Note 26 — Chapter IV · THE DEAD CITIES OF THE SALINES
Reading edition
Popular tradition persistently associates gold-hoarding with the Franciscan Missionaries throughout the Southwest, ignoring the fact that the members of the Seraphic Order were pledged to poverty, and had small interest in any wealth except the unsearchable riches of Christ, to share which with their humble Indian charges was their sole mission in the wilderness. As for the New Mexico Indians, they knew nothing of any mineral more precious than turquoise.