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was a rank one, too; but I'm ashamed
to say that, desperate as I was and
seeing yellow "and in the land where
right and wrong seemed to get mixed
up at every turn, the rankness of it
just didn't strike me.
"You fellows ''have never heard,
likely, of a little tribe called the
'Quetzals,' down in Yucatan. No, of
course not. But every one down
round Mexico and Central America
way has heard of them and their
treasure. -They're so rich that they
are able to pay the government well
to let them alone. Where they keep
their gold, everybody knew well
enough was somewhere up- among
the tremendous mountain cliffs. But
it had never been considered healthy
to try to find out anything more
about it than that.
"Well, I'm not going to tell you
about that journey into the interior
in the heat. It was bad enough to
make enough to make another story,
"but I'll cut it all out. We kept well
clear of the trail, you'd better be
lieve, and worked higher and higher,
aiming to come down upon the town
from the interior a direction from
which the Quetzals would never be
expecting a visitor. When we did
come on the place it was just by ac
cident I was going to say good luck,
but that wouldn't be just the right
word.
"Baking in the sun, the village lay
huddled beneath us, a sort of a nest
of brownish yellow, flat-roofed adobe
houses, on a great shelf of .the mountain-side.
"Then we started off to work our
way around the head of the canon,
it was night sunset when we reached
the bank of the river, above the
canon, and found it here a pleasant,
quick stream, running between two
low banks, and looking as if it might
have trout in it. Here we knew we
were in danger at once, so we backed
off into the brush again and decided
to lie low until moonrise.
"From our hiding place we could
see quite a way down the slope, to a
spot where a heavy spring spouted
out from under a rock. When Baldy
and Antonio got thirsty both at the
same time it seemed quite all right
that they should creep down to the
spring and get a drink. 3
"Well, the fellows had no more-f
than reached the spring 'when I saw-
them kind of stiffen up, pull 'their
knives. Next second I heard a cryt
and a scuffling. I was up and after
them in a jiffy, pulling my own knife
as I ran, for you will understand thatr
was no time or place to use our gunsj
if we could help it. There at the sidej
of the trail was an old man, crumpled
up on his face, with Baldy just pull-
ing the knife from out of his back, be
tween the shoulder-blades. In the(
middle of the trail lay a boy. He had
evidently been running away when
Antonio's big bowie-knife caught?
him. The way the greaser could
fling a knife was a caution.
"At the sight of the old injun andf
the boy lying there in their blood, I
felt pretty sick, I can tell you. Thisc
was not the kind of fighting I was:
looking for. It was just the coldest
blooded kind of murder. But I un-
derstood it all in a glance and hav
ing gone into such a game with those;
two ruffians, it was no more than t
had a right to expect. There was'
nothing I could say very well, so It
just stood there chewing in disgust
"Taking turns, two sleeping while,
the other kept watch, we rested untiK
well into the night, when the moxm'
was just getting up. Then knowing
that it was the time when every in
jun would be out of the way, we start
ed up the trail.
"I tell you we didn't . make any
more noise than so many ghosts as
we crept along in the blackness of
the shadowed side of the trail. Pret
ty soon we came to the bridge. It
was one1 of their injun bridges, flimsy
enough to our eyes, but answering
their purpose as well as anything
more fancy.
"Prom this point the'trail left the
river. It climbed, climbed, climbed,
