Appleton, Victor – Tom Swift in the Land of Wonders

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toward getting another. So it wasn’t Beecher, after all, who got it.”

“Evidently not,” assented Tom. “But I believe him capable of it.”

“You haven’t much use for him,” remarked Ned.

“Huh!” was all the answer given by his chum.

“I am sorry, Se�ors,” went on Tal, “but I could not stop Valdez, and the burning of the papers — — ”

“No, you could not help it,” interrupted the young inventor. “But it just happens that it brings bad luck to us. You see, Tal, the papers in this yellow covering, told of an old buried city that the baldheaded professor — the-man-with-no-hair-on-his-head — is very anxious to discover. It is somewhere under the ground,” and he waved to the jungle all about them, pointing earthwards.

“Paper Valdez burn tell of lost city?” asked Tal, his face lighting up.

“Yes. But now, of course, we can’t tell where to dig for it.”

The Indian turned to his wife and talked rapidly with her in their own dialect. She, too, seemed greatly excited, making quick gestures. Finally she ran out of the hut.

“Where is she going?” asked Tom suspiciously.

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“To get her grandfather. He very old Indian. He know story of buried cities under trees. Very old story — what you call legend, maybe. But Goosal know. He tell same as his grandfather told him. You wait. Goosal come, and you listen.”

“Good, Ned!” suddenly cried Tom. “Maybe, we’ll get on the track of lost Kurzon after all, through some ancient Indian legend. Maybe we won’t need the map!”

“It hardly seems possible,” said Ned slowly. “What can these Indians know of buried cities that were out of existence before Columbus came here? Why, they haven’t any written history.”