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Page 44
"We'll take a look at those hills across the river first," said I,
"and see what we find. I am still doubtful about variations. I have
been brought up to believe that the needle is true to the pole."
The next morning was a bright June one. We were up early and had
breakfast. Goodloe was charmed. He recited--Keats, I think it was,
and Kelly or Shelley--while I broiled the bacon. We were getting
ready to cross the river, which was little more than a shallow creek
there, and explore the many sharp-peaked cedar-covered hills on the
other side.
"My good Ulysses," said Goodloe, slapping me on the shoulder while I
was washing the tin breakfast-plates, "let me see the enchanted
document once more. I believe it gives directions for climbing the
hill shaped like a pack-saddle. I never saw a pack-saddle. What is
it like, Jim?"
"Score one against culture," said I. "I'll know it when I see it."
Goodloe was looking at old Rundle's document when he ripped out a most
uncollegiate swear-word.
"Come here," he said, holding the paper up against the sunlight.
"Look at that," he said, laying his finger against it.
On the blue paper--a thing I had never noticed before--I saw stand out
in white letters the word and figures : "Malvern, 1898."
"What about it?" I asked.
"It's the water-mark," said Goodloe. "The paper was manufactured in
1898. The writing on the paper is dated 1863. This is a palpable
fraud."
"Oh, I don't know," said I. "The Rundles are pretty reliable, plain,
uneducated country people. Maybe the paper manufacturers tried to
perpetrate a swindle."
And then Goodloe Banks went as wild as his education permitted. He
dropped the glasses off his nose and glared at me.
"I've often told you you were a fool," he said. "You have let
yourself be imposed upon by a clodhopper. And you have imposed upon
me."
"How," I asked, "have I imposed upon you ?"
"By your ignorance," said he. "Twice I have discovered serious flaws
in your plans that a common-school education should have enabled you
to avoid. And," he continued, "I have been put to expense that I
could ill afford in pursuing this swindling quest. I am done with
it."
I rose and pointed a large pewter spoon at him, fresh from the dish-
water.
"Goodloe Banks," I said, "I care not one parboiled navy bean for your
education. I always barely tolerated it in any one, and I despised it
in you. What has your learning done for you? It is a curse to
yourself and a bore to your friends. Away," I said--"away with your
water-marks and variations! They are nothing to me. They shall not
deflect me from the quest."
I pointed with my spoon across the river to a small mountain shaped
like a pack-saddle.
"I am going to search that mountain," I went on, "for the treasure.
Decide now whether you are in it or not. If you wish to let a water-
mark or a variation shake your soul, you are no true adventurer.
Decide."
A white cloud of dust began to rise far down the river road. It was
the mail-wagon from Hesperus to Chico. Goodloe flagged it.
"I am done with the swindle," said he, sourly. "No one but a fool
would pay any attention to that paper now. Well, you always were a
fool, Jim. I leave you to your fate."
He gathered his personal traps, climbed into the mail-wagon, adjusted
his glasses nervously, and flew away in a cloud of dust.
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