dollars. You
can't eat dollars, can you? And the candy was like the kind my mother
never gives, and just for an old stick was older than Pedro. Huh! And
then he--he--he made me put my hand on the top of my head----"

"Hands on tops of heads!" cried the echo, dramatically.

"And swore a swore I'd never, never, honest Injun, tell a single tell,
else he'd--he'd kill me! Kill me right straight down dead! And now I
have and he will, and I forgot and you made me! I hate you, I hate
you! And won't you feel bad when I'm all deaded and you you done it,
'stead of him--and--and----"

The sense of security had fled instantly, and completely. The memory
of Antonio's dark face as he had stood threateningly before the little
fellow, at midnight by the window, returned with all its vivid,
terrorizing power. Springing to the farthest reach of the room Ned
crouched there, wide-eyed and trembling, and, of course, Luis followed
his example.

To "Forty-niner's" reassuring words, and to Mrs. Benton's cajoling
ones, neither child paid any further heed. They had been trained to
believe that their promised word was the most sacred of all things,
and now they had not only been induced to break that, but to break it
in the face of Antonio Bernal's terrible threat.

The elders left them to themselves and regarded one another with
regretful eyes. Then Aunt Sally repeated in detail all that there was
to tell concerning the curious wand which had pointed the way to
wealth; and now Ephraim listened in vast respect. On the first
recital, so hurriedly given by Jessica, and when she had run to get
the staff, he had thought of the matter as one of the shepherd's
"pious mummeries." It now assumed a graver aspect. The lost staff
might possess some magnetic quality which was invaluable, as Old
Century believed; but beyond all that was the uncomfortable reflection
that Antonio Bernal was somewhere in hiding about Sobrante, and that
doubtless it had been he, or his emissary, who had tampered with the
mail pouch and caused Marty's disaster.

"Well, a man that hides must have somethin' to be ashamed of. And I
believe every single word that child has told," said Aunt Sally, in
conclusion of her long harangue.

"H'm! I thought that 'snake' had had his fang extracted down there at
Los Angeles; but it seems he's the sort can grow a new one, when
needed. Well, I'm powerful glad I'm home again. It takes a lot of
honest men to keep watch of one thief, and I'l