THE MAP OF MYSTERY

Tommy Sharpe had been given an old shed on the edge of the cliff from which he could look straight down into the canyon behind the ranch house. He had made it over into a home. There were two rooms; one he used as a bedroom and the other was his den into which he put all the treasures he had collected.

Outside, a narrow veranda had been built out over the cliff and it was here that the boy loved to sit and watch the sky grow bright with the morning sun and again at evening see the rosy glow of sunset.

Tommy Sharpe’s cabin met the approval of the girls.

“You make me very proud of you, Tommy,” laughed Enid. “You do credit to my teaching.”

“You were a good teacher,” and Tommy put on such a doleful expression that the girls screamed with laughter. “Do you remember the time you made me clean out the cabin three times before I got it right?”

“Tilly was a cruel lady! But aren’t you glad now? See what a good housekeeper I made of you.” Enid looked proudly about the clean little shack and showed her approval.

“Sure,” said Tommy simply.

“That boy is just as much of a bluffer as ever,” exclaimed Kit. “I saw Cheerekee here with a broom. She disappeared as we came in. Tommy never dusted this place today, I know he didn’t.”

“Of course today is different. I couldn’t go to the station to meet you and clean house at the same time. Cheerekee did the work today.” Tommy agreed without a smile.

“And every day. Look here, Tommy Sharpe, tell the truth and say you have never swept or dusted this cabin in your life!” Bet grabbed him by the shoulder and turned him around. “Look me in the eye and tell the truth.”

“Well, if I don’t, I see to it that Cheerekee does,” he acknowledged at last.

“What’s more, Mr. Tommy Sharpe,” cried Enid gleefully, “you give her strict orders not to touch anything up on that shelf. Heavens! Look at the dust, girls, it’s an inch thick.”

“Ah ha, Tommy, we caught you there!”

“You would! I might have known you girls would see a little thing like that. But what’s the difference?”

“None at all, Tommy, only we won’t allow you to take credit for things that you don’t do,” scolded Enid playfully.

“That’s because you are all hard-hearted girls,” Tommy answered with a scowl.

“Now, let’s see your treasures.” Bet was already peering on the high shelf. “I want to see every one of them.”

The girls looked eagerly about on the shelves that ran three deep about the room, and each shelf was full to overflowing with his strange collections. Enid smiled as she noticed several little pine cone figures that she had given him for his own. These he had treasured and they now held a conspicuous place in his assortment of knick-knacks.

There were stuffed birds, arrowheads, old bits of pottery, and many Indian baskets.

“And look at that snake skin! Ugh, Tommy, how could you bear to touch the wriggling thing?” exclaimed Joy with a shudder of disgust.

“It had stopped wriggling when I touched it,” returned Tommy. “Can’t say as I like them squirmy, myself.”

“And what is this, Tommy?” called Enid. “Girls do come and look at this ugly thing in the jar. What is it? It’s like a big brown lizard.”

“That’s a baby Gila monster. Isn’t it a beauty? If you’ll look at it closely you’ll see that it’s not ugly at all. Look at the design of his back, like an Indian rug.” Tommy took the jar in his hand caressingly.

But Enid shuddered and turned to something more interesting which Bet was already examining.

“What’s he got there, Bet?” asked Enid laying her arm across her friend’s shoulder.

“Looks like an old map! Isn’t it quaint?” Bet was looking at it intently. “I love old maps. Where did you pick this up, Tommy?” she inquired.

“Oh, a Mexican wanted some money and offered to sell it to me for five dollars,” the boy answered with a smile. “He was such a wicked looking old fellow that I figured I might as well buy something from him as have him rob me. So I gave him five dollars. The map was all in tatters but I pasted it together. I rather like it myself.”

“Five dollars!” exclaimed Bet. “And I’m almost sure you could sell it to a museum for fifty. That map is a beauty.”

“If I ever get my five dollars back from it, I’ll be surprised. Personally I don’t believe it’s worth fifty cents, Mex.” Tommy shrugged his shoulders, and rather scorned Bet’s enthusiasm.

“Why it’s worth more than that just as a curiosity. Look at the arrows and X marks. And that weird looking tree! I wonder what it’s all about?”

