Raising it, the persistent Indian burial customs proved to have been still adhered to. A long black robe, with a ghastly skull peeping from the cowl, lay flat on the bottom of the niche, which was a sort of stone coffin, its sides lined with stone slabs built in shallow walls precisely like the Indian rivas. The top was roofed over with stone, on which the earth had been mounded up as the white priest had evidently directed it should be. There was nothing else in the grave. Nothing, that is, but a _flat slab of pottery_, lying across the dead friar’s chest! Its square shape at once attracted Sid as unusual and not Indian. He picked it up with queer thrills running all through him. A message from that white man of long ago! For there was writing graven on the clay, and the three letters “D. O. M.” stood at the head of the plaque. “A Dominican friar, he was, John,” said Sid, reverently. He began to read aloud the sonorous Latin written on the plaque, conjuring up his forgotten Cæsar of high-school days. “What’s that stuff, huh?” inquired Big John. “Sounds like spig talk, but ’tain’t. I’m a hundred per cent American, Sid, I am, an’ I don’t like it,” he growled, shaking his head sturdily. “Can’t make it out myself,” confessed Sid, after reading it a little farther. He found that he had forgotten his Latin so much that merely to pronounce the words was an effort. “Here’s a few that I _do_ know, though, John: ‘_Aurum et Argentum_,’ that’s gold and silver; ‘_Pinacate_,’ ‘_Sonoyta_,’ those are places; ‘_Papagoii_’, the Papagoes; ‘_Mesa Rubra_’ that’s Red Mesa----” “Never heard tell of it,” declared Big John, promptly. “Thar’s a red mesa up Zuñi way, but there’s no gold or silver thar; an’ Pinacate is a long thirsty ride down over the lava country into Mexico. Ain’t no mesas in that country nohow. She’s all red lava saw-teeth an’ spiny choyas--if you asks me.” “It’s an old Spanish _mine_--that’s what the plaque’s all about!” shouted Sid, excitedly. “Some of the Papagoes must have told this old fra about a gold and silver mine, located in Red Mesa down Pinacate way--say, Scotty will have to hear of this John!” whooped Sid, carried away by the enthusiasm of the moment. Big John shook his head solemnly: “Son, folks has died of thirst _in thousands_, chasing lost Spanish mines in that country! Santa Fé’s full of old priest reports like this-yer. The Indians shore did stuff ’em with gauzy tales! Thar’s mineral down thar, I’ll ’low; but after ye find it, what ye got? Reminds me of the recipe for cookin’ a fish-duck. Ye take an’ soaks him in three kinds of soup; bile him four days; stuff him with an apple an’ a onion; tie a bunch of celery ’round his neck, wrap him in a couple of slabs of bacon; stick in a hunk of garlic; add salt, pepper, and a bottle of wine; bake him three hours--an’ presto, the gosh-darn fish-duck is gone! That’s how a feller feels when he finds a mine in that country, Sid; ye cayn’t git the miner’l out nohow!”