A Vendetta of the Hills

“Oh, Pierre Luzon, he know how to keep one secret,” responded the Frenchman, smiling.

“Yes, and good for us all you kept it, old man,” exclaimed the sheriff. “He’s a-goin’ to show us the cave tomorrow, Buck. There will be six in the divvy-up now, boys, for of course Pierre Luzon stands in. That’s agreeable all round, fellers?”

“Sure, sure,” responded the others in unison. Tom turned to the Frenchman.

“I told you, Pierre, we’d play the game fair and square with you. Ain’t that right?”

“I trust you all,” replied Luzon. “I show ze cave tomorrow to my friend, Tom Baker, and you gentlemen who have been so kind to make up one purse to bring me back here from zat horrid prison.”

“Guess you’re about the only feller that knows where it is?” enquired Buck, cautiously.

Luzon looked at his questioner and spoke just one word: “Guadalupe.”

“Does Gaudalupe know?” exclaimed Jack Rover. “I thought her long suit was the riffle where she gets her placer gold.”

“Guadalupe,” answered Pierre, speaking slowly, “she know ze cave, but she not know where ze treasure is buried. Ze cave her home. She live zere. Lots and lots of times she come out, and nobody ever track her when she go back. Ze outlaws they sharp-shoot from places in ze hills nobody could see. But I show you,” he continued, nodding his head at Jack Rover, “I, Pierre, show you where zat riffle is. I know both where Guadalupe wash out placer gold and ze secret chamber in ze big cave where Joaquin Murietta bury him money and where ze White Wolf, Don Manuel – peace to his soul!” – Pierre Luzon crossed himself – “hide sacks and sacks of ze yellow gold. Oh, yes!”

This long speech had exhausted the old man. He dropped his head wearily.

“What you need now is a good long sleep,” exclaimed Tom Baker. “Another jolt of bourbon Pierre, and then you get in between the blankets, old fellow.”

“I’ve got your bed all ready in the next room,” observed Buck.

“I guess I go to bed zen,” assented Luzon.

He gulped down with relish a nightcap of the old whisky. Then Buck and Tom helped him from his chair.

“It is good to be here,” murmured the Frenchman. “I grow strong again among ze mountains. I never go back – never go back to San Quentin, that one horrid prison.”

“We’ll nurse you like a baby,” said Buck assuringly, as he led the feeble old man into the adjoining room.

CHAPTER XVII – The Bitter Bit

ON the very night of Pierre Luzon’s return, Ben Thurston was in close colloquy with his attorney, summoned specially from New York. It was not only the murder of his son that had brought about this consultation. The owner of San Antonio Rancho, while filled with fury against Dick Willoughby, was also gravely perturbed over other things. Immediately after dinner the two men shut themselves up in Thurston’s office.

Thurston opened the safe and produced a little bundle of neatly-folded, legal-looking documents.

“These are the option papers,” he said gruffly, as he tossed them across the table to the lawyer. “Look them over, Mr. Hawkins.”

The attorney glanced through the documents in a preliminary way.

“I see the first big payment falls due on April 1st,” he remarked.

“Yes, April 1st,” responded Thurston, “and I was a damned fool, too, to let that Trust Company fellow inveigle me into making the date April 1st, instead of March 1st. You see,” he went on, “the taxes come due on March 1st, and on this principality they amount to quite a pretty figure, I can tell you.”

“How much?”

“Oh, about $18,000.”

The lawyer again read the papers through, this time more carefully.

“Well, Mr. Thurston,” he said, as he lighted a cigar and sat back in his chair, “I left some very important matters to come to you in answer to your imperative message. What’s the work in hand?”

“Why, this option for one thing; and then, too, I want you to help me put the noose around the neck of that scoundrel who killed my son.”

“We’ll take one thing at a time, please,” replied the attorney, speaking slowly and quietly. “So far as this option on the rancho is concerned, it seems to be quite regular. Nevertheless, five million dollars is a whole lot of money. Is there any danger of their forfeiting their option payment of $100,000?”

“Danger? Forfeiting?” ejaculated Ben Thurston. “Well, I’m not at all afraid of that. My fear now is that they may take up the option.”

“Why, didn’t you wish to make the sale?”

“Yes, but I am not getting money enough. The ranch is really worth ten million dollars today, in cold cash. I have recently had some San Francisco capitalists down here appraising it for me, but I had already given the option.”

“I see that the agreement provides for your cattle and horses going in at the stipulated price.”

“Yes, I don’t know why I should have been so infernally stupid. But you see those Los Angeles fellows came over here one day in an automobile and stayed all night. We had a sort of a tiff – didn’t agree very well – and I let them start away the next morning without their breakfast – rather uncivil, I’ll admit. After they had gone I got to thinking matters over, and I sent a telephone message along the road to stop them and ask them to come back. They returned all right. There was one of their number, this fellow from some Title and Trust Company, who was pretty warm under the collar, and, if I do say it myself, was as peeved as hell at me. Well, he was the one who drew up the agreement, sitting here at this table. The paper looked all right to me, and so I just went ahead and signed. I know now they caught me for the $18,000 of taxes because I didn’t just insist on having the option expire March 1st, instead of April 1st. But, to be frank with you, I really didn’t much mind, for at that time I was only keen to get their $100,000 for the option, never believing for a moment that they would come across with the million-dollar first payment due April 1st. You see the cattle and horses and all the stock on the ranch was a sort of sheaf of oats that I hung out in order to get them to put up their option money – just so much bait.”