“It’s a useful map,” declared Tommy with a smile. “It hides a stovepipe hole in that chimney. I couldn’t do without it in the summer.”

The girls all laughed. Only Bet was seriously interested in the map.

“I believe it’s a treasure map,” she murmured half to herself as if dreaming. “I’d love to hunt for treasure.” Then she turned to Tommy Sharpe: “Judge Breckenridge says there is an old legend of a treasure here in Lost Canyon. Of course he makes fun of it, but it might be true. What do you think about it, Kit?”

“I’d hurt too many people’s feelings if I told you what I think about it,” answered Kit.

“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.”

Tommy smiled. “I think Kie had a lot to do with it. I think he put Ramon up to selling it to me. But I don’t know why.”

“I wonder why Kie didn’t take back the map when you offered it to him? That surprised me. Usually he doesn’t turn down any kind of a gift.”

“He didn’t need this map,” said Tommy quietly.

“How do you know?”

“Because the map had been copied before I got it. The tracing marks were on it for a full day, then disappeared. I don’t pretend to know why,” Tommy turned away from the map, and one could see that he was not interested.

“It’s a mystery,” exclaimed Enid. “Get to work, Bet Baxter. The mystery of the treasure map! We’ll give you a week to solve the problem.”

“Don’t do it, Bet, please don’t! If you go mooning away about treasures and all that sort of thing, we’ll miss half the fun of the ranch. When you hunt for treasure, it’s work, work, work! And a big disappointment in the end,” advised Kit Patten.

“I’ve always had a yearning to dig for something. Once when I was a little girl, Uncle Nat was digging in our garden and he found an old rusty cannon ball and a piece of a flintlock, and ever since that I’ve always wanted to get a shovel and dig.” Bet’s voice had a longing in it that set the girls into screams of laughter.

“You ridiculous girl!” cried Joy affectionately. “You would try to start something!”

“But you’ll have to acknowledge that Bet usually finds what she goes out after,” remarked the quiet Shirley, pointing her camera toward the canyon wall opposite Tommy’s door. “And while we usually object, we’ve never had more fun or thrills than when she leads us into adventure.”

“Maybe so. But...” began Joy.

“And so I say,” continued Shirley, “let Bet lead the way and we’ll follow. If it’s treasure, we’ll help her dig. And if she goes in for fancy bronco busting, that’s O. K. too.”

“Oh, Shirley, don’t say that! You make me feel responsible and I don’t want that. Let’s not make any plans at all. Just be ready to do whatever comes our way. That’s always more fun.” Bet liked to have the thrill of unexpected adventure, hoping that something new would come their way.

“I have my heart set on teaching some of you to rope a steer,” Kit spoke up.

“Sure! It wouldn’t do at all for them to go back east before they’d learned that,” agreed Tommy, his eyes glowing at the prospect of showing off his skill with the rope.

“It isn’t as hard as it looks,” Kit encouraged the girls.

“I imagine we’ll find it harder than it looks,” laughed Bet as she tore herself away from the map. “It doesn’t look a bit difficult when that rope twirls through the air. I’ve seen it in the movies and once I tried it with the clothes line but I couldn’t do more than get the rope around my own neck. I know I’ll never learn.”

“Before the summer is over, Bet, you’ll be a regular cowboy. I’ll teach you myself,” Tommy asserted.

“And I don’t want to be taught. I’m sure I’d hate it,” exclaimed Joy.

“Nobody will learn if we are going to get interested in treasure maps and that sort of thing,” pouted Kit.

Bet spoke up firmly: “I’ve decided not to go treasure hunting. As a work of art, that map is a treasure in itself, I love it, but I’m going to leave the treasure hunting to Tommy and Kie Wicks and the cross-eyed Mexican.”

Bet was so positive in her assertion that the treasure could remain in the ground for all she cared, that no one guessed that before the month was out, not Bet alone, but all The Merriweather Girls would have no thought of anything except that treasure, and all the adventure it brought.

From early morning until late at night their one interest would be unravelling the mystery of Lost Canyon.

Even the old professor whose mind was set on Indian relics, would forget his errand to the hills and all that it involved and be heart and soul in the venture of the hidden treasure.

For Fate upsets all plans and leads into strange and undreamed-of adventures.