"Bring him here."
Wondering a good deal at the odd puzzle-maker's manner, for the lad had gone to the cottage in good faith with his books, expecting to work on the problems that were disturbing him, he brought over the knotted quipu.
"Green string means corn," said the puzzle-maker, "because he's the color of growing corn. What you suppose white is?"
"Silver," guessed the boy.
"Right. And yellow?"
"Gold."
"Right, too. And red?"
"Copper?" hazarded the boy.
"Not bad guess," the old man said. "Not copper color, red."
"Red stands for war," said Eric meditatively, then, with an inspiration, "in those days a country was rich if it had soldiers. Does the red mean soldiers, Dan?"