Chapter 20. Treasure Trove

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_ CHAPTER XX. TREASURE TROVE

Polly Street went up to her room after leaving Scott but she did not go to bed. Nor did she behave in any way which suggested an alarming amount of headache. Instead, she opened her window and looked out. Her first glance showed Scott pacing scowlingly up and down the narrow veranda. Further down the street she saw Mendoza's car parked in front of its owner's favorite saloon, next door, in fact, to the butcher's, in whose yard hung the remains of the steer--an unhappy evidence of the truth of the adage that in the midst of life we are in death. Mendoza was not visible, but it needed no stretch of the imagination to locate him.

With a little sigh of satisfaction, Polly withdrew her head and remained a moment in thought; then she ran downstairs again. A cautious peep into the office showed Clara and Hard in conversation with Sam Penhallow. She glided into the dining-room where she found the good-looking Mabel finishing the clearing off of the tables. Polly looked winningly into the tall girl's eyes.

"I want awfully to speak to your father about something; do you suppose you could get him into the dining-room without anyone's knowing? I want to consult him in his official capacity," she added with dignity.

"Oh!" said Mabel, surveying her guest calmly. "Do you mean as the sheriff or as the boss of this hotel? Because if it's that, you can see me. I'm the real boss."

"Oh, as the sheriff, of course," replied Polly, hastily. "Anybody could see that you ran this hotel. It's much too well handled to be a man's job."

"Well," the tall girl unbent a trifle, "I don't mind telling you that I think so myself. Of course, as a sheriff Papa is all right. You wait here and I'll fetch him and look after the office till you're through with him."

In a moment or two Sam Penhallow entered the dining-room, his good-natured face a trifle puzzled.

"Mabel said----" he began.

Polly smiled. "Yes, isn't she clever at managing things? You see, Mr. Penhallow, it's a case of 'Kind Captain, I've important information.' Won't you sit down?"

Sam sat down.

"In the first place, one of those Mexicans who had dinner here to-night is Juan Pachuca--the man who held up our mine a few days ago."

"What? Why didn't you say so before? I'd have----"

"I didn't think quick enough," admitted Polly, "and for another thing I knew that if Mr. Scott saw him there would be trouble. He has reasons for disliking Pachuca--apart from the raid, at least, he thinks he has." Polly blushed in spite of herself.

"I get you," responded Penhallow, instantly.

"I thought you would. You seem to me like that sort of a man. Now, I want to ask you something; did you ever hear of a Mexican named 'Gasca' who lived around here?"

Penhallow, a little mystified, seemed to be thinking.

"A Mexican who had an Indian wife and who was murdered?" went on Polly. Much to her disappointment, this minute description did not seem to clear Sam's mind.

"You see, that fits so many of them," he said, apologetically.

"The wife died after he was killed," hazarded the girl, anxiously.

"Hold on--you mean the old duffer who lived up Wildcat Canyon?" demanded Penhallow. "Woman had a stroke--they found her up there dead. Their name was 'Gasca' or 'Gomez' or something of that kind."

"I knew it!" Polly's voice was triumphant. "If I don't make Marc Scott apologize to me----" Then, calming herself, she continued: "I'm going to spin you a yarn, Mr. Penhallow, and then you've got to help me out."

"Fire away," said the gallant Penhallow and Polly repeated as nearly as she could remember the tale that Juan Pachuca had told her that night in Athens. Penhallow's eyes snapped.

"By gum, I bet you're on the trail! He and those Mexicans are looking up the stuff."

"Of course they are, but why do they come on horseback? They can't carry bullion on their saddles."

"They probably don't more than half believe the yarn themselves," said Sam, meditatively. "They're just snooping round to see if there's anything in it. And automobiles ain't so common round here that you can pick one up every time you feel like hunting treasure, either. I own the only one in town and I loaned it to-day to a good-for-nothing guy that's courtin' Mabel, worse luck!"

"We've got Mendoza and his Ford," said Polly, eagerly. "If I run up and get my hat and coat, will you slip down and pry him out of that saloon and the three of us run out to Wildcat Canyon before those Mexicans can get there?"

"You bet I will," replied the willing Sam.

