JUANITA
"STOP that! Don't you dare strike her!" cried Nan, and rushed
forward bravely to the rescue of Rhoda Hammond.
Rhoda was bigger and stronger than Nan; but the latter lacked no
courage, and she believed that her friend was so much surprised and
taken aback by the Mexican girl's accusation that she was not
entirely ready to meet the personal assault which the stranger
evidently intended.
"Stop that!" repeated Nan, and she dashed between the two girls.
She laid her hand upon the Mexican's chest and pushed her back.
"You have no right to do this. Don't you know we can have you
arrested by the police?"
"Ha! eet ees the odder Senorita," gasped the Mexican girl. "By
gracious! I see you are fr-r-riends--heh? You know about the
tr-r-reas-ure of the Ranchio Rose--heh?"
"Why, she doesn't know any more what you are talking about than I
do," replied Rhoda Hammond, in wonder.
"This girl," said Nan, "must mean the gold and silver and other
things you said, Rhoda, that the Mexican bandit hid on your
father's ranch somewhere."
"Lobarto!" murmured Rhoda.
"Dhat ees eet!" cried the Mexican girl. "Lobarto, dhe r-r-robber.
Lobarto, dhe slayer of women and chil'ren! Ah! The fiend!" and the
excited girl's eyes blazed again.
"But what has that to do with Rhoda and her father? I am sure you
know very well that Mr. Hammond could not help that bad Mexican
bandit's coming up into the vicinity of Rose Ranch and hiding his
plunder," said Nan confidently. "And what has it all to do with
you, anyway?"
"She!" exclaimed the Mexican girl, pointing to Rhoda. "She ees
reech because I am poor. Oh, yes! I know."
"You don't know anything of the kind," said Nan flatly. "Does she,
Rhoda?"
"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 classes, 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 assured 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.