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Show concealed a tear; and he went on to if3 ' aS ' sfi say that the old man had jealously "2 5 " guarded this paper for 20 years. He " X-M left It to his family as part of his es- &35sfe2c?vY '''iv tate, the rest of which consisted of jC' llSiisSl-- -i two mules and a hypotenuse of non- -Zk- xlS "Tjjv j"" " The sheet of paper was of the old MIiL MOP feL blue kind used during the Civil war. Kslfci? '(1 vTl sS"i' " It was dated June 14, 1863; and K? VV 2 l?Vs! it described the hiding place of ten V'- "-4J. burro-loads of gold and silver coin I 1" 1 GN valued at $300,000. Old Rundle grand- g -'Jz t& ! 7 - V' Sf father of his grandson, Sam was f I - l V VW ll J given the information by a Spanish I 1 ) voVV 7 burying, and who died many years V Ml' I if c' y before no, afterward in old Rundle's wf ' tS Hi X- KJty J house. Old Rundle wrote it down I I r?ft ll "Why didn't your father look this " IM "ff -f "He went blind before he could do . -- Q f&sffliU jjf ' "Why didn't you hunt for it your- . 'g' j' '.f fc! jl 1 "Well," said he, Tve only known 1 M I W about the paper for ten years. First I -v C ( I " SP there was the spring plowin' to do, P '- tJT 7 " Czi V in I and then choppln' the weeds out of -Jt vrnf wjtf " FNiV r the corn; and then come takln' fod- lMr ifT ' SSSw der; and mighty soon winter was on ll -" ' f' , rr uJJj? us. It seemed to run along that way JnL - qfev t1-' year after year." ' !rLt!S&&&$r "'" -SiB ' V" That sounded perfectly reasonable ) r) -sMss'-Jk lr ' ' to me, so I took it up with young Lee (. Vs vJji--ggSia Rundle at once. .' ? gz fff5pgl';!t The directions on the paper were C'i'y" k5j simple. The whole burro cavalcade "".V" laden with the treasure started from .-. an old Spanish mission in Dolores C - county. They traveled due south by the p, ZZ" compass until they reached the Ala- mito river. They forded this, and " ' W ,ff tf&l buried the treasure on the top of a fN 5aiSE: ssriiii little mountain shaped like a pack- uSW- ''lc'T rtfr saddle standing in a row between two St5- 4$r' " " - 'T'W Zra s higher one. A heap of stones Js rjJeiJ ' ' S marked the place of the buried treas- . fir" ,, . ure. All the party except the Span- Awsy, JSICC, 3 Way VYlt1 yOUT Water mafM ish priest were killed by Indians a few , ana VsHsfjonc!" 4 t ZJ HERE are many kinds of T fools. Now, will everybody every-body please sit still until they are called upon specifically spe-cifically to rise? V I had been every kind 13 J of fool except one. I had pl expended my patrimony 3 pretended my matrimony, played poker, lawn-tennis, and bucket-ihops bucket-ihops parted soon with my money in many ways. But there remained one role of the wearer of cap and bells that I had not played. That was the seeker after buried treasure. To few floes the delectable furor come. But of all the would-be followers in the hoof-prints of King Midas none has found a pursuit so rich in pleasurable promise. But, going back from my theme a while as lame pens must do I was a fool of the sentimental sort 1 saw May Martha Mangum, and was hers. She was eighteen, the color of the white ivory keys of a new piano, beautiful, beau-tiful, and possessed by the exquisite solemnity and pathetic witchery of an . unsophisticated angel doomed to live In a small, dull, Texas prairie-town. May Martha's father v as a man hidden hid-den behind whiskers and spectacles. He lived for bugs and butterflies and all Insects that fly or crawl or buzz or get down your back or in the butter. but-ter. He was an entomologist, or words to that effect. He spent his life seining the air for flying fish of the June-bug order, and then sticking pins through 'em and calling 'em names. There was another besides myself who thought May Martha Mangum one to be desired. That was Good-loe Good-loe Banks, a young man Just home from college. He had all the attainments attain-ments io be found in books Latin, Creek, philosophy and especially the higher branches of mathematics and logic. If It hadn't been for his habit of pouring out this information and learning learn-ing on every one that he addressed I'd have liked him pretty well. But, even' as it was, he and I were, you would have thought, great pals. But, in our talks together and In our isits and conversation with May Martha, neither Goodloe Banks nor I could find out which one of us she preferred. May Martha was a natural-born natural-born non-committal; and knew in her cradle how to keep people guessing. Old Man Mangum certainly was absent-minded. After a long time he found out one day a little butterfly must have told him that two young men were trying to throw a net over the head of the young person, a daughter, daugh-ter, or