Even now he seemed perfectly cool, but none of the other Texans failed to show how strongly the "hidden treasure" fever had taken hold of them. It grew manifestly hotter after they had ridden to the ruined _adobe_ house, dismounted, and followed their leader in. It was almost impossible to believe that he was about to show them anything like actual gold and silver. "You don't mean to say," said Joe, "that such a feller as old Tetzcatl left anything behind him up here?" "No, he didn't," replied Bowie. "This isn't any Montezuma money. My notion is that it's old Spanish funds. If so, all the more does it of right belong now to the State of Texas." "Of course it does!" said Cheyne, and the others heartily echoed him. "Out it comes, then!" shouted the colonel, with the first external flash of the excitement which had all the while been smouldering within him. "You'll see what it is now. You didn't more'n half believe me, did you? Look at that!" Over rolled the _adobe_ fragments which concealed the cash, and out came bag after bag, cast down with a chink to be at once caught up by eager hands and opened. It was a breathless kind of work to make those bags tell what was in them. "It's a pity so much of it's only silver," remarked Jim, regretfully; "but silver's better'n nothin'." "Every feller wants more than he's got," said Joe, "but you'd kinder ought to be satisfied this time." Red Wolf and his father had looked on in silence, but now the chief beckoned to his son and walked out. "Ugh!" he said. "Red Wolf tell story. Talk Mexico. Long trail? Heap fight?" All that remained to be told of the trip with Tetzcatl came out rapidly, until the mountain pass was reached and the doings in the cavern. "Ugh!" sharply exclaimed Castro. "Shut mouth! Montezuma bad medicine! Texan all die. Big Knife go under. Red Wolf? No! Red Wolf Indian. No hurt him. Lose hair if he talk." He said more, but his entire meaning seemed to be that it was a well-understood doctrine that any white adventurer learning the secrets of the Aztec gods was a doomed man. They would surely follow him up and kill him. It was not so bad for a full-blooded Indian, but even a Lipan would do well to forget anything he had heard or seen that belonged to the bloody mysteries of the evil "manitous" of the old race. It was evidently a deeply rooted superstition, and Red Wolf was quite ready to accept it fully. They returned to the ruin in time to hear Bowie remark,-- "Two hundred thousand, pretty nigh, dollars and doubloons. Now, boys, a thousand apiece for taking it in. All the rest goes to fight Santa Anna." "That's the talk!" said the rangers, and the horses were led up to receive their loads. It was not very easy to pack the ponderous stuff, even at the sacrifice of all the blankets on hand. After it was done, moreover, another fact was evident. "Boys," said Joe, "it's a walk for us all the way to the Alamo."