ink we better operate and find out?"

An idea hit the sheriff. He walked up to Hardman and ordered him to open
his mouth.

The jaws set like a vise.

Collins poked his revolver against the closed mouth. "Swear for us, old
bird. Get a move on you."

The mouth opened, and Collins inserted two fingers. When he withdrew
them they brought a set of false teeth. Under the plate was a tiny
rubber bag that stuck to it. Inside the bag was a paper. And on it was
written four lines in Spanish. Those lines told what he wanted to know.
They, too, were part of a direction for finding hidden treasure.

The sheriff wired at once to Bucky, in Chihuahua. Translated into plain
English, his cipher dispatch meant: "Come home at once. Trail getting
red hot."

But Bucky did not come. As it happened, that young man had other fish to
fry.

CHAPTER 9. "ADORE HAS ONLY ONE D."

After all, adventures are to the adventurous. In this prosaic twentieth
century the Land of Romance still beckons to eager eyes and gallant
hearts. The rutted money-grabber may deny till he is a nerve-racked
counting-machine, but youth, even to the end of time, will laugh to
scorn his pessimism and venture with elastic heel where danger and
mystery offer their dubious hazards.

So it was that Bucky and his little comrade found nothing of dulness
in the mission to which they had devoted themselves. In their task of
winning freedom for the American immured in the Chihuahua dungeon they
already found themselves in the heart of a web of intrigue, the stakes
of which were so high as to carry life and death with them in the
balance. But for them the sun shone brightly. It was enough that they
played the game and shared the risks together. The jocund morning was in
their hearts, and brought with it an augury of success based on nothing
so humdrum or tangible as reason.

O'Connor carried with him to the grim fortress not only his permit for
an inspection, but also a note from O'Halloran that was even more potent
in effect. For Colonel Ferdinand Gabilonda, warden of the prison, had
a shrewd suspicion that a plot was under way to overthrow the unpopular
administration of Megales, and though he was an office-holder under the
present government he had no objection to ingratiating himself with
the opposition, providing it could be done without compromising himself
openly. In other words, the warden was sitting on the fence waiting to
see which way the cat would jump. If