"I have my heart set on teaching some of you to rope a steer," Kit spoke up.

"Sure! It wouldn't do at all for them to go back east before they'd learned that," agreed Tommy, his eyes glowing at the prospect of showing off his skill with the rope.

"It isn't as hard as it looks," Kit encouraged the girls.

"I imagine we'll find it harder than it looks," laughed Bet as she tore herself away from the map. "It doesn't look a bit difficult when that rope twirls through the air. I've seen it in the movies and once I tried it with the clothes line but I couldn't do more than get the rope around my own neck. I know I'll never learn."

"Before the summer is over, Bet, you'll be a regular cowboy. I'll teach you myself," Tommy a.s.serted.

"And I don't want to be taught. I'm sure I'd hate it," exclaimed Joy.

"n.o.body will learn if we are going to get interested in treasure maps and that sort of thing," pouted Kit.

Bet spoke up firmly: "I've decided not to go treasure hunting. As a work of art, that map is a treasure in itself, I love it, but I'm going to leave the treasure hunting to Tommy and Kie Wicks and the cross-eyed Mexican."

Bet was so positive in her a.s.sertion that the treasure could remain in the ground for all she cared, that no one guessed that before the month was out, not Bet alone, but all The Merriweather Girls would have no thought of anything except that treasure, and all the adventure it brought.

From early morning until late at night their one interest would be unravelling the mystery of Lost Canyon.

Even the old professor whose mind was set on Indian relics, would forget his errand to the hills and all that it involved and be heart and soul in the venture of the hidden treasure.

For Fate upsets all plans and leads into strange and undreamed-of adventures.

CHAPTER VIII

_KIT'S HOME FOLKS_

Kit's greeting to her quiet, undemonstrative father was as effusive as he would allow it to be. She threw both arms about him with a cry of joy but all he said was: "You're home! That's good!" His tall, stooped figure was that of a hard working man, an outdoor man. His face bore criss-cross wrinkles stamped by the winds and heat of the mountain.

It was from him that Kit had inherited her deep-set brown eyes, her tall, slight body. Father and daughter were very much alike in looks but her mother had given her a disposition of joyousness that her silent father admired but utterly lacked.

Kit knew her father's way. She saw the happiness in his eyes and knew that he had missed her, perhaps even more than her sociable mother had done. Ma Patten could make friends with everybody who came near, and in that way she had worked off a lot of her loneliness at her daughter's absence. But Dad Patten confided in no one, not even Ma knew what was in his heart.

After the greeting was over the old man turned to the professor and continued his conversation without another glance at Kit. One could see that the professor and the mountaineer were already friends. Not many words had pa.s.sed between them by way of introduction but the vigorous handshake a.s.sured the city man that he was welcome, and only when they began to talk of Indians and their ways did Dad Patten speak.

The two men were in the middle of a discussion when Kit arrived home.

After a few minutes she disappeared and the next thing the professor saw was Kit trying to embrace a stout old squaw. But the two years separation from Indian Mary had made Kit a stranger to her, at least one would judge so by the graven image att.i.tude she put on.

Kit grabbed her by the shoulder. "Now look here, Mary, don't put on any airs with me. Didn't you pretty nearly bring me up? Why, I'm almost like your own child. Tell me, don't you love me almost as much as you do Young Mary?"

The Indian woman shook her head for no, but Kit laughed. "I don't believe you! You always liked me better than Young Mary.--Where is she? I brought her something from New York."

"Where? What?" asked Old Mary.

"I want to give it to Young Mary myself. It's so pretty that if you saw it first you'd never let Mary have it. Where is she?"

"Way off visiting at the reservation. Pretty soon she come home. Lots of Indians come soon."

"I'm so disappointed," exclaimed Kit. "Here, I brought something for you, too." And Kit held out a large package.

The old Indian woman unwrapped the large bundle and disclosed a dress.

Kit had chosen it with the idea of pleasing her old nurse, who, above everything else, delighted in bright clothes. A pleasing mixture of reds and yellows; modernistic, they called it in New York, but in Arizona it was just plain "Injun Caste."

The old woman gave grunts of satisfaction as she patted the bright cloth, then scurried away to show her treasure to her husband, Indian Joe. He hurried out and shook hands with Kit and beamed on her when Old Mary displayed her gown. The Indian was more up-to-date than his wife. He had been to school when young and knew the ways of the white people.

Kit extended a package to Indian Joe.

"Ah!" breathed Mary excitedly when Joe undid the string and she saw a pair of comfortable felt slippers. "He like much," she said with a nod of her head.

But when they saw a stranger watching them from the window they became embarra.s.sed and wanted to hide away until Kit told them that Professor Gillette was a great friend of the Indians and would want to meet them and get acquainted.

Old Mary shook her head with disapproval. It took her a long time to make up with strangers. But Joe was different. When Kit told him that the professor was going to pitch a tent in the canyon and live there for the summer, he nodded and said: "Me fix him up. Joe knows where."

And Kit knew by that that Indian Joe and the stranger would be friends.

The professor had studied his Indians well. He waited patiently for the proper chance to introduce himself. It came the first evening.

Joe and Old Mary always built a little bonfire back of their shack and sat around it, as they had done in previous days when outdoor cooking was their custom. In fact they had never outgrown the habit of preparing a meal over the glowing coals.

But on this evening the fire was only to look at. And very quietly the professor approached and squatted down beside them. He merely nodded and then stared into the fire as Indian Joe was doing.

This continued for a long time, then the professor got up as quietly, said goodnight and left.

After that Indian Joe and Old Mary were his devoted friends.

The professor returned to the house as pleased as if he had already found the ancient ruins that he was seeking.

"I'm afraid you can't expect to get much help from the Indians,"

remarked Dad Patten. "There's a legend in these mountains to the effect that Indians ma.s.sacred a band of white men, and the daughter of the old Indian chief cursed her own people. Within a year the tribe had died out or wandered away. The village was deserted. Now the daughter is supposed to appear at times when there is treachery going on, a sort of warning to those who are doing wrong."

"That's a good idea," laughed Professor Gillette. "It has probably kept many a man on the straight path."

"Maybe so, but I haven't ever noticed it. There is plenty of crookedness goes on in the canyon. And no one, Indian or white man, is safe from the ghost."

"Ah, that's interesting!" exclaimed the professor rubbing his hands together in his excitement.

"The Mexicans believe it to a man," broke in Kit. "They will hardly come into the canyon at night, especially if they have anything on their conscience. Some white men are afraid of that ghost. Maybe you believe in ghosts yourself, Professor Gillette?"

"No, I'm afraid not. But that ghost does complicate matters. The Indians will not want to give me any information and I had planned to save time by winning their confidence."

"Don't worry," replied Dad Patten. "Make friends with them and sooner or later they'll let it slip out without meaning to. That is if they know anything about a lost village. And truly, Professor, we always thought that was just a lot of silly talk about there being an ancient Indian town near here. I've never seen it and I've never seen anyone else who has. So I doubt it."

"We'll see." The professor's eyes were aglow once more at the prospect of finding the ruins and winning glory for himself. "If there is one here, we'll find it, if it takes all summer. And now I'm very tired and I'd like to go to bed," he added as simply as a child.

Ma Patten was in her glory. Here was another person for her to mother.

And she fluttered around the old man as if he were indeed a child.