“Almost.”

“He would have got me if you hadn’t knocked up his gun-hand.  That’s another one I owe you.  Well, maybe we’ll have a pay day soon.”

“You had better go back to camp with me, and bunk in with us to-night,” suggested the lad, “We shall want to make an early start in the morning, anyway.  I think it will be safer there, too.  That pair won’t dare come fooling around our camp, knowing they can’t trifle with us,” added the lad, with a note of pride in his tone.

“I’ll do it.  Not that I’m afraid of anything that walks on two legs, but the sooner we hitch up the better it’ll be.  Got room enough?”

“Plenty.  Where’s your pony?”

“Up near your camp.  Come on.”

The man and the boy walked from the hotel, the former looking neither to the right nor to the left, Tad observing their surroundings half

suspiciously.  He was sure they had not yet heard the last of Bob Lasar and Joe Comstock.  In this he was right.

Marquand and the boy had gone no more than ten rods from the hotel, when the report of a revolver was heard, and a bullet fired from the corner of an adobe building passed within an inch of Mr. Marquand’s head.

With wonderful quickness the latter drew and sent three shots at the flash.

Whether he had hit any thing or not he did not know.

“Run!  I don’t want you to get hit,” cried the boy’s new friend, grasping Tad by the hand and starting off at a brisk pace.

“Bullets don’t scare me, so long as they don’t hit me,” laughed young Butler.

CHAPTER XXIII

 Moonbeam points the way

The moon will be here in a moment.”

“What was it the old Pueblo chief said, Mr. Marquand?”

“’When the full of the moon has come and shoots its first arrow over the crests of the Guadalupes, it points the way to the treasure of my ancient people,’” quoted Mr. Marquand.

“I presume that would be taken to mean that, at a certain phase of the moon, one of its beams points to where the treasure is hidden,” explained Professor Zepplin.  “But what leads you to believe this is the Pueblo village of your particular chief’s ancestors?”

“Yes; I don’t see why it might not be any of the ruined adobe houses in this valley?” said Ned Rector.

They had journeyed rapidly over mountain and plain to the valley of the Guadalupes, where Mr. Marquand had informed them that he expected to find the treasure.  In the three days consumed on the journey, the travelers had seen nothing of either Lasar or Comstock.  Evidently the pair had decided to leave the country while they still had the chance, fearing that perhaps Mr. Marquand might invoke the aid of the law to rid himself of them if they remained.