"Oh, Mr. Penhallow, you're the kind of man that I admire!" Polly's eyes shone. "You've got imagination--it's the only thing Marc Scott hasn't got."

"Well," grinned Penhallow, "I wouldn't worry about that if I was you; it ain't such an awful good quality to marry. My wife used to kick about it a whole lot." But Polly was gone. "I knew it!" chuckled Sam. "I knew Scotty was meditatin' matrimony by the way he jumped me. Fine girl, that. For ten cents I'd give him a run for his money."

Faced with the alternative of driving his car or allowing someone else to do it, Mendoza capitulated and allowed Penhallow to coax him out of the saloon. They drove down the street back of the houses and were joined by Polly who was waiting in the shadow for them. The Mexican girl saw the car as it passed the kitchen window, as she afterward told Clara, but failed to recognize Penhallow who sat on the further side.

"Do we have to pass the Mexicans or can we go another way?" asked Polly.

"We can take another road and beat them to the fork," said Penhallow. "Then we'll have the canyon to ourselves. This way, Mendoza."

"You know, Mr. Penhallow, this gold was stolen from one of the mines owned by our company," said the girl. "That's one reason I'm so anxious to find it. It will mean something to my brother."

"Sure it will."

"There ought to be a reward, oughtn't there? Not that I care about that; the excitement's enough for me."

"Fond of excitement, are you?"

"I'm afraid so. I'll have to get over that, I suppose."

"Not if you marry Marc Scott," said Marc's loyal friend, quite forgetting his sinister intentions. "There's nothing tame about Marc. I'd hate to be the woman who tried to fool him. She would have some job on her hands."

"Well, she'd have to be cleverer than I am to do it," sighed Polly, sadly.

"Well, I don't know. Say, what's your idea of finding this junk, anyhow? Where d'you reckon it'd be? Above ground?"

Polly looked a bit taken back. "I never thought of that," she admitted. "It's the first time I ever hunted treasure. Where do you think it will be?"

"Well, if you want the truth, I ain't looking for it to be there at all. My idea is that Gasca got rid of it and that's why they killed him. And yet----"

"Yes?"

"Kind of funny the woman hung around after he died. The natural thing would have been for her to have gone back to her people, wouldn't it?"

"Of course it would. I know it's there."

"If you know it's there it's a pity I didn't bring along a couple of pickaxes," said Sam, with a grin. "All the treasures I ever heard about called for pickaxes, skeletons and an old family chart."

"Oh, have it your own way!" said the aggravated Polly. "But who, I'd like to know, would have come up to this lonely place to look for gold, and how could an ignorant old Mexican like Gasca dispose of it without getting into trouble?"

"Well, mebbe so. Anyhow, here's your cabin."

The cabin was situated up the canyon on the right hand side of the road. It was a little wooden shack, sagging and discolored, its windows broken and its whole appearance denoting that utter desolation to which only a deserted homestead can attain; not even a human wreck can equal this silent abandonment. It had been a fairly decent place once; there were outbuildings which evidenced past association with pigs and chickens, while back of the house stood a wooden cart such as country people use for hauling wood or hay.

In the dusk, that saddest of sad times, between sunset and moonrise, Wildcat Canyon presented an awesome appearance. The hills were outlined sharply and darkly against the sky; the little stream that dribbled past the cabin was so quiet that it seemed the ghost of water; there was no movement--no sound--no suggestion of life.

Polly drew a long breath. "What a dreadful place to live!" she murmured, her spirits dashed for a moment. A woman had lived here--a woman stolen from her people. Had lived--and, stricken and alone, had died here. Polly thought of her own spoiled and sheltered life and her eyes filled.

In the meantime, Sam Penhallow took in the view with intense disfavor. "I never was partial to Wildcat Canyon," he remarked, pessimistically. "I caught a cattle thief up here once. He hid behind that rock and gave us a real nasty time before we got him. Well, since we're here we may as well get busy. Can't you get us a little nearer, Mendoza? This is pretty far to tote gold bars."

"Oh, laugh if you want to," said Polly, indulgently. "Since I've seen the place I'm sure it's here."

"I'll say this," remarked Penhallow, "if I had anything I wanted to hide and didn't want any fools blunderin' into, I couldn't pick a likelier place to hide it in than this one--whether it was gold or a body."

