The Treasure Trail.

by Marah Ellis Ryan.

CHAPTER I

KIT AND THE GIRL OF THE LARK CALL

In the shade of Pedro Vijil's little brown adobe on the Granados rancho, a horseman squatted to repair a broken cinch with strips of rawhide, while his horse--a strong dappled roan with a s.m.u.tty face--stood near, the rawhide bridle over his head and the quirt trailing the ground.

The horseman's frame of mind was evidently not of the sweetest, for to Vijil he had expressed himself in forcible Mexican--which is supposed to be Spanish and often isn't--condemning the luck by which the cinch had gone bad at the wrong time, and as he tinkered he sang softly an old southern ditty:

_Oh--oh! I'm a good old rebel, Now that's just what I am!

For I won't be reconstructed And I don't care a d.a.m.n!_

He varied this musical gem occasionally by whistling the air as he punched holes and wove the rawhide thongs in and out through the spliced leather.

Once he halted in the midst of a strain and lifted his head, listening. Something like an echo of his own notes sounded very close, a mere shadow of a whistle.

Directly over his head was a window, unglazed and wooden barred. A fat brown olla, dripping moisture, almost filled the deep window sill, but the interior was all in shadow. Its one door was closed. The Vijil family was scattered around in the open, most of them under the _ramada_, and after a frowning moment of mystification the young fellow resumed his task, but in silence.

Then, after a still minute, more than the whisper of a whistle came to him--the subdued sweet call of a meadow lark. It was so sweet it might have been mate to any he had heard on the range that morning.

Only an instant he hesitated, then with equal care he gave the duplicate call, and held his breath to listen--not a sound came back.

"We've gone loco, Pardner," he observed to the s.m.u.tty-faced roan moving near him. "That jolt from the bay outlaw this morning has jingled my brain pans--we don't hear birds call us--we only think we do."

If he had even looked at Pardner he might have been given a sign, for the roan had lifted its head and was staring into the shadows back of the sweating olla.

"Hi, you caballero!"

The words were too clear to be mistaken, the "caballero" stared across to the only people in sight. There was Pedro Vijil sharpening an axe, while Merced, his wife, turned the creaking grindstone for him. The young olive branches of the Vijil family were having fun with a horned toad under the _ramada_ where gourd vines twisted about an ancient grape, and red peppers hung in a gorgeous splash of color. Between that and the blue haze of the far mountains there was no sign of humanity to account for such cheery youthful Americanism as the tone suggested.

"Hi, yourself!" he retorted, "whose ghost are you?"

There was a giggle from the barred window of the adobe.

"I don't dare say because I am not respectable just now," replied the voice. "I fell in the ditch and have nothing on but the Sunday shirt of Pedro. I am the funniest looking thing! wish I dared ride home in it to shock them all silly."

"Why not?" he asked, and again the girlish laugh gave him an odd thrill of comradeship.

"A good enough reason; they'd take Pat from me, and say he wasn't safe to ride--but he is! My tumble was my own fault for letting them put on that fool English saddle. Never again for me!"

"They are all right for old folks and a pacing pony," he observed, and again he heard the bubbling laugh.

"Well, Pat is not a pacing pony, not by a long shot; and I'm not old folks--yet!" Then after a little silence, "Haven't you any curiosity?"

"I reckon there's none allowed me on this count," he replied without lifting his head, "between the wooden bars and Pedro's shirt you certainly put the fences up on me."

"I'm a damsel in distress waiting for a rescuing knight with a white banner and a milk-white steed--" went on the laughing voice in stilted declamation.

"Sorry, friend, but my cayuse is a roan, and I never carried a white flag yet. You pick the wrong colors."

Whereupon he began the chanting of a war song, with an eye stealthily on the barred window.

_Hurrah! Hurrah! For southern rights, hurrah!

Hurrah for the bonnie blue flag That bears the single star!_

"Oh! _I_ know that!" the voice was now a hail of recognition. "Cap Pike always sings that when he's a little 'how-came-ye-so'--and _you're_ a Johnny Reb!"

"Um! twice removed," a.s.sented the man by the wall, "and you are a raiding Yank who has been landed in one of our fortresses with only one shirt to her back, and that one borrowed."

He had a momentary vision of two laughing gray eyes beside the olla, and the girl behind the bars laughed until Merced let the grindstone halt while she cast a glance towards the house as if in doubt as to whether three feet of adobe wall and stout bars could serve instead of a duena to foolish young Americans who chattered according to their foolishness.

There was an interval of silence, and then the girlish voice called again.

"Hi, Johnny Reb!"

"Same to you, Miss Yank."

"Aren't you the new Americano from California, for the La Partida rancho?"

"Even so, O wise one of the borrowed garment." The laugh came to him again.

"Why don't you ask how I know?" she demanded.

"It is borne in upon me that you are a witch of the desert, or the ghost of a dream, that you see through the adobe wall, and my equally thick skull. Far be it for me to doubt that the gift of second sight is yours, O seventh daughter of a seventh daughter!"

"No such thing! I'm the only one!" came the quick retort, and the young chap in the shade of the adobe shook with silent mirth.

"I see you laughing, Mr. Johnny Reb, you think you caught me that time. But you just halt and listen to me, I've a hunch and I'm going to prophesy."

"I knew you had the gift of second sight!"

"Maybe you won't believe me, but the hunch is that you--won't--hold--the job on these ranches!"

"What!" and he turned square around facing the window, then laughed.

"That's the way you mean to get even for the 'seventh daughter' guess is it? You think I can't handle horses?"

"Nix," was the inelegant reply, "I know you can, for I saw you handle that bay outlaw they ran in on you this morning: seven years old and no wrangler in Pima could ride him. Old Cap Pike said it was a d.a.m.n shame to put you up against that sun-fisher as an introduction to Granados."

"Oh! Pike did, did he? Nice and sympathetic of Pike. I reckon he's the old-time ranger I heard about out at the Junction, reading a red-fire riot to some native sons who were not keen for the cactus trail of the Villistas. That old captain must be a live wire, but he thinks I can't stick?"

"No-o, that wasn't Cap Pike, that was my own hunch. Say, are you married?"

"O senorita! this is so sudden!" he spoke in shy reproof, twisting his neckerchief in mock embarra.s.sment, and again Merced looked toward the house because of peals of laughter there.

"You are certainly funny when you do that," she said after her laughter had quieted down to giggles, "but I wasn't joking, honest Indian I wasn't! But how did you come to strike Granados?"