some such technical appendage, appen-dage, who looked after his comforts. I never knew scientists could rise to such occasions. Old Mangum orally oral-ly labeled and classified Goodloe and myself easily among the lowest orders or-ders of the vertebrates; and in Eng- lisn, too, without going any further into in-to Latin than the simple references :o Orgetorix, Rex Helvetli which is as far as I ever went myself. And he told us that if he ever caught us around his house again he would add us to his collection. Goodloe Banks and I remained away five days, expecting the storm to subside. sub-side. When we dared to call at the uouse again May Martha Mangum and her father were gone. Gone! The house they had rented was closed. Their little store of goods and chattels chat-tels was gone also. And not a word of farewell to either eith-er of us from May Martha not a white, fluttering note pinned to the hawthorn-bush; not a chalk mark on the gate post nor a postcard in the postofflce to give us a clue. For two months Goodloe Banks and I separately tried every scheme we could think of to track the runaways. We used our friendship and Influence with the ticket agent, with livery stable sta-ble men, railroad conductors, and our one lone, lorn constable, but without results. In talking things over one afternoon after-noon he said to me; "Suppose you do find her, Ed, whereby where-by would you profit? Miss Mangum has a mind. Perhaps It Is yet uncultured, un-cultured, but she is destined for higher high-er things than you could give her. I have talked with no one who seemed to appreciate more the enchantment of the ancient poets and writers and the modern cults that have assimilated assimilat-ed and expanded their philosophy of life. Don't you think you are wasting your time looking for her?" "My idea," said I, "of a happy home In an eight-room house in a grove of live oaks by the side of a charco on a Texas prairie. piano," I went on, "with an automatic player in the sitting sit-ting room, three thousand head of cattle cat-tle under fence for a starter, a buck-board buck-board and ponies always hitched at a post for 'the missus' and May Martha Mangum to spend the profits of the ranch as she pleases, and to abide with me, and put my slippers and pipe away every day in places where they cannot be found of evenings. That," said I, "is wha't is to be and a fig, a dried, Smyrna, dago-stand tig for your curriculums, cults and philosophy." philos-ophy." "She is meant for higher things," repeated Goodloe Banks. "Whatever she Is meant for," I answered, an-swered, "just now she Is out of pocket. pock-et. And I shall find her as soon as 1 can without aid of the colleges." "The game is blocked,'" said Goodloe, Good-loe, putting down a domino; and we hod the beer. Shortly after that a young farmer whom I knew came into town and brought me a folded blue paper. He taid his grandfather had Just died. I concealed a tear; and he went on to say that the old man had jealously guarded this paper for 20 years. He left it to his family as part of his estate, es-tate, the rest of which consisted of two mules and a hypotenuse of non-arable non-arable land. The sheet of paper was of the old blue kind used during the Civil war. It was dated June 14, 1863; and it described the hiding place of ten burro-loads of gold and silver coin valued at $300,000. Old Rundle grandfather grand-father of his grandson, Sam was given the information by a Spanish priest who was In on the treasure-burying, treasure-burying, and who died many yeara before no, afterward in old Rundle's house. Old Rundle wrote it down from dictation. "Why didn't your father look this up?" I asked young Rundle. "He went blind before he could do so," he replied. "Why didn't you hunt for it your- . self?" I asked, "Well," said he, "I've only known about the paper for ten years. First there was the spring plowtn' to do, and then choppln' the weeds out of the corn; and then come takln' fodder; fod-der; and mighty soon winter was on us. It seemed to run along that way year after year." That sounded perfectly reasonable to me, so I took it up with young Lee Rundle at once. The directions on the paper were simple. The whole burro cavalcade laden with the treasure started from an old Spanish mission in Dolores j county. They traveled due south by the compass until they reached the Ala-mito Ala-mito river. They forded this, and buried the treasure on the top of a little mountain shaped like a pack-saddle pack-saddle standing In a row between two higher ones A heap of stones marked the place of the burled treasure. treas-ure. All the party except the Spanish Span-ish priest were killed by Indians a few days later. The secret was