“Now,” said Shea, a slight smile curving his wide lips.
CHAPTER V—THE AMBITION OF MACKINTAVERS
It is an established but peculiar trait of human nature, by which most of us desire to be that which we are not, or to do that for which we have no talent. I, who write, may aspire to be a great engineer; you, who read, may aspire to the study of the stars. We reach out toward that which we may never grasp.
Sandy Mackintavers was a wealthy and a powerful man; his hands were gripped hard in both the politics and the mining properties of the state. Self-made and self-educated, he had accomplished a good job of it. He had, of necessity, seen a good deal of those men who were ever radiating out from Santa Fé; those men who, on behalf of many universities and great museums, were ever delving amid the thousands of pre-historic ruins which lay in and between the valleys of the Pecos and the Rio Grande.
Slowly, Sandy had discovered that these men were digging in the earth for science, and that science and the world of letters honoured them. He had learned something of their “patter” and of the things they were seeking; he had studied their work and methods and ideals, and he had found within himself the makings of a scientist. In short, he had formed the stupendous ambition of becoming, at one fell stroke, a renowned ethnologist!
Do not smile. In the course of thirty years a man can pick up a great many divers things, and it was the way of Mackintavers to pick up everything in sight. Sandy knew a great deal more than he appeared to know. He had mining properties all over, and he was a silent partner in a chain of Mormon trading stores that ran north from the Mexican border through three states. His sources of information were varied.
Being unmarried and loving his ease when he was in the city, Mackintavers maintained a suite at the Aztec House. He had entertained many men in that place, some to their eternal sorrow. Never had he entertained a more distinguished visitor, however, than the Smithsonian professor with whom he was speaking on this Sunday morning—a scientist known around the world, and a man of supreme authority in ethnologic circles.
“Now, professor,” said Mackintavers, bluntly, “I ain’t a college-educated man, but I’ve knocked around this country for thirty year, and I know a few things. When I die, I aim to be remembered as something more than a mining man, see?”
The other, in puzzled suspense, nodded tacit understanding.
“Now,” pursued Sandy, chewing hard on a cigar, “if I had something to give the Smithsonian or some other museum, something that would be a tenstrike for science, something that ’ud make every scientific shark in the country water at the eyes for envy, what ’ud the Smithsonian do for me?”