“Yes, it is horrible,” said Ned, in a voice hardly above a whisper. “How can anybody be so foolish as to go?”
“Ah, that’s it,” said the American, with a harsh chuckle. “They’ve seen yellow, or fancied they have, and been dreaming about it till it’s too much for them, and away they go—mad.”
“Yellow?” said Chris wonderingly. “I don’t understand you.”
“He’s making fun of us, Chris.”
“Not a bit of it, my lad,” said the American. “I mean it. He’s had the yellow fever badly. I had an awful fit of it when I first came out here and took up land to grow things that won’t grow. There were plenty of old settlers and people here in those days, who had come cram full of stories about the salt desert yonder and what it hid. They said that the old mission fathers who first came here to travel about among the Indians discovered an old city there, half buried in the drifting sand, and beyond it two great hills. They said that there was a great treasure in the city, left by the old people who had lived there, and that the hills beyond were of solid gold, waiting for any one who would risk all there was to meet and go. They said he’d come back the richest man in the world—if he did come back at all.”
“And did anybody go?” said Chris breathlessly.
“Oh yes, my lad, as I said before; but no one had ever heard of any coming back to be rich. I didn’t go. Hadn’t pluck enough, I s’pose, or else you might have seen me come back like that poor chap there. Don’t look very rich, do he?”
“No: horrible,” said Chris again. “Look, Ned; father’s doing something to him.”
“Yes,” said the American grimly, “and I expect we shall all have to do something to him soon.”
“What?” cried Ned excitedly.