"Go on, don't mind us. Say what's on your mind," laughed Tommy.
"Well, I'm surprised, Tommy Sharpe, that you would fall for that old story about a treasure being buried here. I thought boys were supposed to be clever," Kit said contemptuously.
"There's a treasure there all right," Tommy stated it with certainty. "I have Ramon Salazar's word for it. He looked me in the eye and told me."
"Now I know you're not telling us the truth. Ramon Salazar couldn't look one straight in the eye." Kit dropped into a chair, shrieking with laughter as she visualized Ramon Salazar trying to look anyone straight in the eye, for he was the most weirdly cross-eyed person she had ever seen.
"Maybe that's why he could look at me and lie like a pirate," replied
Tommy. "I paid him five good dollars for that map."
"You must have been crazy, Tommy."
"I wasn't. Ramon knew I had that five dollars, and if I hadn't given it to him, he would have stolen it."
"There's something fishy about the whole story, Tommy. There must have been some other reason for Ramon Salazar wishing that old map off on you." Kit knew the dwellers in the hills. "I can bet a nickel on it that he thought you might get interested and dig for the treasure and maybe find it." Suddenly Kit jumped up, "And I bet a dime on top of that that Kie Wicks was back of it."
"And I have reason to think you are right, Kit. Kie came in one day, saw the map and claimed that Ramon had stolen it from him, but when I offered it to him for nothing, he refused. Said that would be taking advantage of me."
Kit gave a boisterous shout of laughter. "Oh girls, if you only knew Kie Wicks, you'd see the joke of that. Why that man lives by taking advantage of people, and he never puts through a deal of any kind without cheating. He's notorious. That's his business in life, to take advantage of people."