"PICKING PROGRESSED TO AN END, AND THE INDIANS HELD THEIR LAST FEAST AND DEPARTED"
The new man was business from the ground up. He knew where he could sell hops, and for what price. He inspected the valley crop of hops and frankly announced his intention to pay twenty-one cents. Then the other buyers rushed in to get a share, and the result was an agreement by which the new broker got half the crop at twenty-one cents and the late lamented fourteen-cent raiders divided the other half among themselves at twenty-three cents, the money to be distributed through the Elliott Bay National to all ranchers at the average of twenty-two cents.
Kitsap telephoned the news to the reservation, and the priest sent the son of Peter Coultee on his spotted cayuse to ride into the village with the news. DeQuincey's Royal Mail with the news of Waterloo did not create more enthusiasm than the Indian's triumphant shout. As he dashed along he yelled to the white men:
"Hops sold at twenty-two cents!"
To the Indian ranchers he called out the same news in the jargon:
"Hops marsh mox-taltum-tee-mox."
Down the street he rode, yelling and winning yells in return. The news spread from street to street, men carried it into the valley, and that night many a heart among the ranches beat quicker and many a voice at the firesides murmured the name of "Kitsap."
The town marshal made the trip to Seattle and delivered the six-hundred-dollar wager to Kitsap. The Indian told the cashier the terms of the wager and asked to be excused on the following Saturday, that he might assemble the reservation children and scatter the Lamson money.
"It will be a great event to them," said Kitsap. "I shall take all of Lamson's five hundred dollars in dimes, and the whole reservation will come out to see the fun."
The cashier granted the leave of absence gladly.