d us. It
came up like a galleon in full sail; an enormous, barbaric thing, red as
an angry heathen god.

"When the moon came up red like that, the Aztecs used to sacrifice their
prisoners on the temple top," Percy announced.

"Go on, Perce. You got that out of _Golden Days_. Do you believe that,
Arthur?" I appealed.

Arthur answered, quite seriously: "Like as not. The moon was one of
their gods. When my father was in Mexico City he saw the stone where
they used to sacrifice their prisoners."

As we dropped down by the fire again some one asked whether the
Mound-Builders were older than the Aztecs. When we once got upon the
Mound-Builders we never willingly got away from them, and we were still
conjecturing when we heard a loud splash in the water.

"Must have been a big cat jumping," said Fritz. "They do sometimes. They
must see bugs in the dark. Look what a track the moon makes!"

There was a long, silvery streak on the water, and where the current
fretted over a big log it boiled up like gold pieces.

"Suppose there ever _was_ any gold hid away in this old river?" Fritz
asked. He lay like a little brown Indian, close to the fire, his chin on
his hand and his bare feet in the air. His brother laughed at him, but
Arthur took his suggestion seriously.

"Some of the Spaniards thought there was gold up here somewhere. Seven
cities chuck full of gold, they had it, and Coronado and his men came up
to hunt it. The Spaniards were all over this country once."

Percy looked interested. "Was that before the Mormons went through?"

We all laughed at this.

"Long enough before. Before the Pilgrim Fathers, Perce. Maybe they came
along this very river. They always followed the watercourses."

"I wonder where this river really does begin?" Tip mused. That was an
old and a favorite mystery which the map did not clearly explain. On the
map the little black line stopped somewhere in western Kansas; but since
rivers generally rose in mountains, it was only reasonable to suppose
that ours came from the Rockies. Its destination, we knew, was the
Missouri, and the Hassler boys always maintained that we could embark
at Sandtown in floodtime, follow our noses, and eventually arrive at
New Orleans. Now they took up their old argument. "If us boys had grit
enough to try it, it wouldn't take no time to get to Kansas City and St.
Joe."

We began to talk about the places we wanted to go to. The Hassler boys
wanted to see the stockya