The Washington times., 1919-07-11
HEARTS OF THREE
By JACK LONDON.
Old Priest Tells Francis That to Find
Treasure They Must First See the
Eyes of CHA

sand dunes baysd In ehoruA TOO
youthful to die! How about you.
Leoncia? Are you too young to de.
yet awhiIeF'
say" she smiled back, moving
her foot slightly 50 a. 20 bring q
moan OF repFoach from the sand be-
meath Il. ION the contrary, am too
old to die just because ths eElRs
echo our laughter back Gt a. and
because The sand hills bark e rs
Let rs 60 on. We are very close
to those nashtng8- Let the old man
wait within his circle until We come
back
She east OF their hands and
stepped forward. and a. they fol-
lowed, all the dunes became arGtcu-
late. while one, near to them. down
the sides OF which ran q slide OF
sand. rumbled' and Numbered For
trnately for them, a. they were
soon to learn, Francis, at abandon
Ing the mules, had equipped him
self, with q coil Of thin. strong rope.
A Place 81 EehOe&
Once across the sands hey en-
countePed more echoes. On trials
they found their hA1loos distinctly
repeated as often aS six or eight
times.
Wasn't Il Marx Twain Who write
about q man whose hobby was max
ing a collection Of eehoes?" Francis
Queried-
SNever heard Of him. But this Is
certainly some dne collection Of
Maya echoes. They chose the region
wisely for a hiding place. Undoubt-
edly il was always sacred, even be
fore the. Spaniards came. The old
priests knew the natural causes Of
the mysteries and passed them over
to the herd as mystery with q cap
ital m" and supernatural In
origin"
Net many minutes afterward they
emerged on an open. level space.
close under a crannfed and ledge
ribbed cliff, and exchanged their
single file mode of, progression TO
three abreast. The ground was q
hard. brittle crust Of surface, so
crystalline and dry as never 20
suggest that Il was aught else but
crystalline and dry all the way
down. In an ebullition OF spirits,
desiring. to keep both men on an
equality Of favor, Leoncia seized
their hands and started them into
q run
At the end Of half a dozen strides
the disaster happened. Simultane-
ously Henry ard Francis broke
through the crust. sinking to their
thighs, and Eeoncfa was only a
second behind them IN breaking
through and sinking almost as deep.
Henry muttered: ITS the very
DEVILS own landscape"
And his loW-spoken words were
whispered back to him from the
nearby cliffs on all sides and end
lessly and sibilantly repeated.
Not at first did they fully appre-
bend their danger. Il was when.
by-their struggles, they found them
selves waist-deep and steadily sink
ing, that the two men grasped the
gravity Of the situation. Leoncia
still laughed at the predicament, for
IL seemed no more than that to her.
"Quicksand" Francis gasped-
"Quicksandr' all the landscape
gasped back at him, and continued
to gasp it in fading. ghostly whis-
pers. repeating 1t and gossipIng
about with gIeeful JUNCTION.
''It's a pothole filled with quick
sand" Henry corroborated.
Maybe the old boy was right I'm
sticking back there on the barking
sands" observed Francis.
The gnostIy whispering redoubIed
upon himself and was a long time
in dying away.
BY this time they were midway
between the sWaist and armpits and
sinking as methodically as ever.
well, somebody has to get out
Of the scrape alive" Henry re-
marked.
Saving Leonela.
And. even without discussing the
choice, both men began to hoist
Leoacia up. although the effort and
her weight thrust them more
quickly down. When she stood
free and clear, a foot on the near
est shoulder OF each Of the two men
she loved, Francis said, through the
landscape Knocked him:
Now, Leoncia. we're going to
toss you out .of-this.. At the word.
CO. let yourself go. And YOU
must strike fufI~Iength and softly
on the crust. You'll slide a little.
But don't let yourself stop. Keep
on going. Crawl out to the solid
land on your hands and knees. And.
whatever you do. don't stand I'D un-
I'll you reach the land. Ready,
Henry
Between them, though II hast
ened their sinking, they swung her
back and forth. free in the air, and
the third swing, at Francis's "Gcr"
heaved her shOFeward.
Her obedience to their fnstruc-
lions was implicit. and, on hands
and knees, she gained the solid
rocks OF the shore.
Now for the rope" she called to
them
But by this time Francis was too
deep to be able to remove the coil
from around his neck and under
one arm. Henry did il for him. ana
though the cXertiOn sank him to
an equal deeppess. managed to fling
one end of the rope to Leoncia.
At first she pulled on il. Next she
fastened a turn around a boulder
the size of a motor car and let
Henry pull. But ii was in vain The
strain or purchase was so lateral
that it seemed only to pull him
deeper. The quicksand was sucking
and rising over his shoulders when
-eoncia cried out, prscipitating q
very bedlam OF echoes:
wait! Stop pulling. l have an
dea. Give him all the slack. Just
save enough of the end to tie under
your shoulders"
The next moment, dragging the
rope after her by the other end, she
was scaling the cliff. Forty feet up,
where a gnarled and dwarfed tree
rooted in the crevices, she paused.
Passing the rope across the tree
trunk, as over a hook. she drew in