“Not much taste to it,” he remarked.
“It’s the effect what does the work.”
“You’ve tried ’em yourself?”
“Not any fer me, thank ye! If I did, I’d simply be eatin’ ’em all the time; and it would be the end of me. It gits the best of ’em, after a while, if they don’t stop it; and they can’t stop it so long as the stuff is to be had. Start an Injun at it, and first he’ll trade ye his gun; then he’ll pass over his ponies and his blankets; finally he’ll give ye his squaws, if ye want ’em.”
“He might murder you to get the stuff, I should think.”
“It don’t work that way. When he’s the wildest, he’s still got sense enough to pertect the man what furnishes him his means of happiness, so’s he kin git more. See? So I always feel safe.”
“Is it an opium compound?”
“Thar’s opium in it, and Indian hemp; them’s the principal ingrediments. Thar’s another thing called woolly loco; an’ some jalpasca, which comes frum Ceylon. But—shucks, d’ye think I’m goin’ ter give ye ther recipe of how to make this?”
Tim Benson sat staring at the little tablets.
“How many you got of them?” he asked.