Nan Sherwood at Rose Ranch Part 14

"I--I don't know what she means," stammered the girl from Rose Ranch.

"I guess I understand something about it," said the quicker-witted Nan. "She has been robbed by Lobarto, and she thinks your father has found the hidden treasure--the plunder Lobarto left behind at Rose Ranch when he was driven off six years ago."

"You know!" exclaimed the Mexican girl confidently. "How you know?"

"I know what you think. But that doesn't make it so," returned Nan promptly.

"I am sure she is not right in her mind," Rhoda sighed. "What could she have to do with all that treasure they say Lobarto stole in Mexico and hid on our ranch?"

"Come over here and sit down--both of you," commanded Nan, seeing that she had got the Mexican girl quieted for the time being. There was a log in the shade, and they took seats upon it. Nan said kindly to the Mexican: "Now, please, tell us quietly and calmly what you mean."

"Dhat Senorita Ham-mon'--"

"No, no! Begin at the beginning. Don't accuse Rhoda any more. Let us hear all about how you came to know about the treasure, and why you think it is yours."

"Dhat I tell you soon," said the girl quickly. "My modder an' me--"

"Who are you? What is your name?" asked Nan.

"Juanita O'Harra."

"Why! that's both Mexican and Irish," gasped Nan.

"My fader a gre't, big Irisher-man--yes!" said Juanita. "He marry my modder in Honoragas. She have fine hacienda from her papa--yes.

She--"

But to put it in more understandable English, as Nan and Rhoda did later when they talked it over with Bess and Grace Mason, Juanita O'Harra told a very interesting--indeed, quite an exciting--story about Lobarto and the lost treasure the bandit chief had carried into the Rose Ranch region.

Juanita's mother had married the Irish contractor who had died when the girl was small. Six years and more before she told this tale to the interested Nan and Rhoda, Lobarto became a scourge of the country about Honoragas. He attacked haciendas, stealing and burning, even maltreating the helpless women and children after killing their defenders.

After robbing the churches, he took all the wealth he had gathered and, with the Mexican Federal troops on his trail, ran up into the United States. How he came to grief there and had to run again with United States troops and the Rose Ranch cowboys behind him, Rhoda had already told her friends.

But that Lobarto had left all the wealth he had stolen somewhere near Rose Ranch, the Mexicans knew as well as the Americans. When captured, members of Lobarto's gang had confessed. But they had been put to death by the Mexican authorities without telling just where the great cache of plunder was.

Juanita and her mother believed that the American owner of Rose Ranch had recovered the treasure and held their share from them.

These Mexican people were both ignorant and suspicious. Juanita was very bitter against the _Americanos_, anyway. She had only come up into the States to work so as to support her mother, who remained still on the ruined plantation in Honoragas.

"I went to dhe Ranchio Rose," said Juanita, "and see thees senorita wit' her fader, dhe gre't Senyor Ham-mon'. He laugh at me--yes! He tell me he haf not found dhe tr-r-reasure. But I know better--"

"You do not know anything of the kind," Nan said promptly. "You just have a bad temper and want to hate somebody. Rhoda tells you that she knows nothing about the money and jewels your mother lost.

If they are ever found you and your mother shall have them."

"Of course," Rhoda added, "we would not want anything that was not strictly ours. No matter what the law might say about 'findings, keepings,' my father is not that kind, I'd have you know. We haven't found the treasure. If we ever do, I promise you we'll write to your mother at once."

"My modder cannot read the language you speak," said Juanita, sullenly.

"We will have the letter written in Spanish," promised Rhoda.

"Write it to me," said the Mexican girl eagerly. "I must do all business for my modder. Yes. She do not know. She ees ver' poor.

But if what Lobarto stole from us is r-recover-red, we shall be reech again. By goodness, yes!"

"In the end," Nan explained to Bess and Grace afterward, "I think we more than half convinced that Mexican girl that it was not her mother's money that dressed Rhoda so nicely."

"How you talk!" exclaimed Rhoda. "I am sorry for that Mex. But, goodness! how mad she was. Just as mad as a lion!"

"'Lion'!" sniffed Bess. "What do you know about lions?"

"We have them about Rose Ranch," said Rhoda, smiling wickedly.

"Oh, never!" squealed Grace.

"Why, lions grow in Africa," said Bess, doubtfully.

"More properly they are pumas, I suppose. But the boys call 'em lions," laughed Rhoda. "Oh, there are a lot of things about Rose Ranch that will surprise you."

"Don't say a word! I guess that is so. Something besides the roses," murmured Bess.

"I shall be afraid to go out of sight of the house," complained Grace, who was timid in any environment. "Don't tell me anything more, Rhoda."

Nevertheless they were all--and all the time--thinking of the trip West. It did not interfere with their standing in cla.s.ses, but outside of study hours and the time they spent in sleep, the three girls who had been invited by Rhoda to visit Rose Ranch talked of little else. And, of course, Rhoda herself was always willing to talk of her home down near the Mexican Border.

"I am just as sorry for that Mexican girl and her mother as I can be," Rhoda said on one occasion. "I've written daddy about it. I expect he doesn't remember Mrs. O'Harra's coming to Rose Ranch with her daughter about the treasure. You know, that old treasure has made us a lot of trouble."

"I suppose people keep coming up from Mexico looking for it?"

suggested Grace.

"Most of them think we have benefited by Lobarto's stealings,"

sighed Rhoda. "You see, there is much hard feeling on the side of the Mexicans against the Americans. Even the Mexicans born on our side of the Border are not really Americans. They never learn to speak much English, and it makes them clannish and suspicious of English speaking people."

"And how fierce they are!" murmured Nan.

"Juanita would have struck you. Scratched your face, maybe."

"Well, that is only their excitable way. Perhaps she did not really intend to strike me," Rhoda said. "I do wish we could help her and her mother. Somehow, I am sorry for the poor thing."

"Let's get up a searching party when we get to Rose Ranch," said Bess excitedly, "and find that old treasure."

"Wouldn't that be great!" Nan agreed. "But I am afraid if after six years all that plunder hasn't been found, we shouldn't be likely to find it."

"Oh, it's been searched for," Rhoda a.s.sured them. "Time and time again. There have been as many men who believed they could find it as ever hunted for the old Pegleg Mine--and that is famous."

"Never say die!" said Bess, nodding her curly head. "I'm going to hunt for it myself."

This raised a laugh; yet every member of the little party, including Walter when he heard the particulars about Juanita, was eagerly interested in the mystery of the treasure of Rose Ranch.