For answer he moved a little to one side, showing beneath his knee one corner of a wooden box sticking above the sand.
At this we dropped beside him, and in five minutes had uncovered the whole of the chest. It was not very large, and was locked. A rock from the wash fixed that, however. We threw back the lid.
It was full to the brim of gold coins, thrown in loose, nigh two bushels of them.
"The treasure!" I cried.
There it was, sure enough, or some of it. We looked the rest through, but found nothing but the gold coins. The altar ornaments and jewels were lacking.
"Probably buried in another box or so," said Denton.
Schwartz wanted to dig around a little.
"No good," said I. "We've got our work cut out for us as it is."
Denton backed me up. We were both old hands at the business, had each in our time suffered the "cotton-mouth" thirst, and the memory of it outweighed any desire for treasure.
But Schwartz was money-mad. Left to himself he would have staid on that sand flat to perish, as certainly as had poor Billy. We had fairly to force him away, and then succeeded only because we let him fill all his pockets to bulging with the coins. As we moved up the next rise, he kept looking back and uttering little moans against the crime of leaving it.