NED TAKES A NEW OVERSEER
They were all glad enough to rest that night around the campfire. The
muscles of the party were stiff and sore, and Don and Ned declared that
their bodies ached from head to foot.
“Got enough sand in me to build a new bunkhouse at the ranch,” Ned,
declared.
They told their sensations as the wall of sand closed over them,
sensations by no means pleasant. Smothering in sand was not an enviable
means of ending one’s life, according to Ned, who had been closest to
it. Don had felt that he had a good chance for his life, for he had been
near the surface, but his chief worriment had been for his friend, whom
he knew to be lower down.
“All things considered, I rather think we earned that treasure,” the
professor remarked, and the others agreed with him heartily.
Yappi could not be persuaded to go near the place again. He was firm in
the belief that an evil spirit had tried to punish them for meddling
with the gold of dead men. During the time they had needed his help he
had been brave enough, but now that there was nothing to fear he was
more frightened than he had ever been. More than all the others, he
looked forward to going home in the morning.
They slept the sleep of the utterly exhausted that night and were late
in getting up on the following day. When all their things were packed
and the treasure which they had taken placed on the horses they left the
place and started for the ranch.
“That place isn’t the best place in the world for us,” laughed Don, as
they paused on a rise and looked around. “Jim and Terry were nearly
killed near there and then Ned and I got a sand bath. That guardian
dragon doesn’t appear to like young men!”
“Maybe he doesn’t object to the professor and me,” observed the captain,
with a broad smile. “We both have beards and are more nearly his age!”
The journey back to the ranch was made without incident and they were
glad to arrive. After remaining there for a day the professor and the
captain took the treasure and set out with it to the coast, there to go
to San Diego and claim legal right to it. The boys accompanied them to
Quito, where Blow’s own schooner, which was fortunately lying at anchor,
took them to their destination. The boys left them in the town and
returned to the ranch.
There they passed several happy days, riding, visiting the mines, going
once or twice to visit the senorita, and generally having a good time.
Ned went several times to the senorita’s and Terry wisely nodded his
head.
“Big doings pretty soon,” he observed, wisely.
“What do you mean?” asked Don. They were out near the barn and Ned was
not with them.
“Wait and see. The young man is going over the hill quite frequently
now, and you wait and see if something exciting doesn’t happen.”
“Getting married isn’t exciting,” said Jim.
“Don’t know, my boy,” drawled Terry, trying to throw a lasso. “Never
been that way, myself! Look at that for a throw, will you! Aimed it at
the fence post and got the corner of the barn!”
When the professor and the captain returned they reported success. Their
claim was legal and they had authority to recruit a gang of men to
excavate the ancient ship.
“That’s the end of the phantom galleon,” observed Don. “It won’t be a
phantom any more.”
“You pretty nearly joined the phantoms yourself,” Jim reminded him.
Terry’s surmise regarding the state of affairs at the Mercedes ranch
turned out to be correct. In a few days Ned announced that they were to
be married.
“There is no use in allowing her to stay over there and try to run that
little ranch all by herself,” he said, as they sat in the living room
one night. “So we are going to combine and form one big ranch, after we
are married. That will end all of her troubles about getting help and
overseers.”
“I see,” said Terry, dryly. “You are doing it so as to help her run her
ranch. Funny way to get married.”
Ned made a pass at him and the red-headed boy dodged. The professor
smiled.
“That’s the easiest way of saying it,” he said. “Ned wouldn’t want you
to suspect that he loves the young lady!”
“Ned spoke about her difficulty in getting an overseer,” remarked Don.
“Another way to look at it is that Ned himself is getting an overseer!”
“Yes, he’ll have to behave himself now,” said the captain, as they all
laughed at Ned’s red face.
In the days that followed an excavating crew came down from San
Francisco and went to work on the wreck of the galleon. In a remarkably
short time it was unearthed and systematically cleaned out. A treasure
estimated in value at something like fifty thousand dollars was found in
the wreck, a treasure that consisted of gold and silver plate, gold
coins, silver coins and several gold chains. There was also some silk,
but it had been spoiled. The wreck itself, when uncovered, showed that
it had been burned to the water’s edge before being covered with the
sands of the plains.
“Well, when that is all divided, up, we’ll have plenty, each one of us,”
said the professor.
“At last my mother will get a few of the things in life that she has
really needed,” said Terry, to whom the fortune meant most.
Not long after that there was a simple wedding in the Scott ranch. A
minister came to the ranch from Quito and Ned and the senorita were
married in the living room of the ranch which was now to be her home.
Ned was quietly happy and the senorita brilliantly so. All the lonely
years of living alone were now over, and she looked forward to a life of
happiness with the American boy whose simple manliness had always
appealed to her. Don was Ned’s best man.
“By golly,” said Terry, when it was all over. “If getting married makes
you feel as happy as Ned and his lady friend looked, I think I’ll try
it!”
“That’ll be fine, Terry,” responded Jim. “By the way, who is the lady?”
“What?” asked the red-headed boy, blankly.
“Who is the lady that will look so happy when you marry her?” Jim
answered.
“Gee, I don’t know!” was the reply. “You have to have a lady friend,
don’t you? I hadn’t thought of that!”
“You had better give it some thought,” retorted Don. “Most people have
one when they get married.”
After a few more days the boys prepared to return home, along with the
professor, who was eager to return to his classes in school. The boys
were looking forward to their second year at Woodcrest, to the study and
the sports of the coming season. Captain Blow left them a few days
earlier, expressing his pleasure at having met them once more.
“I hope I fall in with you Mercer boys again sometime,” he said, as he
shook hands at the dock. “I always have a barrel of fun when I’m with
you. Makes me young again. If you ever sail past old Mystery Island,
think of me, will you?”
A few days later they all said goodbye to the new Mr. and Mrs. Scott,
wishing them well and promising to come and see them if they were ever
in that part of the world again. Before long they were back in San
Francisco and on the train, bound for home and school. Terry was with
them, having had “Jumpiter” shipped by rail.
“Well,” remarked Don, as they rolled past long fields of grain. “That’s
the end of one of the best vacations we ever had. Now we’ll go back to
school, to settle down and take things easy for a change.”
But if Don could have seen the events that awaited them in the coming
school term in the form of a baffling mystery he would not have been so
sure that they would settle down. In the next volume, entitled The
Mercer Boys’ Mystery Case, or the ’13 Class Trophy Riddle the exciting
things which befell them will be related.
THE END
Transcriber’s Notes
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--In the text versions, delimited italics text in _underscores_ (the
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