Buried Treasure.docx

1、Buried TreasureBuried Treasure There are many kinds of fools. Now, will everybody please sit still until they are called upon specifically to rise? I had been every kind of fool except one. I had expended my patrimony, pretended my matrimony, played poker, lawn-tennis, and bucket-shops-parted soon w

2、ith my money in many ways. But there remained one rule of the wearer of cap and bells that I had not played. That was the Seeker after Buried Treasure. To few does the delectable furor come. But of all the would-be followers in the hoof- prints of King Midas none has found a pursuit so rich in pleas

3、urable promise.But, going back from my theme a while-as lame pens must do-I was a fool of the sentimental soft. I saw May Martha Mangum, and was hers. She was eighteen, the color of the white ivory keys of a new piano, beautiful, and possessed by the exquisite solemnity and pathetic witchery of an u

4、nsophisticated angel doomed to live in a small, dull, Texas prairie-town. She had a spirit and charm that could have enabled her to pluck rubies like raspberries from the crown of Belgium or any other sporty kingdom, but she did not know it, and I did not paint the picture for her.You see, I wanted

5、May Martha Mangum for to have and to hold. I wanted her to abide with me, and put my slippers and pipe away every day in places where they cannot be found of evenings.May Marthas father was a man hidden behind whiskers and spectacles. He lived for bugs and butterflies and all insects that fly or cra

6、wl or buzz or get down your back or in the butter. He was an etymologist, or words to that effect. He spent his life seining the air for flying fish of the June-bug order, and then sticking pins through em and calling em names.He and May Martha were the whole family. He prized her highly as a fine s

7、pecimen of the racibus humanus because she saw that he had food at times, and put his clothes on right side before, and kept his alcohol-bottles filled. Scientists, they say, are apt to be absent- minded.There was another besides myself who thought May Martha Mangum one to be desired. That was Goodl

8、oe Banks, a young man just home from college. He had all the attainments to be found in books-Latin, Greek, philosophy, and especially the higher branches of mathematics and logic.If it hadnt been for his habit of pouring out this information and learning on every one that he addressed, Id have like

9、d him pretty well. But, even as it was, he and I were, you would have thought, great pals.We got together every time we could because each of us wanted to pump the other for whatever straws we could to find which way the wind blew from the heart of May Martha Mangum-rather a mixed metaphor; Goodloe

10、Banks would never have been guilty of that. That is the way of rivals.You might say that Goodloe ran to books, manners, culture, rowing, intellect, and clothes. I would have put you in mind more of baseball and Friday-night debating societies-by way of culture-and maybe of a good horseback rider.But

11、 in our talks together, and in our visits and conversation with May Martha, neither Goodloe Banks nor I could find out which one of us she preferred. May Martha was a natural-born non-committal, and knew in her cradle how to keep people guessing.As I said, old man Mangum was absentminded. After a lo

12、ng time he found out one day-a little butterfly must have told him-that two young men were trying to throw a net over the head of the young person, a daughter, or some such technical appendage, who looked after his comforts.I never knew scientists could rise to such occasions. Old Mangum orally labe

13、lled and classified Goodloe and myself easily among the lowest orders of the vertebrates; and in English, too, without going any further into Latin than the simple references to Orgetorix, Rex Helvetii-which is as far as I ever went, myself. And he told us that if he ever caught us around his house

14、again he would add us to his collection.Goodloe Banks and I remained away five days, expecting the storm to subside. When we dared to call at the house again May Martha Mangum and her father were gone. Gone!The house they had rented was closed. Their little store of goods and chattels was gone also.

