Where Your Treasure Is

Ross Sidney's memoir opens with a barefoot boy's first hard-earned twenty-five cents and the lesson it teaches him: honest money is precious, while "maverick" money—found, claimed, or stolen—carries danger. From that beginning, he looks back on a life shaped by poverty, ambition, shy love for Celene Kingsley, and a temper he never quite learned to master, despite his mother's patient counsel. After her death, Uncle Deck takes over his upbringing, teaching him horse trading, bluff, and the rough arts of survival in a crooked frontier world. Ross's education in deceit and consequence deepens through comic disasters, boyish raids, and town scandals. A hidden box of worthless "treasure" brings humiliation, while a prank-filled night with the Skokums and their terrorizing of the superstitious Oramandel Bangs reveals how mischief can harden into cruelty. Yet Celene's kindness gives Ross a new purpose, and he tries to prove himself worthy of her trust. As land schemes, public accusations, and street-corner confrontations erupt in Royal City, he learns to use wit, nerve, and calculated bluff to bait enemies, expose wrongdoing, and push toward a showdown in Breed. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.