At length, tired and weary, our young friend stood on the verge of the stream over the bank of which the dank grass trailed, and the rank vine of the wild-gourd, with its silvery leaves, rioted in wildest luxuriance and profusion.
Glancing up through the branches of the hoary old cottonwood, he could see the glittering constellation of Scorpio far out on the south-western horizon, the fiery star Antares, which forms its heart, glowing like a ruby in the blue vault of heaven.
For a moment Clifford rested on the handle of the deep-sunken instrument, and, lifting his heavy felt hat with its leathern band—a badge of the ranchman throughout all the West—he drew a deep breath of the cool air that swayed the wild hop-vines and pendulous branches of the willows to and fro in the moonlight.
Around, a thousand wild-flowers distilled their odors. The sensitive-plant nodded softly in dew-drenched sprays, its rosy balls flecked with drops that glinted like gems, while all the air was heavy with its perfume of spices and honey.
The foamy elder-blooms exhaled an odor of entrancing sweetness, and over the senses stole the fragrance from pond-lilies and water-mint, wild-hyacinths and mignonette.
A large prairie-owl flitted by, lending a note of discord to the tranquillity which had reigned, with its dismal hoot, that mellowed away into a plaintive shriek as it lit in some far-off, sombre nook.
Then again silence brooded over the valley, broken only by the croak of frogs along the rush-lined shore, or the soft chirp of insects in the grass; but suddenly the jabbering wail of a lone wolf, distant yet distinct, pierced through the gloom, startling into silence all the minor voices of the night, and adding with its wild echoes a double sense of loneliness to the weird night.
Clifford turned to the iron rod, and with a few vigorous efforts sent it deep into the yielding earth; and as the quiet of nature once more reigned over the wild glade, he kept turning the handle mechanically, and listening to the gruesome sound of the answering wolves—faint cries that made him shudder—when, lo! the steel point grated harshly against some obstruction beneath his feet.
Quickly withdrawing the rod, he seized the sharp spade and began digging, throwing the black soil out of the pit with frantic haste as he sank rapidly down into the earth at each stroke. As he neared the goal he became dizzy and faint, his breath coming in quick gasps, and the blinding sweat streaming from his face, from which it fell in great drops like rain.
Pausing a moment, while the weird, horned moon peered through a rift in the boughs overhead, and gleamed coldly on his upturned, haggard face, he thought of the wealth that might lie below,—his father's lost fortune; the wealth of Monteluma; its gems and red gold, with all the power that great treasure represented; then, quivering with excitement, he dashed the spade into the earth, and in a moment more the head of a cask was dimly outlined at his feet.