not the troy weight of it, but the sixteen-ounces-to-the-pound force of it?`
“`Never,` says I. `I never take in any bad money.`
“Shane drops down on the floor and throws his arms over the sacks of gold-dust.
“`I love it,` says he. `I want to feel the touch of it day and night. It`s my pleasure in life. I come in this room, and I`m a king and a rich man. I`ll be a millionaire in another year. The pile`s getting bigger every month. I`ve got the whole tribe washing out the sands in the creeks. I`m the happiest man in the world, W. D. I just want to be near this gold, and know it`s mine and it`s increasing every day. Now, you know,` says he, `why my Indians wouldn`t buy your goods. They can`t. They bring all the dust to me. I`m their king. I`ve taught `em not to desire or admire. You might as well shut up shop.`
Read More about Supply and Demand part 2
