n on the know. There was some sort of a
plague got 'em; he was scared it was gettin' him, too. So he starts in
makin' a long report to the home church, which if he had finished would
have been as long as your arm and would of been packed off to Spain and
that would of been the last you and me ever heard of it. But it looks
like, when he'd written as far as he got, he maybe felt rotten and put
it away, intendin' to finish the job the next day. And the plague,
smallpox or whatever it was, finished him first."

"Fishy enough, by the sound of it, isn't it?" mused Kendric.

"Fishy, your hat! There's folks would say fishy to a man that
stampeded in sayin' he'd found a gold mine. Me, while they guyed him,
I'd go take a look-see. And it didn't read fishy to Juarez and it
didn't to Fernando Escobar, else why the six inches of knife?"

"Well," said Kendric, "we'll know soon enough. If you can find your
way to the place all right?"

"Juarez had a noodle on him," grunted Barlow. "And he was as full of
hate as a tick of dog's blood. From the steer he gave me I can find
the place all right."

Days and nights went by monotonously, routine merely varying to give
place to pipe-in-mouth idleness. But the third night out came an
occurrence to break the placidity of the voyage for Kendric, and both
to startle him and set him puzzling. He was out on deck in a steamer
chair which he had had the lazy forethought to bring, his feet cocked
up on the rail, his eyes on the vague expanse about him. There was no
moon; the sky was starlit. Barlow had said "Good night" half an hour
before; Philippine Charlie was muttering over the wheel; Nigger Ben's
voice was crooning from the galley where he was making a friendly call
on the canary. The water slipped and slapped and splashed alongside,
making pleasant music in the ears of a man who gave free rein to his
fancies and let them soar across a handful of centuries, back into the
golden day of the last of the Aztec Emperors. The Montezumas _had_ had
vast hoards of gold in nuggets and dust and hammered ornaments and
vessels; history vouched for that. And it stood to reason that the
princes and nobles, fearing the ultimate result of the might of the
Spaniards, would have taken steps to secrete some of their treasure
before the end came. Why not somewhere in Lower California, hurried
away by caravan and canoe to a stronghold far from doomed Mexico City?

He was conscious now of no ste