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his comforts.

I never knew scientists could rise to such occasions. Old Mangum
orally labelled and classified Goodloe and myself easily among the

lowest orders of the vertebrates; and in English, too, without going
any further into Latin than the simple references to Orgetorix, Rex

Helvetii--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. When we dared to call at the house again May Martha Mangum
and her father were gone. Gone! The house they had rented was

closed. Their little store of goods and chattels was gone also.
And not a word of farewell to either 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 post-card in the post-office to give us a clew.

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 men, railroad
conductors, and our one lone, lorn constable, but without results.

Then we became better friends and worse enemies than ever. We
forgathered in the back room of Snyder's saloon every afternoon after

work, and played dominoes, and laid conversational traps to find out
from each other if anything had been discovered. That is the way of

rivals.
Now, Goodloe Banks had a sarcastic way of displaying his own learning

and putting me in the class that was reading "Poor Jane Ray, her bird
is dead, she cannot play." Well, I rather liked Goodloe, and I had a

contempt for his college learning, and I was always regarded as good-
natured, so I kept my temper. And I was trying to find out if he knew

anything about May Martha, so I endured his society.
In talking things over one afternoon he said to me:

"Suppose you do find her, Ed, whereby would you profit? Miss Mangum
has a mind. Perhaps it is yet uncultured, but she is destined for

higher 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 and expended their
philosophy of life. Don't you think you are wasting your time looking

for her?"
"My idea," said I, "of a happy home is an eight-room house in a grove

of live-oaks by the side of a charco on a Texas prairie. A piano," I
went on, "with an automaticplayer in the sitting-room, three thousand

head of cattle under fence for a starter, a buckboard 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 what is to be; and a
fig--a dried, Smyrna, dago-stand fig--for your curriculums, cults, and

philosophy."
"She is meant for higher things," repeated Goodloe Banks.

"Whatever she is meant for," I answered, just now she is out of
pocket. And I shall find her as soon as I can without aid of the

colleges."
"The game is blocked," said Goodloe, putting down a domino and we had

the beer.
Shortly after that a young farmer whom I knew came into town and

brought me a folded blue paper. He said 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 twenty years. He left it to his
family as part of his estate, the rest of which consisted of two mules

and a hypotenuse of non-arable land.
The sheet of paper was of the old, blue kind used during the rebellion

of the abolitionists against the secessionists. It was dated June 14,
1863, and it described the hiding-place of ten burro-loads of gold and

silver coin valued at three hundred thousand dollars. Old Rundle--
grandfather of his grandson, Sam--was given the information by a

Spanish priest who was in on the treasure-burying, and who died many
years 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 yourself?" I asked.

"Well," said he, "I've only known about the paper for ten years.
First there was the spring ploughin' to do, and then choppin' the

weeds out of the corn; and then come takin' fodder; and mighty soon
winter was on us. It seemed to run along that way year after year."

That sounded perfectlyreasonable 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

County. They travelled due south by the compass until they reached
the Alamito River. They forded this, and buried the treasure on the

top of a little mountain shaped like a pack-saddle standing in a row
between two higher ones. A heap of stones marked the place of the

buried treasure. All the party except the Spanish priest were killed
by Indians a few days later. The secret was a monopoly. 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 three
hundred thousand dollars seeing the sights in Fort Worth. But,

without being highly educated, I knew a way to save time and expense.
We went to the State land-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 and section of land was
accurately 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 Chico, the
nearest town to the point we wished to reach. There we picked up a

deputy 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 Chico.

I was pretty sure we would get that three hundred thousand dollars.
Lee Rundle's was to be only one-third, because I was paying all the

expenses. With that two hundred thousand dollars I knew I could find
May Martha Mangum if she was on earth. And with it I could flutter

the butterflies in old man Mangum'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, but not one shaped like a

pack-saddle. That did not deter us. Appearances are deceptive. A
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 the 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 one hundred and forty-

nine miles back to Concho City.
Lee Rundle chewed much tobacco on the return trip. I was busy

driving, because I was in a hurry.
As shortly as could be after our empty return Goodloe Banks and I

forgathered in the back room of Snyder's saloon to play dominoes and
fish for information. I told Goodloe about my expedition after the

buried treasure.
"If I could have found that three hundred thousand dollars," I said to

him, "I could have scoured and sifted the surface of the earth to find
May Martha Mangum."

"She is meant for higher things," said Goodloe. "I shall find her
myself. But, tell me how you went about discovering the spot where

this unearthed increment was imprudently buried."
I told him in the smallest detail. I showed him the draughtsman'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, superior, collegiate
laughter.

"Well, you are a fool, Jim," he said, when he could speak.
"It's your play," said I, patiently, fingering my double-six.

"Twenty," said Goodloe, making two crosses on the table with his
chalk.

"Why am I a fool?" I asked. "Buried treasure has been 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 twenty-two miles. It was run by a

pocket-compass, according 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!"
"What is this variation that you speak of?" I asked. "I thought

figures never lied."
"The variation of the magneticcompass," said Goodloe, "from the true

meridian."
He smiled in his superior way; and then I 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. 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 love, became

companions in adventure. We went to Chico by stage from Huntersburg,
the nearest railroad town. In Chico we hired a team drawing a covered

spring-wagon 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 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.
"Anacreon," he explained. "That was a favorite passage with Miss

Mangum--as I recited it."
"She is meant for higher things," said I, repeating his phrase.

"Can there be anything higher," asked Goodloe, "than to dwell in the
society of the classics, to live in the atmosphere of learning and

culture? You have often decried education. What of your wasted
efforts through your ignorance of simple mathematics? How soon would

you have found your treasure if my knowledge had not shown you your
error?"

"We'll take a look at those hills across the river first," said I,
"and see what we find. I am still doubtful about variations. I have

been brought up to believe that the needle is true to the pole."
The next morning was a bright June one. We were up early and had

breakfast. Goodloe was charmed. He recited--Keats, I think it was,
and Kelly or Shelley--while I broiled the bacon. We were getting

ready to cross the river, which was little more than a shallow creek
there, and explore the many sharp-peaked cedar-covered hills on the

other side.
"My good Ulysses," said Goodloe, slapping me on the shoulder while I

was washing the tin breakfast-plates, "let me see the enchanted
document once more. I believe it gives directions for climbing the



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