"hey ! " he shouted, "leave it alone" as he made his way to the table to grab his bag. The stranger looked up with alarm and Cale got a look at his long beard and dark blue eyes. If he had heard Cale he gave no indication of it, instead quickened his movements and pulled out a few papers and dumping the bag on the floor made a run to the back of the restaurant. "hey! thief!! come back" Cale yelled half-heartedly as he couldn't understand why anyone would want to steal funny old papers about a funny old legend, that's all he had in the bag, papers Josh had given him earlier.

But when he quickly looked through the bag he found a black video cassettte, ...!

Cale finished his steak and paid, leaving a generous tip. He tried to force his mind into just thinking about the rest of the night but his mind kept drifting to the conversation with Josh.
He growled.
Oh great, he thought. Now I'm going to get into something else!
"If it's not one thing, it's another." he said out loud. Just then, it occured to him that he had forgotten his work bag in the steakhouse. As he made his way back to grab it, he saw a man at the table he had been at. The man seemed to be going through the papers that were previously in his bag!

((amazing ! I do believe you have a super idea, I'll pick up with Cale))

Cale was munching down a thick juicy steak with a small side of baby carrots. He loved baby carrots. He had collected his stuff from the store earlier and had also caught up on the local gossip.

His friend, Mel, who worked evenings at the store had been really pleased to see him. He and Cale had been best friends in high school, Cale had gone on with graduate school while Mel had decided to get a job in town. It seemed like old times whenever they met.

Lost in his thoughts, Cale failed to notice a furtive figure who was taking special notice of him from the steakhouse window. The man was pretending to read a newspaper as he kept glancing in Cale's direction. He had his hat pulled over low on his eyes and had on a light coat of indiscriminate colour.

He seemed to be waiting for Cale to finish his meal, maybe with the objective of following him home...?

((That works for me.))

Josh stood up, pacing the room. Nick began getting nauseous as he watched the other boy walk back and forth. It was like watching a tennis match and everyone knew he hated those.
Josh's girlfriend, Shayla, had died the year before of congenital disorder. It had taken Josh a long time to get over but in time, he had accepted it.
"What would the Queen of Sheba, AKA Shayla, tell you to do?" Nick asked him. Josh stopped moving and smiled. Without another word, he walked out the door.

((I can go with Josh and Nick...she is Josh's girlfriend who died of congenital disorder and he's made a promise to her to be good))

I would say either Josh and Nick or Josh and Sam

So who is SHE?

(((GAAAAAHH!!! Not again! What about Jake and Nicholas?!))

Jake just sighed and looked back at his friend.
"Look, I think you just need some rest. This will all blow over just like your other ideas." he tried to reason. But Josh just shook his head.
"All I needed as a yes or no. I didn't need a long explanation into me and my crazy mind!" he yelled. Jake put out a hand to calm his friend.
"Now, you know that isn't what I'm doing. I just think that this isn't such a good idea." he said. It was important that he keep a cool head in this.
Josh sat down on the couch and put his head in his hands.
"Jake, you know why I came out to Cali. You know why I left Ohio. I made a promise to make something with my life and this is it. I told her I would." he said. Jake sat on the coffee table in front of his friend. it was quiet for a few minutes.
"But do you really think she'd want to getting into trouble with these silly escapades or worse? Getting yourself killed?" he asked.

((Well, who is SHE? Also, I just realized, since we changed him to Jake, we now have two names with the same letters again! Josh and Jake!))

Hey, that's perfectly fine if you change it. I'm working on a really big project with this idea. This is getting really good! Keep going. I'm starting to not like the name Cory either.

Jake didn't know what to say next, he just kept looking out the window, there was no one there. yet moments earlier he had felt like someone/something was looking at him. He didn't know who, he didn't know why.

He had become friends with Josh just last month cos they were in the same English class. And then his friend had just laid out an absurd story about a hidden treasure, he had come over for an assignment and maybe to watch a game later.

((I think Jake wears glasses))

((I am calling him Jake for now, Dragoneyed also likes the name. Jake just got a life!! ::)) ))

((Cory ..hmmm, do you mind changing it to jake Sydney? ))

(((GAAAHHH!!!!))

((Again with all the names starting with the same letter!!! Cory & Cale ))

(Man this is great guys!)

Meanwhile....

