ut earthy walls and the imprint
of feet on the ground. After a little, however, the passage suddenly
widened, and it was Adan who uttered the first exclamation of surprise.
It was, indeed, a hoarse gurgle. The walls were veined with what
appeared to be irregular bands of dirty crystal, pricked with
glittering yellow. There were, perhaps, a thousand of these little
points bared from the jealous earth, and they shone with a steady
baleful glare, magnetising six youthful eyes, stirring in three
careless brains the ghosts of ancient gold-lust, whose concrete
substance lay in the marble vaults of Spain. Immediately Roldan's
sympathy went out to the priest; and he knew that that commanding
intelligence could teach him one thing the less.

There was a rough pick on the ground, and many junks of quartz. Roldan
struck and rubbed two pieces together. In a moment his palm was filled
with jagged pieces of yellow metal. He blew on them lovingly, then put
them in his pocket.

"Dios de mi alma!" gasped Rafael, whose eyes were bulging from his
head. "It is as beautiful as the stars of the sky,--the stars in the
milky way with the film over them."

"But we need no more stars," said Adan. "We shall take away our pockets
full, but what shall we do with it? Surely this was not made to rot
with the earth. But it is too small for what you call money, if that is
so big as you say, Roldan. It would make fine nails for a church door."

"Now is not the time to think what you will do with it," said Roldan.
"It is enough that we have it to get. Much is very loose in the
crystal. Rub free all that you can, and fill every pocket. We will take
all we can carry away, and come again and again. Some day, when we are
men, perhaps, we will find a use for it. I for one do not believe that
anything that makes you love it can do harm. Does not the Church teach
us to love all things? Now let us work and not talk."

The boys in turn hacked out great pieces of quartz and rubbed the free
gold loose. Much of it could only be crushed out in machinery made for
the purpose, but a sufficient quantity of the quartz was poor and soft.
As the boys worked, they grew more and more silent, more and more
absorbed. They forgot their delight in rodeo, coliar, bear-hunts,
bull-fights, riding about the ranches from morning till noon, the race,
the religious processions, the dulces of their mothers' cooks. A new
and mighty passion possessed them, the strongest they had ever