a monopoly. monop-oly. It looked good to me. Lee Rundle suggested that we rig out a camping outfit, hire a surveyor to run out the line from the Spanish mission, and then spend the $300,000 seeing the sights in Forth Worth. But without being highly educated, I knew a way to save time and expense. We went to the state rand office, and had a practical, what they call a "working" sketch made of all the surveys of land from the old mission to the Alamito river. On this map I drew a line due southward to the river. The length of lines of each survey sur-vey and section of land was accurately accur-ately given on the sketch. By these we found the point on the river and had a "connection" made with It, and an Important, well-identified corner of the Los Animos five-league survey a grant made by King Philip of Spain. By doing this we did not need to have the line run out by a surveyor. It was a great saving of expense and time. So, Lee Rundle and I fitted out a two-horse wagon team with all the accessories, and drove a hundred and forty-nine miles to Chlco, the nearest near-est town to the point we wished to reach. There we picked up a deputy depu-ty county surveyor. He found the corner of the Los Animos survey for us, ran out the five thousand seven hundred and twenty varas west that our sketch called for, laid a stone on the spot, had coffee and bacon, and caught the mail-stage back to Chlco. I was pretty sure we would get that $300,000. Lee Rundle's was to be only one-third because I was paying all the expenses. With that $200,000 I knew I could find May Martha Mangum if she was on earth. And with it I could flutter the butterflies in old man Man-gum's Man-gum's dove-cot, too. If I could find that treasure! But Lee and I established camp. Across the river were a dozen little mountains densely covered by cedar-brakes, cedar-brakes, but not one shaped like a pack-saddle. That did not deter us. Appearances are deceptive. A pack-saddle, pack-saddle, like beauty, may exist only In the eye of the beholder. I and the grandson of the treasure examined those cedar-covered hills with the care of a lady hunting for a wicked flea. We explored every side, top, circumference, mean elevation, angle, slope and concavity of every one for two miles up and down the river. We spent four days doing so. Then we hitched up the roan and the dun, and hauled the remains of the coffee and bacon the 149 miles back to Concho City. As shortly as could be after our empty return Goodloe Banks and I foregathered in the back room of Snyder's Sny-der's saloon to play dominoes and fish for information. I told Goodloe about my expedition after the buried treasure. treas-ure. "If I could have found that three hundred thousand dollars," I said to him, "I could have scoured and sifted the face of the earth to find May Mar tha Mangum." "She is meant for higher things," said Goodloe. "I shall find her myself. my-self. But, tell me how you went about discovering the spot where this unearthed un-earthed Increment was Imprudently burled." 1 toid him in the smallest detail. I showed it in the draftsman's sketch with the distances marked plainly upon It After glancing over It in a masterly way, he leaned back in his chair and bestowed upon me an explosion of sardonic, sar-donic, superior, collegiate laughter. "Well, you are a fool, Jim," he said, when he could speak. "Why am I a fori?" I asked. "Burled treasure has becJ found before in many places." "Because," said he, "in calculating the point on the river where your line would strike, you neglected to allow for the variation. The variation there would be nine degrees west Let me have your pencil." Goodloe Banks figured rapidly on the back of an envelope. "The distance, from north to south, of the line run from the Spanish mission," said he, "is exactly 22 miles. It was run by a pocket compass, according ac-cording to your story. Allowing for the variation, the point on the Alamito river where you should have searched for your treasure Is exactly six miles and nine hundred and forty-five varas farther west than the place you hit upon. Oh, what a fool you are, Jim!" He smiled in his superior way; and then 1 saw come out In his face the singular; eager, consuming cupidity of the seeker after buried treasure. "Sometimes," he said with the air of the oracle, "these old traditions of hidden money are not without foundation. foun-dation. Suppose you let me look over that paper describing the location. Perhaps together we might " The result was that Goodloe Banks and I, rivals in lcve, became companions compan-ions in adventure. We went to Chico by stage from Huntersburg, the nearest near-est railroad town. In Chico we hired a team drawing a covered spring