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"He heard you then." "Well, what of it?" demanded the reckless one. "Aren't the boys going to search him' and find that map Lobarto made?" "My! but you are a high-handed young lady," chuckled Walter. "What we going to do with him, now we've got him?" asked Tom Collins suddenly. "Daddy ought to see him, don't you think?" said Rhoda confidently.
This news comes to my mother's ears by round-about. We do not know for sure. But Juan Sivello is one bad man like his uncle, Lobarto. It is the truth I write with this pen. Juan has collected together, it is said round-about, some men who once rode the ranges with Lobarto, and they go up into your country. For what? It is too easy, Miss. It is " "Oh! Oh!" giggled Bess. "What delicious slang!"
The quartette of girl chums from Lakeview Hall and Walter Mason, to whom the girls at once revealed the contents of Juanita's letter, were greatly excited over the Mexican treasure and the seekers therefor. Without doubt the Mexican girl at Honoragas had written the truth, as she knew it, to Rhoda. Lobarto, the bandit, had met his death five or six years before.
Some of the men had ridden with Lobarto himself, and they thought they knew more about the treasure than this Juan does." "But the map?" cried Grace. "Yes. He's got it. But it isn't much of a map. Because daddy knows the country so well, he says he recognizes the places marked on the diagram." "Oh, bully!" exclaimed Bess Harley. "Don't be so quick," advised Rhoda.
But that Lobarto had left all the wealth he had stolen somewhere near Rose Ranch, the Mexicans knew as well as the Americans. When captured, members of Lobarto's gang had confessed. But they had been put to death by the Mexican authorities without telling just where the great cache of plunder was.
In the first place, the cavern where the wealth was found chanced to be on land to which Mr. Hammond held the title. Mr. Hammond tried to return the church treasure and vestments; but two of the churches Lobarto had wrecked had never been rebuilt, and the priests were scattered. The same way with the coined money. The robber had gathered such coin as he had stolen and put it in sacks.
"My modder cannot read the language you speak," said Juanita, sullenly. "We will have the letter written in Spanish," promised Rhoda. "Write it to me," said the Mexican girl eagerly. "I must do all business for my modder. Yes. She do not know. She ees ver' poor. But if what Lobarto stole from us is r-recover-red, we shall be reech again. By goodness, yes!"
"It is not very clear at the best." "Oh! Oh!" groaned the too exuberant Bess. "There are certain places marked on the diagram. Daddy says the cross Lobarto made where the location of the hidden treasure is supposed to be, is on a bare hill. It is the hill between that gulch where we took refuge from the storm that day, and the gully up which Tom Collins says he chased that black horse."
But our boys got after him so quick and chased him so hard that they say he took less back to Mexico with him than be brought over the border." "What does that mean?" asked Bess quickly. "Why, he brought with him a lot of plunder, they say," Rhoda explained, "and he could not carry it back." "Then your folks got the plunder?" inquired Nan. "Not exactly! Lobarto hid it.
"Just think of poor Juanita and her mother," Nan said, agreeing with her girl friends. "These bad Mexicans will never give back any of the money Lobarto stole." "Scarcely!" exclaimed Rhoda. "I suppose Walter is speaking for me," said his sister simply. "I know I am timid. But I will stick if you other girls do." "Hoorah!" shouted Bess, hugging her. "Why! you are getting to be a regular sport.
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