"There are certain places marked on the diagram. Daddy says the cross Lobarto made where the location of the hidden treasure is supposed to be, is on a bare hill. It is the hill between that gulch where we took refuge from the storm that day, and the gully up which Tom Collins says he chased that black horse."
"On the hill, then? Not in a hole at all?" asked Nan.
"That is what makes daddy doubtful. He says to have dug a hole out in the open, on the side or the top of that hill, would have been ridiculous. So he says he doesn't believe in it any more than he did before."
"But can't we go to look?" pleaded Grace.
"Of course we can," agreed Rhoda.
"Let's, then," Bess said, eagerly.
"That's what we will do, Bessie. Daddy says we can have the boys again and a pack horse, and can grub around all we like. Meanwhile he is going to hold on to the Mex. to see what turns up."
"And the others? What of them?" asked Nan.
"Why, we know that a part of his gang went back into Mexico with the stolen horses. Daddy has a posse of our own boys hunting the hills for those scoundrels that scared Steve's steers the other night. He says—daddy does—that he believes those Mexicans started that stampede just to get the outfit away from there. Evidently the gang believed the treasure is buried up that way. They haven't got the diagram, you see."
"That young Mexican must have been looking for the treasure when he came to the mouth of the bear den that time and scared us so," said Nan thoughtfully.