“Oh, I accept yer apology,” muttered Weston good naturedly.
“But don’t git the idee I’ve give up. I got the location o’ that sink hole comin’ to me yit.”
Mr. Cook laughed and laid his hand on Weston’s arm.
“Sink,” he said, “if you keep on you’ll get to believin’ that story some day.”
Old Doolin looked at Roy and made a desperate effort to wink his heavy eyelid. As he did so, Weston pulled himself up in his chair, hit the table with his clenched fist until the dishes and glasses rattled, and exclaimed, in a thick voice:
“Ye’ll acknowledge thet thar’s one feller ’at kem out hyar an’ showed you all a few things ye didn’t know. Why? ’Cause he was a sight smarter ’an some wise ones I could name--”
“An’ bein’ smart enough he knows a fack when he hears it. Mr. Osborne,” went on the old plainsman, leaning toward Roy, “wuz they a sink hole, an’ a white priest, an’ lost Injuns, an’ treasure to fill a freighter, or wuz they not?”
Roy flushed again, looked at Mr. Cook in an embarrassed way, and then said:
“I’ve felt there were. But, well, I know one thing. There isn’t any doubt that there was a white man, and he was likely enough a priest. His name was certainly Willard Banks, and I know this man was my great uncle, a Mormon elder.”
“Thar you air,” shouted Weston, defiantly hanging the table again. “Did I dream that? Answer, whar did I git the paper?”
Mr. Cook seemed amused. He had many times heard the wild tale of Weston’s fabled sink hole, but the Parowan end of the story, the knowledge that here old man Banks had lived, was unknown to him until the day Roy named the aeroplane. Weston’s positive manner aroused his interest anew in the story.
“I never saw your cipher or hieroglyphics, Sink,” he answered, ignoring Weston’s question. “I’d like to have a look at it.”
Helping himself to another drink, Weston slowly produced his old wallet, and, with much ceremony, finally laid the faded and much-worn brown paper upon the table. Mr. Cook took a long look at it, and then carried it to a wall light that he might better examine the dim characters. Plainly he made nothing of it. Roy stepped to his side and pointed out the dim name at the bottom--“Willard Banks.”
“I had a great uncle of that name out here in Utah. He lived in Parowan. They drove him out of the Mormon Church for some reason. But he was an elder in it once.”