a chuckle: old Tomas would lead the way up the next rickety stairway.

Yet, one cannot tell. There may have been instances of treasure being
buried about the Missions, on some emergency arising, since, in the
times we are thinking of, the only means of safekeeping sums of money
that were too large to be carried on the person was the secreting of
them in the walls of buildings or in the ground. Be that as it may,
perhaps the reader will have a better explanation of the facts of the
following narrative than the one with which I conclude it.


On the afternoon of a warm day of June, some twenty summers since, I was
making my way from Los Angeles to the coast by way of the San Fernando
Valley and the road that runs through the Simi Hills. It was yet the
dawn of the automobile era, and direction signs did not then, as now,
give the traveler on California roads the certainty of his route that he
now enjoys; and I found myself, at late afternoon, in considerable doubt
whether I had not mistaken my way, with the probability, if that were
the case, of having to camp for the night in the open. My horse would
not suffer, for there was forage in abundance, and water was not hard to
find thus early in the summer; but it was annoying for myself, for I had
but a scrap of food and no blankets. The road, well traveled at first,
that I had been following for two hours past, had for some distance been
showing signs of degenerating into a trail (in that inexplicable way
that roads sometimes have), and now it seemed about to "peter out"
finally on a hillside of yellowing grass. Yet I knew I had been making
in the right direction, even if off my road, so I was loath to turn
back. The road, or trail, probably led somewhere, and I decided to keep
on as long as any track could be seen leading westerly.