The Canyon of Bones Read Online Free PDF

papers in Europe.”
    â€œI’ve never met one and I’m not sure they exist, Mister Mercer.”
    â€œAh, hoodoo! Vanishing tribes! That’s all the better. Well, we’ll just look into it. Especially the hoodoo. Find me a tribe with some hoodoo, and I can make a book out of it. Did you know there’s some tribes off to the south that make a religion out of the visions they get from eating a certain bean called peyote? Takes a bean-eater right into a different world. The very thought of it would give bishops and archbishops dyspepsia. Yes, sir, I’ve researched it. Too far south for this trip, but on my list. I should like to sample this bean and see for myself whether I see God, or a reasonable facsimile.”
    Skye nodded. He was growing dizzy from this man’s waltz of mind. He glanced around him, seeing only the peaceful progress the Shoshones and Crows were making toward a festive summer encampment on a cool meadow.

    â€œYes, Navajos,” Skye said. “Some others too.”
    â€œMister Skye, I could sell a dozen stories about polygamy. It’s rife here on this continent. The Mormons are on my list. We might just slip down there when the season is colder, and I’ll record my impressions, talk to the wives. I’m told that each wife has a separate house, so the husband has separate families. That’s how they do it. But in your tribe and other tribes, the chiefs and headmen have several wives and they all live in one lodge. Now that’s a cozy affair I want to explore. Suppose one night the chief chooses one wife for his nuptial pleasures. What then? Does he send the others out in the cold, and summon them when he’s done? I’m going to find the answer to it. It might ruffle a few peacock feathers along the Thames, but I’ll weather it. Answers, sir. I’ll get answers to everything. Maybe someday I’ll do a paper for the Royal Society.”
    â€œYes, well, you have a world to explore,” Skye said, hoping to escape. The idea of escorting this man was growing less and less attractive.
    â€œAnd that reminds me, Mister Skye, that exploring is at the heart of it. It’s all science. All fact. All recording what I find and publishing it for the benefit of the civilized world. You know, Mister Skye, that I am going to be nominated for fellowship in the Royal Society? The greatest honor of all, its fellows selected so carefully that each of them is at the forefront of the frontiers of knowledge. They are the princes of science.”
    â€œAn honor when it comes, sir.”
    â€œAh, I’ll elucidate for you. The Royal Society of London for the Promotion of Natural Knowledge is the most prestigious of its kind on earth. Think of it, Mister Skye. Francis Bacon! Christopher Wren! Edmond Halley! Isaac Newton! Being published in the Proceedings , or better still, Philosophical
Transactions. The papers I write pay the freight, but the goal in this bosom, sir, is to put the whole world, as observed by me, between the covers of those journals.”
    The odd thing was, Skye thought this bundle of energy would probably do just that if he survived. A man like that could walk into trouble faster than any ordinary mortal and scarcely know he was getting into danger.
    â€œNow, Mister Skye, I do have one small favor to ask. Chief Washakie brought me, but I have yet to meet the headmen among the Crows, and I would take it kindly if you would introduce me.”
    â€œI can do that, sir. And how shall I introduce you?”
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    â€œHow would you like to be known to them? They don’t grasp the idea of explorers. This whole world is perfectly familiar to them and so are the customs of their own people and all the others with which they have contact. They can even tell you a great deal about the religions of their neighbors.”
    â€œWell, that’s a good question, Mister Skye. What would you