"What are 'nesters'?" asked Amelia.
"I guess you'd call 'em 'squatters' farther East. We don't like them on the ranges. They are small farmers who come and take up quarter sections of the open lands and fence them in."
"But is there really a treasure buried on Rose Ranch?" asked Nan, much more interested in this than she wished the others to observe.
"Why, I suppose so. They all say so. Lobarto and his gang were run off so quick that he had to cache almost everything but the hard cash he had with him. He had raided two churches in Mexico and plundered several haciendas before coming up from the Border, so people say."
"Why don't you ranch folks go and dig up his loot?" demanded Bess, wide-eyed.
"Well," laughed Rhoda, "we don't know where it is cached. It sounds rather preposterous, too—a wagon-load of gold and silver plate, altar ornaments, candlesticks, jeweled cloths, and all that. It does sound sort of romantic, doesn't it?"
"I should say it did!" the girls chorused.
Nan did not say another word in comment at the time. She was enormously curious about what she had overheard the Mexican girl say in the shop at Adminster. And how strangely she had stared at Rhoda Hammond!