I care about that;
the excitement's enough for me."

"Fond of excitement, are you?"

"I'm afraid so. I'll have to get over that, I suppose."

"Not if you marry Marc Scott," said Marc's loyal friend, quite forgetting
his sinister intentions. "There's nothing tame about Marc. I'd hate to be
the woman who tried to fool him. She would have some job on her hands."

"Well, she'd have to be cleverer than I am to do it," sighed Polly,
sadly.

"Well, I don't know. Say, what's your idea of finding this junk, anyhow?
Where d'you reckon it'd be? Above ground?"

Polly looked a bit taken back. "I never thought of that," she admitted.
"It's the first time I ever hunted treasure. Where do you think it will
be?"

"Well, if you want the truth, I ain't looking for it to be there at all.
My idea is that Gasca got rid of it and that's why they killed him. And
yet----"

"Yes?"

"Kind of funny the woman hung around after he died. The natural thing
would have been for her to have gone back to her people, wouldn't it?"

"Of course it would. I know it's there."

"If you know it's there it's a pity I didn't bring along a couple of
pickaxes," said Sam, with a grin. "All the treasures I ever heard about
called for pickaxes, skeletons and an old family chart."

"Oh, have it your own way!" said the aggravated Polly. "But who, I'd like
to know, would have come up to this lonely place to look for gold, and how
could an ignorant old Mexican like Gasca dispose of it without getting
into trouble?"

"Well, mebbe so. Anyhow, here's your cabin."

The cabin was situated up the canyon on the right hand side of the road.
It was a little wooden shack, sagging and discolored, its windows broken
and its whole appearance denoting that utter desolation to which only a
deserted homestead can attain; not even a human wreck can equal this
silent abandonment. It had been a fairly decent place once; there were
outbuildings which evidenced past association with pigs and chickens,
while back of the house stood a wooden cart such as country people use for
hauling wood or hay.

In the dusk, that saddest of sad times, between sunset and moonrise,
Wildcat Canyon presented an awesome appearance. The hills were outlined
sharply and darkly against the sky; the little stream that dribbled past
the cabin was so quiet that it seemed the ghost of water; there was no
movement--no sound--no suggestion of life.

Polly drew a long breath. "What a dreadful place to l