“They w’a’n’t no use tryin’ to do anything in the dark. So I snoozed. When I woke up, it looked as if somepin was doin’. Five er six uv them Injuns was crowded in the door o’ my cell er room or cave.
“‘Come in,’ I says, feelin’ a mighty sight stronger an’ pearter. But they didn’t. They ducked like yearlin’s. All but one. He wuz on guard. I was gittin’ purty cur’ous by this time. So, seein’ no one but a single baldy on watch, I got up, pushed him to one side and walked out into a kind o’ corridor. It was not till then that I knowed anything about the lay o’ the land. This hall was like a gal’ry in the side o’ the sink hole. On the outside they wuz openin’s, nacherl like, jis like holes in the rock. Out o’ these ye could look down whar it was black and smelly with sulphur. Up above, ye could see the sky. On the inside o’ the gal’ery, they wuz the caves, an’, I discovered later, some other gal’ries runnin’ back to I don’t know whar or what. Like enough, store rooms.
“Ye kin bet, they wuz a commotion. Sich gibberish as wuz set up would a made ye tired. I didn’t keer much fur the old Injuns, but ole bearded-boy was right on the job. They w’a’n’t no place to go, an’ I hadn’t no gun, so when ole White Blanket come up and laid hold o’ me, I knowed it wuz all over. He had a grip wuss’n Dan Doolin fifteen year ago. He carried me back to my coop an’ dropped me on the floor like a piller.
“But I seen one thing. When he nailed me, I wuz in what ye might call the holy o’ holies. It was a big room about the middle o’ the main gal’ry. I never seen it but that one time, my boy, but that was enough. Mebbe I’m ‘off,’ ‘cracked,’ ‘nutty,’ an’ ‘bughouse’—ye don’t have to believe it—but ef I didn’t see more gold and silver dishes in that room ’an ye could carry away in a wagon, I ain’t a settin’ here.”
Treasure—gold and silver lost in a cave! Roy’s heart thumped. Did he hear right?—was he dreaming or reading some old tale of fiction?
“You saw it?” was all he could say.
“’Bout that long,” answered Weston, snapping his fingers. “But it don’t take no camera long to take a picter. What I seen I seen. They was a altar an’ a lamp burnin’ on it. An’ that wuz no Injun racket. Wa’n’t no corn an’ grain an’ painted sticks an’ eagle feathers an’ false faces. What I see was a white man’s work.”
“But the gold and silver?” exclaimed Roy, forgetting hallucinations, Dan Doolin and all else.
“That tribe must a been a real tribe onct,” went on Mr. Weston. “That’s the only way I kin explain it. In that room wuz, I reckon, all the dishes ’at they ever made. They wa’n’t on the altar only. They was ever’whar. Can’t fool me on gold and silver. I seen ’em. Them on the altar had turquoises over ’em like dirt. I don’t know whether I figgered right, but, layin’ thar that night, I couldn’t see it but one way. Ole White Blanket wuz a fake. He wa’n’t thar to teach no religion nur to save no souls. He was gittin’ that plunder all together fur no good purpose—no better’n mine ef I’d a got the chanct.”
“Well,” urged Roy. “What then?”