ders with the
suggestion that Sonora might hold many secrets from the amicable
gentleman. But a little later, in an inquiry from Rhodes she
explained.

"See you, senor, Dario Ruiz was _compadre_ of Senor Alfredo Bernard,
Americanos not understanding all in that word, and the grandfather of
Dario was major-domo of the rancho of Soledad at that time the Apaches
are going down and killing the people there. That is when the mine was
lost. On the skin of a sheep it was told in writing all about it, and
Dario had that skin. Sure he had! It was old and had been buried in
the sand, and holes were eaten in it by wild things, but Don Alfredo
did read it, and I was hearing the reading of it to Dario Ruiz, but of
what use the reading when that mine bewitched itself into hiding?"

"But the writing? Did that bewitch itself away also?" demanded
Billie.

"How could I be asking of that when Dario was dead down there in the
desert, and his wife, that was my cousin Anita, was crazy wild against
Don Alfredo the father of you! Ai, that was a bad time, and Don
Alfredo with black silence on him for very sorrow. And never again in
his life did he take the Sonora trail for adventures or old treasure.
And it is best that you keep to a mind like his mind, senorita. He
grew wise, but Dario died for that wisdom, and in Sonora someone
always dies before wisdom is found. First it was two priests went to
death for that gold, and since that old day many have been going. It
is a witchcraft, and no blessing on it!"

"Well, I reckon I'd be willing to cross my fingers, and take the
trail if I could get started right," decided Rhodes. "It certainly
sounds alluring."

"I did go in once," confessed Pike, "but we had no luck, struck a
_temporale_ where a Papago had smallpox, and two dry wells where there
should have been water. My working pardner weakened at Paradones and
we made tracks for the good old border. That is no trail for a lone
white man."

"But the writing, the writing!" persisted Billie. "Tia Luz, you are a
gold mine yourself of stories, but this one you never told, and I am
crazy about it! You never forget anything, and the writing you _could_
not,--so we know you have the very words of that writing!"

"Yes, that is true too, for the words were not so many, and where some
words had been the wild things had eaten holes. The words said that
from the mine of El Alisal the mission of Soledad could be seen. And
from the door of Soledad it wa