He tried to turn them to his advantage. He spent a whole morning attempting to teach one of the males to use a pan. The results were nil. The creature was incapable of understanding the difference between the gray sand and the yellow dust. To him, both were equally useless—or equally valuable. The only result was the native's despondency at being unable to please Gunnison.
But Gunnison was philosophical about it. Even if he had channeled the native to his purpose the monster would have been of little help because at sight of the black birds all of them always ran screaming into the rocks to stay hidden for hours.
So Gunnison was philosophical. But also bitter, because even so extraordinary a situation as this still brought him no profit. He had a tribe of abject slaves at his command. Child-men willing to give him anything they owned even to the hair off their own hides. But what did they own? Nothing but old bones and teeth and nauseating concoctions they used for food.
Gunnison had explored the area roundabout and had discovered what was probably the ruins of an ancient city. If so, the place flourished before the dawn of history because the buildings were only vague heaps of rubble. The natives lived in these and, Gunnison suspected, in caves among the rocks.
Evidently this race was older than he had first suspected. They squatted here on the ruins of some long-dead civilization. Perhaps their ancestors conquered the city's founders and these pitiful creatures were the last remnants of a retrograding race.
So Gunnison cursed them in his wearier moments and patronized them the rest of the time. They in turn drooped visibly at the sharpness in his voice and wriggled in dog-like delight at his kind words. Obviously yearning to do something for him—to serve this new master. As the months went by he began thinking of them as the people who feared birds and pretty much ignored them. He panned tirelessly, increasing his horde, counting the days and weeks and months.
And as the fifth month passed, his dust pile was small for the bitter work expended but a larger stake than he had ever before acquired. It would keep him in comfort if not in luxury.
During the first week of the sixth month he learned painfully that the native's fear of the birds had some foundation. The birds had never ceased their attacks and he had learned to fend them off pretty much as a man swats flies. But upon this morning his attention was riveted to a particularly large reward of yellow dust from his last panning and one of the black raiders got through. It drove its bill into his neck with a squawk of triumph and got up and away before his swinging fist could smash it down.
He slapped his hand over the puncture and swore at the bird. Damned nuisances! He looked at his hand and saw blood.