Norton, Andre - Novel 32 by Ten Mile Treasure (v1.0)

don't say anything about this until we get it cleaned up— ready to be seen. Then we ask them to come for a big surprise—"
    "Okay," Toliver agreed.
    Neal turned to the twins, who had been star ing round-eyed at the pile of
dusty luggage.
    "That means you, too—no talking about this! You just show your arrowheads and
say we were
hunting them. But not this—we want it to
be a surprise." Both of them nodded. "But we get to help unpack," Parky insisted quickly. "Nobody
unpacks a thing," Neal said sharply, "unless we are all here and do it together. Maybe tomorrow we can sort out part of it. Now let's get out of here and put some of those stones back. We don't want to take a chance of anyone else finding it." Christie guessed it must be late afternoon by now. If they did not get back to the station soon, someone might come hunting them.
    However, she stood by, handing stones to the boys. At last Neal and Toliver decided they had done enough, and once more
it looked like a natural fall of rock
with no cave behind it.
    In a hurry, Christie released Shan from the picnic basket, while Libby packed
what was left of
their lunch. Then they started the reluctant twins homeward, leaving the boys
behind to give the last touches to the
rocks hiding their find.
    The Navajos who had come to help at the station were
camping out near the Wildhorse van, and they had already started a cooking fire when the children came across the meadow. Christie
discovered, to her relief, that Mother was just beginning to wonder about them. She listened to Parky's tale
of arrowheads and said she was glad
they had such a good time. When Christie
ventured to suggest they might picnic again tomorrow, Mother seemed relieved
and agreed at once—anything, their sister thought, to keep the twins out from underfoot.
    It was after the twins had gone to bed that Neal signaled Christie and they
slipped out of the room where Mother and Father were talk ing to Mr. Wainwright, the
contractor from town.
    "You're not planning to go back to the cave tonight!" Christie had a
sudden suspicion.
    "'Course not! I want to talk to Pinto. Maybe he can give us some idea why
those things were left
there."
    "You are going to tell him? But I thought it was to be a secret."
    "Not tell him, no. Just ask about the times when there were those raids here.
Could be he knows
some story to explain about the things being hid."
    Pinto
was sitting on the broad sill of the shed he claimed as his own quarters. As
the children came up, he shook flakes of
tobacco into a piece of paper, which he rolled into a crumpled-look ing cigarette. Christie had never seen that done before.
    "Do
you always make your own cigarettes?"
    "Sure do. Old trick for range hands. I ain't learned many new ones. See here—" He showed her the little drawstring-tied bag of to bacco and a packet of papers.
"These here are what we used to call 'the makin's .'
There weren't store-bought cigarettes
then. A man made his own or chawed or went without. So you was off grubbin ? for Injun things today. Find much?"
    "Some arrowheads and part of a spearhead," Neal answered. " Toliver found a necklace of teeth. The string fell apart when he picked it up. He didn't want it—said it
might be 'medi cine'—like
warriors wore into battle to make them brave."
    "Medicine." Pinto nodded as if he under stood that very well.
"Depended a lot on their 'medicine,' they did. Sometimes when they got to thinkin '
their 'medicine' wasn't good, they'd stop right in the middle of a fight and light out.'' "Pinto," Neal said,
"you talked about Apaches attacking the station. Did they do that often?"
    "Often enough to keep a man on his toes wonderin ' when it was goin '
to happen agin . Station was changed some from the way you see it now. Your pa, he's plannin ' to turn it back a little—make it more interestin '
to them tourists. It
used to be more like a real fort. Them walls that's now only stones and ' dobe lyin ' around—they was built up. The main