Mendoza ran them within a few yards of the hut and they got out. Gasca's late residence did not improve on closer inspection. The door hung loosely on its hinges and once within, its dark recesses suggested many things not altogether pleasant. There was little furniture and that broken and poor; the hut boasted two rooms and the floor was merely the ground. There was nothing to suggest hidden treasure, and no place where it could be secreted as far as the visitors could see. Even the fireplace yielded no secrets.

"How stupid of us!" declared Polly, determined not to be discouraged. "Of course it wouldn't be in here or they would have found it when they took the poor woman away. Let's go outside and think."

"My idea is that it's either buried or they got rid of it," said Penhallow, promptly. It had suddenly occurred to him that Mendoza was a poor chaperon for a good-looking widower--not old--and a pretty girl engaged to Marc Scott. It was a disturbing idea, for Sam was of a conventional turn of mind. "If he's buried it, we'll have to dig all over the place, and I take it none of us is much on the dig."

"Wait a minute, I've got an idea myself," said Polly, with dignity. "You look in the chicken-house and I'll take a peep into the shed in the corral."

Sam shrugged his shoulders and started for the chicken-house.

"Scott's gettin' his match all right," he muttered, rebelliously. "Goin' to make him toe the chalk line, that girl."

"Mr. Penhallow, come here!" Polly's voice was shrill and excited. "Come here!"

"Comin', lady. Did you find it?"

"Look here." Polly was at the side of an old cart, peering and poking through the sticks of wood and bits of old straw which filled it. "See, down there--doesn't that look to you like something?"

Sam Penhallow felt a sudden thrill; a thrill he had not known the like of since he led the posse across the border after the kidnapping bandit. He bent an excited gray eye over the hole indicated.

"Sure does look like there was somethin' besides wood in there--somethin' bulky, and there's some sacking.--Hi, Mendoza, come here and lend a hand!"

In the meantime he and Polly began throwing the wood out of the wagon.

"My idea is that Gasca hid it in the wagon because he thought no one would suspect anything there," said Polly, "and he could haul it away in a hurry if they did."

"It's more likely he buried it and after he died the woman dug it up and packed it in here meaning to go South with it and then got sick and died before she had the chance."

"Well, I said you had imagination. That's a much better theory than mine," said Polly, generously. "But why didn't somebody take the wagon?"

"Well, it ain't much of a wagon. I reckon they took the horse and the pigs and chickens and let the rest slide. The wood don't amount to much; just sticks she's picked up."

Mendoza, quite of the opinion that the couple whom up to this time he had suspected of nothing more alarming than an elopement, had suddenly gone very mad, stolidly chucked wood out of the wagon lest a worse thing be demanded of him.

"There!" The three gathered around the half-empty wagon in excitement, even Mendoza manifesting a slight degree of zest when through the layer of straw, half covered with sacking, was revealed a number of rough looking blocks, in shape resembling large loaves of bread. Penhallow lifted one with difficulty.

"That's what it is, girl," he cried, his eyes glistening. "It's gold straight from the mine. Why, what's the matter?"

"It's so disappointing," murmured the girl; "it looks like old junk."

"Well, it's pretty good old junk. I only wish it was mine, don't you, Mendoza? This stuff, Mendoza, all belongs to some rich guys who own a lot of mines down yonder. Big, fat chaps who sit in easy chairs back of mahogany tables and let other fellows earn their money for them; fine business, eh?"

Mendoza grinned--a comprehending if not a lovely grin.

"Si," he grunted. "I seen them fat fellers up in San Antone. All got de sickness of de kidney or de stomach. Me, I rather be poor man and live on de outside."

"Well, that ain't bad for an old heathen, eh, Miss Polly?" chuckled Penhallow. "Come on, we've got to load this stuff into the Ford before those greasers get here."

"How much do you think there is?" asked Polly, eagerly.

"Oh, I don't know--a few thousands, I guess. I've a notion old Gasca had to whack up with the fellows who helped him get it across. It's no fortune but it's going to give us lame backs moving it and I reckon the Company will be glad to see it again."

