IL DECIDES 300
XIX THE RETURN OF TULA 328
XX EAGLE AND SERPENT 346
XXI EACH TO HIS OWN 360

ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE
"I'll hit any trail with you--barring Mexican
politics." _Frontispiece_
"You poor kid, you have a hard time with the
disreputables you pick up." 76
"No, Ramon! No!" she cried, and flung herself between
him and his victims. 280
The Indian girl was steadily gaining on the German. 356

THE TREASURE TRAIL

CHAPTER I

KIT AND THE GIRL OF THE LARK CALL

In the shade of Pedro Vijil's little brown adobe on the Granados
rancho, a horseman squatted to repair a broken cinch with strips of
rawhide, while his horse--a strong dappled roan with a smutty
face--stood near, the rawhide bridle over his head and the quirt
trailing the ground.

The horseman's frame of mind was evidently not of the sweetest, for to
Vijil he had expressed himself in forcible Mexican--which is supposed
to be Spanish and often isn't--condemning the luck by which the cinch
had gone bad at the wrong time, and as he tinkered he sang softly an
old southern ditty:

_Oh--oh! I'm a good old rebel,
Now that's just what I am!
For I won't be reconstructed
And I don't care a damn!_

He varied this musical gem occasionally by whistling the air as he
punched holes and wove the rawhide thongs in and out through the
spliced leather.

Once he halted in the midst of a strain and lifted his head,
listening. Something like an echo of his own notes sounded very close,
a mere shadow of a whistle.

Directly over his head was a window, unglazed and wooden barred. A fat
brown olla, dripping moisture, almost filled the deep window sill, but
the interior was all in shadow. Its one door was closed. The Vijil
family was scattered around in the open, most of them under the
_ramada_, and after a frowning moment of mystification the young
fellow resumed his task, but in silence.

Then, after a still minute, more than the whisper of a whistle came to
him--the subdued sweet call of a mea