Josh sat across the room from his long time friend Cory. Cory didn't say a word, he just kept scanning over the many documents that his friend had quickly produced from a backpack.
"Josh, this isn't National Treasure you know. It's not like you're going around the country." he said, running a hand over his face. So much for his own night plans.
"Just think about it though. Who knows what could be hidden in those mountains. Aren't you the least bit curious?" Josh asked, standing up and pacing the cluttered living room.
"That's exactly what Cale said you would say. I know your ways dude. You can't..." he paused and frowned. Josh sent out his own frown before looking at his friend.
"Cory? What is it?" he asked. Cory was staring out the window.
"I'm not so sure we're alone." Cory whispered, putting up a hand to silence the boy and making his way to the window.
Sadly, what ever was there was gone now.

Cale got through the day without having to see his cousin again. On his way home, he saw the mountain range far on the horizon...and his thoughts wandered over to the conversation he had in the morning. He had heard something about the Dutchman in the mountains, legend had it that the gold was still buried somewhere in the Superstition Mountains. No one had ever found it yet.

As he pulled up home, he shrugged off the day, looking forward to the evening ahead. He had a vague plan of going downtown later, his friend who worked at the local hardware store had called him last night about the parts he had been waiting a long time for.

He put on a clean shirt, splashed some water on his face and headed out the door, planning to have his dinner in town.

((nice story...hope everyone keeps posting))

Cale, put all the papers on his desk in order. These were assignment papers handed to him by the students and he didn't want them to get misplaced. Josh could be right, but he didn't want anything to do with the dutchman's legend or his piles of gold at the moment. He had another class coming up in the next half hour..

"Josh.."he laid a friendly hand on his cousin's arm and firmly steered him towards the door "..I gotta go now, got work"

As they came out the door, the secretive figure recording their conversation, hurriedly started walking the other way. Neither of them noticed the man hurrying away.

Josh knew he would get his cousin's attention one way or another, this was too good an opportunity to be missed. He decided he would just read up tons of stuff on it at the library and bamboozle Cale into launching a treasure hunt.

Josh raised an eyebrow.
"Cale, I'm being serious." he said. His cousin put down his pen and sighed. He stood up and went to one of the large campus windows.
"What's going on Josh?" he asked.
"That's a pretty vague question."
"And that is a pretty far fetched answer. This isn't another of your wild theories is it?" Cale asked.

Josh had had many of these theories and he either got arrested, caught, or threatened. Everything usually went into the wind but once and a while, Josh wanted to be proven true.

"C'mon Cale. Just work with it here. Don't you think it may just be true?" he asked.

Unbeknownst to both of them, someone was watching from outside the room. Their phone was open and a tape recorder was on.

"Not much, I think I read something b=about it once. It's supposed to be this really great treasure up in the mountains. This miner , who was dutch - if you hadn't guessed got lost up in those mountains. When he came back he went to California during the gold rush and struck it rich. He turned into a parinoid old creep then and took his piles of gold up to the mountains he was ost in for so long and disappeared."
"Sounds like the beginning of a ghost story." Josh joked.
"Thing is, it's not a ghost story, it's true. The cook actually lived."

(This is based off a real treasure I heard about. Here goes nothing..)

His snore went unheard in the back of the class. College for him was about parties and late night gatherings. It wasn't about being extremely tired the next morning.
"Mr. Aldren! Josh!" the teacher of American Treasures called his name out.

Josh Aldren sat up, looking around the room while everyone else just smirked. The teacher, Josh's cousin Cale, just raised an eyebrow.

"Yes Mr. Blanchett?" he said innocently, smiling.

"Would you just turn the tv on? A special announcement is about to play and I don't want any of you, most of all you, to miss this. God knows you need the credit." he said.

Josh stood up to his 19 year old 5'7 frame. Heading to the front of the room, he switched on the TV.

"In other news, three miners have been arrested for mining in the Superstition Mountains. As many know, the Superstition Mountains are said to be the home of the Lost Dutchman's Gold Mine. Many have tried to find it but that number his dwindled after officials closed off all entrances to the Mountains except for tours. Experts and historians say that there is a strong chance the treasure still remains hidden deep in the mountains."

Josh just smiled. The bell finally rang, sending students flying into the hallways. Josh approached Cale's desk.

"Cale, what do you know about the Lost Dutchman's Gold Mine?"

(There you go guys! What does Cale know about it?)