It was a hard load to move and long before the transfer was made Polly acknowledged that she was glad they hadn't made a bigger haul. It was growing darker, too, and Wildcat Canyon began to seem less and less the sort of place for a picnic.

"Well, little lady," observed Penhallow, as they started down the canyon, "you've done a good night's work for your brother. Say, Mendoza, don't that look like a car to you down yonder?"

Polly sat up suddenly. "I thought you said that you owned the only car in town?"

"I do. That's why I've a notion that that's mine, though why Ed Merriam should be flourishin' it around here, I don't know."

"Car, yes," agreed Mendoza. "Make 'em back up. Can't pass there."

At the same moment the other car honked excitedly and Mendoza answered.

"There are some men on horseback there, aren't there?" said Polly, straining her eyes.

"On the other side of the arroyo--yes. Hullo, guns! Say, Ed's in trouble! Shake a leg, Mendoza--we got to look into this. Girlie, you can lie down if they shoot, do you hear?"

"Yes," breathed Polly, excitedly.

They could see plainly now. They saw two of the mounted men dash off and the other, reeling in his saddle, but holding gamely to his seat, dash after them. Then they saw two men from the automobile spring to support the third who had fallen.

"Gosh, I hope that ain't Ed!" said Penhallow. "I don't like the guy much, but Mabel would have my blood if I let him get plugged and me on the spot doing nothing."

"Not Merriam," said Mendoza, darkly. "Merriam and Senor Hard carry the man."

"Hold on!" But Penhallow was too slow. The car was slowing down and Polly was out in the road. Penhallow followed her.

"Is--is he killed?"

Hard looked up from his task of reviving Scott, with the contents of his whiskey flask and saw to his amazement a white-faced Polly Street bending over him.

"Polly!" he gasped. "Then they didn't get you, after all?"

"Is he killed?" The girl's voice was sharp and hard.

"No, he ain't," Penhallow's hearty voice broke in. "It takes more than one bullet to kill a tough bird like Scotty."

Marc opened his eyes, grinned feebly and shut them again, not before he had seen Polly's anxious face bending over him.

"They--Pachuca didn't----"

"Not a bit of it, old man," Hard broke in. Then to Polly: "We thought Pachuca had carried you off."

Polly stared at him in horror. "Carried me off?" she gasped. "Were those men----" she paused, dazed. Hard explained.

Sam Penhallow in the meantime had tackled his prospective son-in-law.

"Where'd they get him, Ed?"

"Shoulder. Don't look to me like no vital spot."

"Well, we ain't all got our vitals as protected as you have, Ed," replied the sheriff, scathingly. "What was you up here for, anyhow?"

"Scott got it into his head that his girl had been kidnapped by Mexicans and he got us up here after three of 'em. Looks to me, Father-in-law, like he'd picked the wrong kidnapper."

"That'll do, Ed; fat folks was made to look funny, not to talk smart. Here, let's get this boy bandaged up before he bleeds to death."

Polly, white and frightened, looked on as Penhallow's experienced hands tore up a shirt and made it into a bandage. The wound looked very vital to her and she would have given up hope a dozen times if it hadn't been for Penhallow's cheerful monologue.

"That's the idea! Say, you boys better guess what this girl and I got in that Ford. We've been after treasure. Oh, you're waking up, are you?" as Scott opened his eyes. "I thought you would. You won't josh your wife much about Gasca and his hidden gold, I'm thinkin'."

"It's all my fault," wept the girl. "If I'd only told you where I was going this wouldn't have happened. Oh, Marc, I'm so sorry!"

"Well, you ain't the only one that's sorry, I reckon," grinned Merriam. "That Mexican ain't going to do much ridin' for a while by the looks of him."

"Humph!" Penhallow and Hard lifted Scott gently into the car. "Don't worry about him. He's had this coming to him for some time by all accounts and the worst of it is his hide's probably so tough he won't know it's been punctured." Penhallow spat disgustedly.

* * * * *

The return of the two cars, the one with the treasure and the other with the missing girl, made a sensation quite after Chula Vista's own heart. When it became known that the doctor had pronounced Scott's wound not dangerous but requiring care and quiet, the situation was all that could be desired. They would have been happier still could they have heard Polly's ultimatum, delivered the following morning when she and Scott were alone together a few minutes before Clara's wedding. Scott had insisted that the wedding should not be postponed for even a day.

