at the same time
lining his own pockets. It was a time of outlawry and Fernando Escobar
was a product of his time. He was never above cutting throats for
small recompense, if he glimpsed safety to follow the deed, and knew
all of the tricks of holding wealthy citizens of his own or another
country for ransoms. Upon one of his recent excursions the bandit
captain had raided an old mission church for its candlesticks. With
one companion, a lieutenant named Juarez, he had made so thorough a job
of tearing things to pieces that the two had discovered a secret which
had lain hidden from the passing eyes of worshipful padres for a matter
of centuries. It was a secret vault in the adobe wall, masked by a
canvas of the Virgin. And in the small compartment were not only a few
minor articles which Escobar knew how to turn into money, but some
papers. And whenever a bandit, of any land under the sun, stumbles
upon papers secretly immured, it is inevitable that he should hastily
make himself master of the contents, stirred by a hope of treasure.

"And right enough, he'd found it," said Barlow holding a forgotten
match over his pipe. "If there's any truth in it three priests, way
back in the fifteen hundreds, stumbled onto enough pagan swag to make a
man cry to think about it. Held it accursed, I guess. And didn't need
it just then in their business, any way. Just what is it? I don't
know. Juarez himself didn't know; Captain Escobar let him get just so
far and decided to hog the whole thing and slipped six inches of knife
into him. How the poor devil lived to morning, I don't know and I
don't care to think about it. But live he did and spilled me the yarn,
praying to God every other gasp that I'd beat Fernando Escobar to it.
He said he had seen names there to set any man dreaming; the name of
Montezuma and Guatomotzin; of Cortes and others. He figured that there
was Aztec gold in it; that the three old priests had somehow tumbled on
to the hiding place; that they three planned to keep the knowledge
among themselves and, when they devoutly judged the time was right, to
pass the news on to the Church in Spain.

"I wish Juarez had had time to read the whole works," meditated Barlow.
"Anyway he read enough and guessed enough on top of it for me to guess
most of the rest while I've been millin' around, getting goin'. Two of
the three priests died in a hurry at about the same time, leavin' the
other priest the one man i