“To another mine that is, or should be, about two hours on horseback from here, in a valley at the foot of yonder peak. I only heard of it last night, though I came to Cumarvo to seek it, and it would seem that it was very rich in Montezuma’s day.”
“In Montezuma’s day?” he said.
“Yes, it was last worked then, and I propose that if we can find it, and it looks well, that you should ‘denounce’ it for yourself, giving a reward of a few dollars to the Indian from whom I had the information, who is a poor man.”
“But if it is so good, why don’t you denounce it, Ignatio; and how did you come to hear about it after all these years?”
“For two reasons, señor; first, because I wish to do you a service if it is in my humble power, and, secondly, because I cannot look after it and must leave you, though to do so will be a true grief to me, for, if you will permit me to say it, never have I met a man for whom I conceived a greater respect and affection. Perhaps, if I return again, you will give me a share in the profits, so that we may grow rich together. And now I will show you how I came to hear of the mine.” And I fetched the scroll, with the translation that I had made, and read it to him.
He listened eagerly, for, like yourself, Señor Jones, your countryman, James Strickland, loved adventure and all things that have to do with the past of this ancient land.
“Let us go at once,” he said when I had finished. “I will order the horses and a mule with the prospecting kit to be got ready. Shall we take men with us?”
“I think not, señor; the mine is not yet found, and the less talk there is about it the better, for if the matter is noised abroad somebody may be before you in denouncing it. The messenger who came to see me last night is a trusty man, but he is weary with journeying, and rests, so we will go alone.”
An hour later we were riding among the mountains, I having left a message for Molas to say that I should return before dark. The trail which we were following was a difficult one, and ran for some miles along the edge of a precipice till it reached the crest of the range. Indeed, so bad was it in parts, that we were forced to dismount and drive the horses and mule before us, while we followed, clinging to the ferns and creepers on the rocks to keep ourselves from falling.
At length we came to the summit of the range, and turned downwards through a forest of oak and fir trees, heading for a valley that lay at the base of a solitary mountain peak, along which ran a stream. Down this stream we rode a mile or more, since I was searching for a certain pointed rock that was mentioned in the scroll as standing by itself on the slope of a mountain where no trees grew, beneath which should be the glen where in the days of Guatemoc was a great ceiba tree that, so said the writing, overshadowed the mouth of the mine.