Frances was proud of him. Never for an instant did he seem to worry about parting with the treasure to Lonergan. His fears for it had never been the fears of a miser who worshiped wealth–no, indeed!
Now it was plain that the thought of seeing his old partner alive again, and putting into his hands the part of the treasure rightfully belonging to him, delighted Captain Dan Rugley in every fibre of his being.
“The poor old codger!” exclaimed the ranchman, affectionately. “And to think of Lon being in need, and living poor–maybe actually suffering–when I’ve been doing so well here, and have had this old chest right under my thumb all these years.
“You see, Frances,” said the Captain, making more of an explanation than ever before, “Lon and I got possession of that chest in a funny way.
“We’d been sent after as mean a man as ever infested the Border–and there were some mighty mean men along the Rio Grande in those days. He had slipped across the Border to escape us; but in those times we didn’t pay much attention to the line between the States and Mexico.
“We went after him just the same. He was with a crowd of regular bandits, we found out. And they were aiming to clean up Señor Milo Morales’ hacienda.
“We got onto their plans, and we rode hard to the hacienda to head them off. We knew the old Spaniard–as fine a Castilian gentleman as ever stepped in shoe-leather.
“We stopped with him a while, beat off the bandits, and captured our man. After everything quieted down (as we thought) we started for the Border with the prisoner. Señor Morales was an old man, without chick or child, and not a relative in the world to leave his wealth to. His was one of the few Castilian families that had run out. Neither in Mexico nor in Spain did he have a blood tie.
“His vast estates he had already willed to the Church. Such faithful servants as he had (and they were few, for the peon is not noted for gratitude) he had already taken care of.
“Lon and I had saved his life as well as his personal property, he was good enough to say, and he showed us this treasure chest and what was in it. When he passed on, he said, it should be ours if we were fixed so we could get it before the Mexican authorities stepped in and grabbed it all, or before bandits cleaned out the hacienda. It was a toss-up in those days between the two, which was the most voracious!