The remainder of the day was spent in describing to the astonished Billy, who soon recovered his usual cheerful attitude toward life, the queer incident of the bell-ringer and the carved quesal on what the boys had already termed Treasure Cliff.
“Yes, but,” objected Billy, “any one might have amused themselves by carving it there,—cave-dwellers or something,—of course,”—he hurried on—“I don’t know much about these things, but it looks to me like a waste of time to go digging round there on a chance.”
“I guess you don’t know much about it, Billy,” smiled Frank, “the quesal was a sacred symbol of the Toltec priests and it would have been as much as an ordinary citizen’s life was worth to have carried it or drawn it anywhere, at any time.”
“That’s so,” agreed Billy, “as you say, Frank, I don’t know much about these things. I’m better at digging up stories than treasure. What do you propose to do?”
“Well,” said Frank, “my idea was this. We will overhaul an outfit to-night, and to-morrow morning we will start out for the foot of the cliff. We will mark out a space there extending in a semi-circle of which the center will be a point directly below the quesal’s beak and see what we can turn up. We three should be able to do a good bit of earth turning in a day, and if we find nothing we can take a fly back to La Merced. We are due there to-morrow night anyway, and if we don’t show up father will be worried.”
“A bully program,” cried Billy.
“With a bully lot of hard work involved,” retorted Frank.
Before they turned in that night the boys had selected the outfit they would take. Frank and Harry, of course, carried their pocket electric torches, rifles, revolvers and canteens. The blankets and such provisions as they thought it necessary to take along were done up in neat rolls. Billy was nominated the axe-man of the party, and Frank and Harry took the spade and the pick. Altogether when they set out as soon as it was light enough to see they were a formidable-looking party of pioneers.
They arrived at the foot of the cliff without adventure and set to work clearing away the dense undergrowth which matted the ground at the foot of the rocky wall. Frank had first driven a peg into the ground at a point as nearly in a plumb line with the down pointing beak of the quesal as he could strike. He attached to this a bit of cord about fifteen feet in length and with this improvised compass marked out a semi-circle in which to carry on operations.
The boys’ watches indicated noon by the time they had the brush cleared and three very tired but excited lads sat down to a hasty lunch. They knew that the preliminary work had now been done and if they were on the eve of any important discovery that the afternoon’s work would probably decide it.