Page:Old ninety-nine's cave.djvu/133

 discovery and the spoils were equally divided between them. Mills's eyes gleamed and after the chest had been emptied, he hit it a sounding rap with his hammer which shattered it into fragments, revealing the secret bottom which contained a parchment yellow with age. He sprang upon it like a cat and unfolding the document with shaking hands endeavored to read it.

It was closely written, apparently in Spanish, and so blurred as to be utterly illegible, but at the bottom was one of those symbolical pictures which were used as maps by the Esopus Indians. This represented a bird before a fissure in a mountain. In her beak was a lump of metal, apparently, and she was looking down into the crevice from which evidently had come her treasure About fifty feet below and six hundred feet distant, according to their measurements, wound a small stream, and from a mountain peak to the south issued what appeared to be smoke. Without doubt this was the "Old Ulster Mine."