The Prince George's enquirer and southern Maryland advertiser. (Upper Marlborough, Md.) 1882-1925, 1907-12-13
A WOOD PEDDLER'S Loss.

can wood peddler, living five or six
miles from Santa Fe, on the road to
the Pueblo of Tesuque, who feels that
he has real grudge against fate and
his fellow men. He believes that he
ought to be at liberty to- sit in the
:, doorway of his 'dobe and roll. .cigar-
cites all day long, instead of having
to cut wood and pack it on his lazy
burro to be peddled laboriously
through the streets of Santa Fe for
paltry thirty-five cents a load. Two
thousand dollars were almost within
his grasp-but vanished before he
could close his itching fingers upon
the pile. And $4,000, in Martini's es-
timation, is as great a fortune as
million is to any day laborer who
earns as much as 81 a day.
Probably Martini never heard of
captains of industry or Napoleons of
finance, but in his way he displays
abilities that might have made him
one or the other if he had been fav-
Ored with a wider field for the dis
play of his talents From childhood
he played with the children of Tesu-
que. Often in their play they han
died some bright stones, such as were
to be seen in the house of the govern
or of the tribe and in the abodes of
some of the head men. AS he grew
up to manhood he came to understand
that these bright stones contained
gold. One day one of the head men
ffo1 foJI hot
the white men would give a good
many thousand pesos for the mine
from which the specimens came, but
that the Indians could not work it,
because it would require a great deal
OF money to put in the machinery
necessary to separate the metal from
the worthless rock. The location of
the mine, it was further explained,
was secret known to only "a few of
the tribe, and they would not tell,
fearing that the cupidity of the white
men might tempt them to take pos
session-not only of the mine, but of
all the lands of the Indians.
Martini, by some process of rea-'
soning of his own, seems to have
fathomed the truth of the aphorism
that knowledge is power. He had
little of the knowledge that he felt
pointed the way to both wealth and
power, and he thirsted for more. He
thought long and deeply, and finally
evolved plan by which he hoped
that his thirst for knowledge might
be assuaged.
He began to pay assiduous court to
the dusky daughter of the head man
who had told him of the mine She
was not unresponsive, and one day
the priest pronounced them man and
wife. Then followed the pagan mar
riage ceremony of the Pueblos-for,
though they are faithful. Catholics,
they still remain true to the gods of
their ancestors as well. Martini then
felt that he was surely at the door of
discovery. ses
Nor was he, mistaken His. Wife
knew all about the mine, and one
dark night she led him to. the spot.
The knowledge was his. It remained
to test its power
For reasons of his own Martini
did not care to use his knowledge in
Santa Fe. Instead, he journeyed to
Las Vegas. A little inquiry enabled
him to find well known mining man
and to him he showed the specimens
he had carried all the wsy from Tesu-
que.
The great man showed even more
eagerness than Martini had antici-
pated, and after several conferences
bargain was struck. Martini was to
show the great man the mine, and the
great man was to pay him $1,000
provided the, mine was on land that !
no one claimed.
Martini was. faithful, to. his bar
gain, but little inquiry was necessary
to reveal to his new acquaintance the
face that the mine was located on the
Tesuque Indian land grant, patented
to the Indians by the United States
Government. Of course the deal was
off, and Martini. whose dull wits have
not fathomed the intricacies of COM
munal ownership of the Tesuque
lands, feels that the world has treated
him harshly.-John L. Cowan, in the
New York Evening Post. -