"As you'll see, if you take the
trouble to go through it, as I did, Copan is, or
maybe was, for all I know, one of the most
important centers of the Mayan civilization."
"What's Mayan?" asked Ned. "You see I'm
going to imbibe my information by the deductive
rather than the excavative process," he added
with a laugh.
"I see," laughed Tom. "Well, Mayan refers
to the Mayas, an aboriginal people of Yucatan.
The Mayas had a peculiar civilization of their
own, thousands of years ago, and their calendar
system was so involved----"
"Never mind about dates," again interrupted
Ned. "Get down to brass tacks. I'm willing
to take your word for it that there's a Copan
valley in Honduras. But what has your friend
Professor Bumper to do with it?"
"This. He has come across some old
manuscripts, or ancient document records, referring
to this valley, and they state, according to this
article he has written for the magazine, that
somewhere in the valley is a wonderful city,
traces of which have been found twenty to forty
feet below the surface, on which great trees are
growing, showing that the city was covered
hundreds, if not thousands, of years ago."
"But where does the idol of gold come in?"
"I'm coming to that," said Tom. "Though,
if Professor Bumper has his way, the idol will
be coming out instead of coming in."
"You mean he wants to get it and take it
away from the Copan valley, Tom?"
"That's it, Ned. It has great value not only
from the amount of pure gold that is in it, but
as an antique.
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