Mara Louis; Girl of Mystery

by Timothy Paterson

he kept, he built the restaurant where he became famous for his delicious flapjacks. If you are interested, I can show you his restaurant. I bought the building when I moved here thirty years ago. It is now part of the Youth Center for Lost Teens; that is, for teens who have lost their way. At the center, we help teens to find God, and help them find out who they are and who they want to be.”

  “I’d love to see the center,” said Mara. Tony nodded in agreement. Pastor Mike gave Mrs. Louis the directions and address to the teen center. Pastor Mike told them that he and two women who worked at the center would be taking the fifteen teenagers back to the center in a remodeled school bus. He told Mara that he would see her and her family at the center at eleven o’clock for a tour.

  When Mara, her parents and Tony arrived at the youth center, Pastor Mike gave them the grand tour. The building was quite large. There was a boy’s dormitory that could hold twenty-five boys, at one end of the building, and a girl’s dormitory that could hold thirty girls at the other end, with the main part of the center situated between them. Besides staff offices, and conference rooms, there was a recreation room, a large library and vocational center. There were rest rooms as well as shower rooms in each dormitory.

  The very center of the building was the original restaurant that ‘Big Mike’ had built back in the mid 1860’s. It was now used as the kitchen and dining room for the center.

  When Mara walked into the dining room, she felt like she was walking into the past. In her mind, she saw the room as it had been back in the 1860 is, with miners and cowhands sitting at the tables, eating and carousing. Mara could even see ‘Big Mike’ serving the customers.

  The walls of the dining room were made of logs and oak planks and the floor was made up of pieces of sandstone, tightly butted up against one another, so that there was no space between the stones. The floor was quite polished after over 140 years of use. As Mara walked across the floor, she found it to be quite solid, and very level. ‘Big Mike’ had spent a lot of time and work, building the eating establishment.

  Mara sat down at a table and opened her notebook. She started studying the notes that she had copied from the old cookbook. One recipe that was written in the back of the cookbook caught Mara’s attention. She felt that there was a hidden clue in it somewhere. The recipe was titled ‘Sourdough Bricks’. Mara thought that it must be some kind of bread. The directions included; “cook aurum until it becomes liquid. Boil away any impurities. Pour into loaf pans and allow them to cool completely. When cool, remove from pans. Place loaves in stone ovens and cover with flour. Next, cook argentum until it becomes liquid. Boil away impurities, pour into loaf pans, and allow them to cool. When loaves are cool, remove from pans and put loaves in stone oven on top of aurum loaves, and cover with more flour. Place stones on top of the loaves and keep covered until needed.”

  Mara had helped her mother in the kitchen several times and this recipe seemed very strange. She did not know if aurum and argentum were plants native to Nevada in the 1800’s, or spices, or some kind of exotic foods.

  Mara asked Pastor Mike if he had a computer that she could use. He took Mara to his office, where the computer was located, and then he left her alone to do her research.

  Mara entered the words; ‘aurum’ and ‘argentum’ into the computer and was flabbergasted at the results. She ran back into the dining room where Pastor Mike was telling Mara’s parents and Tony that he did not want to close the center, but without funds, he could not pay the bills.

  “I think that I have found a way for you to keep this center open and running for many years to come,” said Mara.

  “”That would take a miracle at this point. What is your idea?” asked Pastor Mike.

  “Well, I think I know where Big Mike buried his silver and possibly some gold that he dug out of his mining claim” said Mara. “He wrote the location in the back of his cookbook, in the form of a recipe.”

  “Where is it buried?” asked Tony, getting more excited by the minute.

  “If my calculations are correct” said Mara, “it is buried under this floor.”

  At the look of disbelief on everyone’s face, Mara explained her reasoning. “After several robberies and attempts on his life, I think that Big Mike melted down the silver and perhaps gold, made them into bars, and buried them under the floor of his restaurant. His restaurant became so successful that he never needed to dig up the silver and gold. It must still be there.”