15、And not a word of farewell to either of us from May Martha-not a white, fluttering note pinned to the hawthorn-bush; not a chalk-mark on the gate-post nor a post-card in the post-office to give us a clew.For two months Goodloe Banks and I-separately-tried every scheme we could think of to track the

16、runaways. We used our friendship and influence with the ticket-agent, with livery-stable men, railroad conductors, and our one lone, lorn constable, but without results.Then we became better friends and worse enemies than ever. We forgathered in the back room of Snyders saloon every afternoon after

17、work, and played dominoes, and laid conversational traps to find out from each other if anything had been discovered. That is the way of rivals.Now, Goodloe Banks had a sarcastic way of displaying his own learning and putting me in the class that was reading Poor Jane Ray, her bird is dead, she cann

18、ot play.Well, I rather liked Goodloe, and I had a contempt for his college learning, and I was always regarded as good- natured, so I kept my temper. And I was trying to find out if he knew anything about May Martha, so I endured his society.In talking things over one afternoon he said to me:Suppose

19、 you do find her, Ed, whereby would you profit? Miss Mangum has a mind. Perhaps it is yet uncultured, but she is destined for higher things than you could give her. I have talked with no one who seemed to appreciate more the enchantment of the ancient poets and writers and the modern cults that have

20、 assimilated and expendedtheir philosophy of life. Dont you think you are wasting your time looking for her?My idea, said I, of a happy home is an eight-room house in a grove of live-oaks by the side of a charco on a Texas prairie. A piano, I went on, with an automatic player in the sitting-room, th

21、ree thousand head of cattle under fence for a starter, a buckboard and ponies always hitched at a post for the missus -and May Martha Mangum to spend the profits of the ranch as she pleases, and to abide with me, and put my slippers and pipe away every day in places where they cannot be found of eve

22、nings. That, said I, is what is to be; and a fig-a dried, Smyrna, dago-stand fig-for your curriculums, cults, and philosophy.She is meant for higher things, repeated Goodloe Banks.Whatever she is meant for, I answered, just now she is out of pocket. And I shall find her as soon as I can without aid

23、of the colleges.The game is blocked, said Goodloe, putting down a domino and we had the beer.Shortly after that a young farmer whom I knew came into town and brought me a folded blue paper. He said his grandfather had just died. I concealed a tear, and he went on to say that the old man had jealousl

24、y guarded this paper for twenty years. He left it to his family as part of his estate, the rest of which consisted of two mules and a hypotenuse of non-arable land.The sheet of paper was of the old, blue kind used during the rebellion of the abolitionists against the secessionists. It was dated June

25、 14, 1863, and it described the hiding-place of ten burro-loads of gold and silver coin valued at three hundred thousand dollars. Old Rundle- grandfather of his grandson, Sam-was given the information by a Spanish priest who was in on the treasure-burying, and who died many years before-no, afterwar

26、d-in old Rundles house. Old Rundle wrote it down from dictation.Why didnt your father look this up? I asked young Rundle.He went blind before he could do so, he replied.Why didnt you hunt for it yourself? I asked.Well, said he, Ive only known about the paper for ten years. First there was the spring

27、 ploughin to do, and then choppin the weeds out of the corn; and then come takin fodder; and mighty soon winter was on us. It seemed to run along that way year after year.That sounded perfectly reasonable to me, so I took it up with young Lee Rundle at once.The directions on the paper were simple. T

28、he whole burro cavalcade laden with the treasure started from an old Spanish mission in Dolores County. They travelled due south by the compass until they reached the Alamito River. They forded this, and buried the treasure on the top of a little mountain shaped like a pack-saddle standing in a row

29、between two higher ones. A heap of stones marked the place of the buried treasure. All the party except the Spanish priest were killed by Indians a few days later. The secret was a monopoly. It looked good to me.Lee Rundle suggested that we rig out a camping outfit, hire a surveyor to run out the li

30、ne from the Spanish mission, and then spend the three hundred thousand dollars seeing the sights in Fort Worth. But, without being highly educated, I knew a way to save time and expense.We went to the State land-office and had a practical, what they call a working, sketch made of all the surveys of

31、land from the old mission to the Alamito River. On this map I drew a line due southward to the river. The length of lines of each survey and section of land was accurately given on the sketch. By these we found the point on the river and had a connection made with it and an important, well- identifi

32、ed corner of the Los Animos five-league survey-a grant made by King Philip of Spain.By doing this we did not need to have the line run out by a surveyor. It was a great saving of expense and time.So, Lee Rundle and I fitted out a two-horse wagon team with all the accessories, and drove a hundred and forty-nine miles to Chico, the nearest town to the point we wished to reach. There we picked up a deputy county surveyor. He found the corner of the Los Animos survey for us, ran out the five thousand seven hundred and twenty varas west that our sket