“Ah,” said Mark thoughtfully. “But you said about picking out a mate. Whom should you choose?”
“Well, if you come to regular choosing, sir,” said Buck, “I should like to have you—not for a mate, sir, but to be my young boss. I know though that couldn’t be, and I wouldn’t want it, ’cause I know how I should be cutting you off from all the sarching as the doctor wants done. Why, you wouldn’t be here when you hunt out the place where all the gold is buried.”
“N–no.”
“And the working tools and the pots and pans as the doctor expects to find.”
“N–no,” said Mark thoughtfully. “But I say, Buck, do you think there is plenty of gold here somewhere?”
“Pretty sure of it, sir. Why, where did that little kiddy of a black get his ornaments from?”
“To be sure,” said Mark, still speaking very seriously. “But why is it, then, that he will not say anything about it? He only shakes his head and goes away when one tries to get him to show where he got his bangles from.”
“Well, I don’t quite know, sir. There’s a something behind it all. They’re sort of jealous like about having the old things meddled with, I think. Mak showed us the way here, but I never see him begin to sarch like to find anything the old people left, and if you remember he tried all he could to keep us from meddling and looking for the place where we found that old man.”
“Oh, the doctor said that was superstition,” said Mark.
“Then that’s what it was, sir, if the doctor said so, for he’d know, of course.”