"You're needed in Athens, Hard," he said. "With Bob and me both in the discard, you've got to stand by the ship." So the wedding had been set for ten o'clock, Polly's train leaving for the railroad junction at noon.

"Now, Marc, listen to me," Polly said. Her tone was severe. "I've never been really stern with you since our acquaintance. I've always given in and let you have the biggest piece of cake. Now I mean what I say. I'm not going back and leave you here, sick and alone. Besides, Mrs. Conrad changed her mind last night. She's going to Athens with Mr. Hard."

"There's Mabel Penhallow--she'd look after me," replied Scott, mildly.

"Well, she shan't. Let her look after that fat thing she's going to marry. No, I'm going to stay here until you're well again, and by that time my reputation will be in shreds--perfect shreds."

"Well, I think it will, too, but what can I do?"

"You can let me tell that minister to come right over here and marry us when he's through with the others," said Polly, firmly. Then, with tears in her eyes: "Oh, Marc, don't you see I don't like doing underhand things any more than you do, but I can't go away and leave you like this? I know my people and I know what they'll say. They'll say I did the right thing."

"Well, girlie, I don't know--I'd rather like to see Hard and Mrs. Conrad married, myself. Don't you think maybe you could get the Padre to do both jobs over here?"

Thus it was that a double wedding took place in the small room which the invalid occupied. Chula Vista, or at least those citizens who were allowed to witness the ceremony, were loud in their praises of the brides. Ed Merriam was particularly impressed and begged earnestly that it might be made a triple affair, but, as Mr. Penhallow justly observed, you can overdo even a good thing if you try hard enough. Ed was obliged to content himself with the role of spectator. Mr. Penhallow, himself, was a busy man. He not only acted as best man at both ceremonies, but he also had the gold on his nerves. It was removed immediately after the weddings--in the first spare moment that the best man had--to a near-by town which possessed banking facilities, a full account of its recovery being sent to Robert Street. This arrived in the same mail with a letter from Polly, and Bob celebrated his first sitting up by breaking the news to his parents.

"Tell you what, folks," he said, "while it's a bit of a blow to have our baby cut loose like this, there's something to be said on the other side. Marc Scott's a first-class fellow and he'll make her a much better husband than that Henderson chap ever would."

"But, Bob dear, what sort of a man is he?" Mrs. Street's delicate face expressed alarm neatly blended with horror.

"That," replied her husband, briefly, "is what I am going to find out. There's a train going west in about two hours and if you wish me to carry your blessing to our wayward child I shall be happy to do so."

Mr. and Mrs. Hard went south in Mendoza's Ford. Theirs was a gentle romance, with more poetry in it than the bride suspected. Two people so thoroughly suited to each other do not always have the happiness to meet at just the right time.

"For it is just the right time, Clara," Hard said. "A little earlier and we might not have had the wisdom to fall in love again with each other; a little later and we might have felt too old and dignified to think of it. I consider that we took things in the nick of time."

The success of the revolution, which resulted in the presidency of Alvaro Obregon, made popular a movement against the bandits which have flourished so long in Mexico. The case of Angel Gonzales was handled early one morning by a firing squad in the courtyard of Juan Pachuca's country residence. The evidence against Angel was cumulative, the episode of the Yaqui village being only one of many interesting exploits in which he had figured.

Just how much the escape of Juan Pachuca was due to the connivance of his captors will probably never be known. The general opinion, however, was that while his misdeeds were not to be condoned, in view of the friendly sentiments on the part of the new Government toward the United States; at the same time they were considered hardly of a nature to subject a gentleman to the fate of a bandit. Cared for by his friends on the other side while his wound was healing, Pachuca is still living peacefully and very quietly on our side of the border, waiting, probably, the opportunity to return to his country to help along another revolution.

Scott and Polly will be happy. They are happy at present, and are no longer at Athens; the Fiske, Doane Co. having appointed Scott to a better position in one of its Arizona mines, a delicate compliment, he says, to his wife's services in the little matter of the Gasca treasure.

[THE END]
Helen Bagg's Book: Across the Mesa

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