The Mercer Boys on a Treasure Hunt

adn't been in the country very long before he heard it, and he put it down as one of those semi-historic tales that consist

was not a chance that the gold ship would get away, for the light English barks were much faster, and it was only a question of time before they hauled down on her and boarded. The way they were si

the three ships and the galleon were blotted out of sight. The storm only lasted for some half hour, which is unusually long for some of them, and when it lifted the galleon was nowhere to be seen. The English barks had had all they could handle and had been so busy holding their own against

like some strange phantom as it fled down the coast. I don't know who saw it or how many saw it, but to this day the story, half legend as it is, has persisted concerning the phantom galleon. Some fantastic tales still linger about it appearin

s. Lately the old gentleman died, and Ned kindly helped out with the funeral and the management of the ranch affairs until a permanent overseer was brought over from Mexico, and in her gratitude the young senorita allowed him to roam pretty much around the house. I suspect from his letter that he has of late become rather more than friendly with the young lady,

for Upper California. But near the shores of Lower California the galleon had been sighted by an English bark, which had instantly given chase. The galleon, which had a good start, fled, but its chances of escape suddenly became less as another English ship appeared before it, and another bore down on it from the open sea. It was growing dark, wrote the priest, and there was some hope that it would slip away in the darkness, but something more to the point stepped in when a

ly in his journal that the treasure was not touched, and he planned to raise enough men to go and get it. Whether he did or not no one knows, but if he didn't that treasure is stil

ecious stones, its coin and bars, is still buried in the sand in a creek called--' and there it unfortunately ends. If the name was only there we could tell something, for it is always probable that someone can be found who will recall the name,

as the professor stopped. "Your son Ned t

eon ran up some creek very near to his place. If no one ever did get back and take that treasure it is probably in the rotted hold of the treasure ship, buried more or less deeply in the

effort to find

up. They are the kind who would not mind sharing in the rewards if someone else does the work. So he gave it up, except that he patiently read every other book in Senorita Merced

at book came to be in the library

e from Mexico. It is very possible that the priest had escaped to Mexico and fallen in some way in with this ancient Spanish family, perhaps dying t

ou mean?"

tore out the sheets with the information on them, and h

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