wagon wag-on and camping paraphernalia. We had the same surveyor run out our distance as revised by Goodloe and his variations, and then dismissed him and sent him on his homeward road. It was night when we arrived. I fed the horses and made a fire near the bank of the river and cooked supper. Goodloe would have helped; but his education had not fitted him for practical prac-tical things. But. while I worked he cheered me with the expression of great thoughts handed down from the dead ones of old. He quoted some translations from the Greek at much length. The next morning was a bright June one. We were up early and had breakfast. break-fast. Goodloe was charmed. He recitedKeats, re-citedKeats, I think It was, and Kelly or Shelley, while I broiled the bai on Goodloe was looking at old Rundle's j document when he ripped out a most uncollegiate swear-word. "Come here," he said, holding the paper up against Ihe sunlight "Look at that," he said, laying his finger against it On the blue paper a thing 1 nad never rotlced before I saw stand out in white letters the words and figures: fig-ures: Malvern, 1898." "What about it?" I asked. "It's the water mark," said Goodloe. Good-loe. "The paper was manufactured in 1S9S. The writing on the paper is dated da-ted 1863. This is a palpable fraud." "Oh, I don't knew," said I. 'The Rundles are pretty reliable, plain, uneducated un-educated country people. Maybe the paper manufacturers tried to perpetrate perpe-trate a swindle." And then Goodloe Banks went as wild as his education permitted. He dropped the glasses off his nose and glared at me. "I've often told you you were a fool," he said. "You have let yourself be imposed upon by a clodhopper. And you have imposed upon me." I rose and pointed a large pewter spoon at 'him, fresh from the dish water. wa-ter. "Goodloe Banks," I said, "I care not one parboiled navy bean for your education. edu-cation. I always barely tolerated it in any one, and I despised it in , you. What has your learning done for you? It is a curse to yourself and a bore to your friends. Away," I said, "away with your water marks and variations! varia-tions! They are nothing to me. They shall not deflect me from my quest" I pointed with my spoon across the river to a small mountain shaped like a pack saddle. "I am going to search that mountain," moun-tain," I went on, "for the treasure. Decide now whether you are In It or not. If you wish to let a water mark or a variation shake your soul, you are no true adventurer. Decide." A white cloud of dust began to rise far down the river road. It was the mail wagon from Hesperus to Chlco. Goodloe flagged It. "I am done with the swindle," said he sourly. "No one but a fool would pay any attention to that paper now. Well, you always were a feol, Jim. I leave you to your fate." He gathered his personal traps, climbed into the mail-wagon, adjusted adjust-ed his glasses nervously, and flew away In a cloud of dust I investigated the hill shaped like a pack saddle from base to summit. I found an absolute absence of signs relating re-lating to buried treasure. There was no pile of stones, no ancient blazes on the trees, none of the evidences of the three hundred thousand dollars, as set forth in the document of old man Rundle. I came down the hill In the cool of the afternoon. Suddenly, out of the cedar-brake I stepped into a beautiful green valley, where a tributary small stream ran into the Alamito river. And there I was startled to see what I took to be a wild man, with unkempt beard and ragged hair, pursuing a giant butterfly with brilliant wings. "Perhaps he is an escaped madman," mad-man," I thought; and wondered how he had strayed so far from seats of education and learning. And then I took a few more steps and saw a vine-covered cottage near the small stream. And, in a little grassy glade. I saw May Martha Mangum Man-gum plucking wild flowers. She straightened up and looked at me. For the first time since I knew her I saw her face which was the color of the white keys of a new piano pi-ano turn pink. I walked toward her without a word. She let the gathered flowers trickle slowly from her band to the grass. "I knew you would come, Jim," she said clearly. "Father wouldn't let me write, but I know you would come." What followed you may guess there was my wagon and team just across the river. I've often wondered what good too much education is to a man if he can't use It for himself. If all the benefits of It are to go to others where does It come in? For, May Martha Mangum abides with me. There is an eight-room house in a live oak grove, and a piano with an automatic player, and a good ; start toward the three thousand heat) ' of cattle Is under fence. |