"Why! that's both Mexican and Irish," gasped Nan.
"My fader a gre't, big Irisher-man—yes!" said Juanita. "He marry my modder in Honoragas. She have fine hacienda from her papa—yes. She—"
But to put it in more understandable English, as Nan and Rhoda did later when they talked it over with Bess and Grace Mason, Juanita O'Harra told a very interesting—indeed, quite an exciting—story about Lobarto and the lost treasure the bandit chief had carried into the Rose Ranch region.
Juanita's mother had married the Irish contractor who had died when the girl was small. Six years and more before she told this tale to the interested Nan and Rhoda, Lobarto became a scourge of the country about Honoragas. He attacked haciendas, stealing and burning, even maltreating the helpless women and children after killing their defenders.
After robbing the churches, he took all the wealth he had gathered and, with the Mexican Federal troops on his trail, ran up into the United States. How he came to grief there and had to run again with United States troops and the Rose Ranch cowboys behind him, Rhoda had already told her friends.
But that Lobarto had left all the wealth he had stolen somewhere near Rose Ranch, the Mexicans knew as well as the Americans. When captured, members of Lobarto's gang had confessed. But they had been put to death by the Mexican authorities without telling just where the great cache of plunder was.
Juanita and her mother believed that the American owner of Rose Ranch had recovered the treasure and held their share from them. These Mexican people were both ignorant and suspicious. Juanita was very bitter against the Americanos, anyway. She had only come up into the States to work so as to support her mother, who remained still on the ruined plantation in Honoragas.
"I went to dhe Ranchio Rose," said Juanita, "and see thees senorita wit' her fader, dhe gre't Senyor Ham-mon'. He laugh at me—yes! He tell me he haf not found dhe tr-r-reasure. But I know better—"
"You do not know anything of the kind," Nan said promptly. "You just have a bad temper and want to hate somebody. Rhoda tells you that she knows nothing about the money and jewels your mother lost. If they are ever found you and your mother shall have them."
"Of course," Rhoda added, "we would not want anything that was not strictly ours. No matter what the law might say about 'findings, keepings,' my father is not that kind, I'd have you know. We haven't found the treasure. If we ever do, I promise you we'll write to your mother at once."