  Mara showed Pastor Mike and her parents the copy of the recipe. “‘Argentum is the Latin word for silver and ‘aurum’ is the Latin word for gold. Big Mike used to teach school, so he would have known Latin.”

  “I know that this building is a historical landmark, but if you don’t find more funding, you will have to close down the center. Could we pry up some of the rocks from the floor? What do you have to lose?” asked Mara.

  Pastor Mike thought for a moment and then said “You’re right, Mara. We have nothing to lose. I’ll go get some tools.” A few minutes later, he returned with a chisel, a hammer and a crowbar. He handed the tools to Mara and Tony and said, “Go for it”.

  Mara chose a small stone in the center of the floor and using the chisel and hammer, she broke the stone in two pieces. The pieces of stone were six inches thick. Tony used a crowbar and loosened a few more stones, to widen the work area. After he and Mara had removed the stones and placed them to one side,

  Mara began digging with her hands through a layer of coarse sand beneath the floor. She got a big smile on her face as she found what she was looking for. She pulled out a crudely formed bar of a shiny metal. It was so heavy, that she almost dropped it. Tony helped her carry it over to the table, where everybody agreed that it looked like silver.

  Mara and Tony removed several more bars of silver and then Mara dug down a little further and found what she was looking for. This time the bar that she pulled up out of the ground, was yellowish, shiny, and a bit heavier than the silver. Everyone agreed that it was gold.

  Pastor Mike called the rest of the staff and the teenagers, to help remove all of the furniture from the room and then carefully remove the rest of the stones. Mara told Pastor Mike that they could replace the floor after all of the bars had been removed.

  Once the last of the stones had been removed, everybody, including Pastor Mike and Mara’s parents began digging up the bars of silver and gold. When the last bar had been removed, they counted the bars and found that there were over one hundred fifty bars of gold and over one thousand bars of silver. Each bar weighed between forty and fifty pounds.

  Mara was using a garden rake, to check the sand for any bars that they might have missed. In one corner of the room, she hit something with the rake. She dug down into the sand and found a cast iron box. After she brushed the sand off it, she opened the box and found some notebooks and an envelope. Mara opened the envelope, carefully unfolded a letter and read it aloud to everyone:

  “If you have found my treasure, then either I didn’t need it, or I died before I could dig it up again. This treasure has caused me much trouble and that is why I have buried it under the floor of my restaurant. I have been cheated and robbed and people have tried to kill me to get at my fortune. Being wealthy is not what I thought it would be. I pray that you use this treasure wisely, and that you use it to help others less fortunate than yourself. Do not let greed destroy you.

  The journals that you see here, describe my journey from New York to Virginia City in 1853, and my search for gold and silver. May God be with you.

  Michael O’Brien, July 16, 1866”

  That evening, before the evening meal of flapjacks (Big Mike’s special recipe) and ham, Pastor Mike gave thanks to God for sending Mara to him, to find a way for the center to stay open and to allow him to keep helping troubled teens.

  When Mara tasted the flapjacks, she felt lik
e she was in Heaven. She had never tasted pancakes that good before. She was so absorbed in eating the delicious flapjacks, that she did not hear Pastor Mike talking to her, until Tony shook her. “Mara, Pastor Mike just asked you a question.”

  Mara was embarrassed. She apologized, and asked Pastor Mike to repeat his question. “I asked what I could give you as a reward for saving the center.” Mara suddenly had a big mischievous grin on her face.

  “I’ll tell you what, Pastor Mike, if you give my mom the recipe for these heavenly flapjacks, we can call it even.”Pastor Mike agreed and everybody laughed.

  Over the next few days, Mara and Tony spent most of their time with the other teenagers at the youth center. Soon, it was time for them to leave, to go see the Grand Canyon.

  Before they left, Pastor thanked Mara once again and told her that God could not have chosen a better person to bestow the gift of special visions, than Mara. As they drove towards the Grand Canyon, Mara felt good about what she had accomplished in Virginia City. She knew that because of her discovery, many runaway and troubled teens would be reunited with their families, and would receive the help that they needed.

  The value of the gold and silver was later determined to be worth over eighty million dollars, more than