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Page 43
As shortly as could be after our empty return Goodloe Banks and I
forgathered in the back room of Snyder's saloon to play dominoes and
fish for information. I told Goodloe about my expedition after the
buried treasure.
"If I could have found that three hundred thousand dollars," I said to
him, "I could have scoured and sifted the surface of the earth to find
May Martha Mangum."
"She is meant for higher things," said Goodloe. "I shall find her
myself. But, tell me how you went about discovering the spot where
this unearthed increment was imprudently buried."
I told him in the smallest detail. I showed him the draughtsman's
sketch with the distances marked plainly upon it.
After glancing over it in a masterly way, he leaned back in his chair
and bestowed upon me an explosion of sardonic, superior, collegiate
laughter.
"Well, you are a fool, Jim," he said, when he could speak.
"It's your play," said I, patiently, fingering my double-six.
"Twenty," said Goodloe, making two crosses on the table with his
chalk.
"Why am I a fool?" I asked. "Buried treasure has been found before in
many places."
"Because," said he, "in calculating the point on the river where your
line would strike you neglected to allow for the variation. The
variation there would be nine degrees west. Let me have your pencil."
Goodloe Banks figured rapidly on the back of an envelope.
"The distance, from north to south, of the line run from the Spanish
mission," said he, "is exactly twenty-two miles. It was run by a
pocket-compass, according to your story. Allowing for the variation,
the point on the Alamito River where you should have searched for your
treasure is exactly six miles and nine hundred and forty-five varas
farther west than the place you hit upon. Oh, what a fool you are,
Jim!"
"What is this variation that you speak of?" I asked. "I thought
figures never lied."
"The variation of the magnetic compass," said Goodloe, "from the true
meridian."
He smiled in his superior way; and then I saw come out in his face the
singular, eager, consuming cupidity of the seeker after buried
treasure.
"Sometimes," he said with the air of the oracle, "these old traditions
of hidden money are not without foundation. Suppose you let me look
over that paper describing the location. Perhaps together we might--"
The result was that Goodloe Banks and I, rivals in love, became
companions in adventure. We went to Chico by stage from Huntersburg,
the nearest railroad town. In Chico we hired a team drawing a covered
spring-wagon and camping paraphernalia. We had the same surveyor run
out our distance, as revised by Goodloe and his variations, and then
dismissed him and sent him on his homeward road.
It was night when we arrived. I fed the horses and made a fire near
the bank of the river and cooked supper. Goodloe would have helped,
but his education had not fitted him for practical things.
But while I worked he cheered me with the expression of great thoughts
handed down from the dead ones of old. He quoted some translations
from the Greek at much length.
"Anacreon," he explained. "That was a favorite passage with Miss
Mangum--as I recited it."
"She is meant for higher things," said I, repeating his phrase.
"Can there be anything higher," asked Goodloe, "than to dwell in the
society of the classics, to live in the atmosphere of learning and
culture? You have often decried education. What of your wasted
efforts through your ignorance of simple mathematics? How soon would
you have found your treasure if my knowledge had not shown you your
error?"
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