Mr. Hawkins shrugged his shoulders and said: “Well, Mr. Thurston, judging from this inventory before me, you certainly hung up a most generous bait.”

“I didn’t stop to think – that’s all there is to be said. All these details hadn’t been worked out into cold figures at the time I gave the option. When these men were here I just wanted to wheedle them into a bargain which would leave a cool $100,000 in my hands. I never for one moment believed they could make the million-dollar payment, although, by God, I begin to realize the danger of their doing so now.”

The lawyer looked up in silent surprise. Thurston continued:

“Of course I should have had this detailed valuation made before I went into the deal. Up to the time I read that inventory I had no real idea of the increased value of the property and what was on it. Oh, you may shake your head; I’m not a good business man – never cared a damn for business – and I know quite well I haven’t given enough attention to the ranch. You see I have been living mostly in the East, for good reasons. I don’t like it here at all – I’ve never felt safe in California,” and he glanced nervously at the window of the room, as if some enemy were lurking there.

Mr. Hawkins once more reached for the inventory, and carefully examined the figures. Finally he said: “Pardon me, Mr. Thurston, for the observation. But you should have sent for me before the option was signed, if you did not really intend to carry out its terms. I find that you have twenty-six thousand head of cattle, and you say that the price of cattle is very high just now – that the whole herd ought to average forty dollars a head. This item alone makes one million and forty thousand dollars, or, in other words, if they exercise the option and pay you the first million dollars, they will have forty thousand dollars more than the payment which they make at that time.” The lawyer pencilled down the figures while he spoke.

Ben Thurston had been listening with a gloomy look on his brow. But when he saw the figures translated into dollars he fairly bounced from his chair, walked rapidly up and down the room, and then, coming to a sudden halt, shouted: “By God, that’s where they got me again. I see it all now; these fellows were a damned sight too smart for me. Well, Hawkins, you are my attorney. I don’t want to go on with this deal, even if they are able to dig up the money.”

The lawyer puffed at his cigar, wholly undisturbed, and then replied: “Mr. Thurston, you have already made a sale.”

“No, by God, I haven’t; nothing of the kind,” replied Thurston. “The truth is that I should get ten million dollars for this ranch, and keep all my horses and cattle, too. I don’t propose to be fleeced by that Los Angeles outfit either,” he continued, running his hands through his hair. “I have it; we’ll break the contract. I’ll bet that option is so faulty that you can drive a load of hay right through it. Hunt up a flaw and we will send them back their option money. I don’t want their $100,000 now.”

“I have already carefully studied the paper,” replied Hawkins, “and can find no flaw in it. It was evidently drawn by a master hand.”

“Master hand be damned,” thundered Thurston. “Why, the stiff wasn’t even a lawyer. He was just one of the syndicate – the one I told you about a while back. He knows so cussed much about titles that the other fellows let him write the option.”

“I see,” replied the attorney, as a half-smile flitted over his face; “about all you seemingly had to do was to sign the option papers and count the option money. The sole hope you have now, Mr. Thurston, in my opinion, is for those Los Angeles gentlemen to let this valuable option lapse. You have only a few days to wait.”

“But I haven’t told you the worst yet,” said Thurston sullenly, dropping again into his chair.

“What do you mean?”

“I had a long-distance telephone this morning from the First National Bank at Los Angeles saying that the million dollars due April 1st has been already paid in to my credit. But I won’t touch the money – I’ll be damned if I do.”

“You have no choice but to accept it,” said the lawyer. “It would be foolish to deceive yourself; San Antonio Rancho is sold, and with the payment just made, you, by the terms of your contract, are compelled to give immediate possession. I can only advise you to take your medicine like a man, but don’t let those Los Angeles gentlemen know that you are swallowing a bitter dose.” He refolded the papers, and pushed them across the table. “Now, Mr. Thurston, if there is anything I can do to assist you in the prosecution of your son’s murderer, I stand ready to do so.” Ben Thurston arose.

“We’ll talk about that tomorrow. I’ll hang Dick Willoughby right enough in good time. Meanwhile you tell me the rancho is sold – that I have lost my great estate for less than half its value? Hell! Isn’t that enough for one night?” And he stalked wrathfully out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

“He sold at the wrong price,” mused the lawyer with a quiet smile. “Perhaps he’ll be trying next to hang the wrong man.”

CHAPTER XVIII – Elusive Riches

IN the meantime the quartet at the store were making a night of it. With old Pierre Luzon peacefully asleep in the adjoining room, there were many things to speak about. Tom Baker recounted in elaborate detail his story of interviews with the governor and state officials at Sacramento, the weary and harassing delays before parole was finally granted, his own dogged determination, together with the artful pulling of political strings that had finally brought about the results desired. Then there was the trip to San Quentin, the breaking of the joyful news to Pierre Luzon in his cell, the delivery of the paroled convict into Tom’s hands, and the clever solution of all further difficulties by hiring an automobile for the journey south. The narrative was all very interesting, each listener eagerly followed every word, and at the close Tom Baker’s chest had expanded several inches.

“I tell you boys, there’s no man alive could have done what I did. The business was in the right hands. If it hadn’t been for me, you wouldn’t have Pierre Luzon here tonight.”

“But if Pierre Luzon hadn’t written that letter,” growled Buck Ashley, “you would never have started for Sacramento and San Quentin.”

“Well, all’s well that ends well,” discreetly interposed Munson, as he raked the smouldering wood ashes together. “Gee, but its cold tonight.” Jack Rover rose and tossed another log onto the fire. In a moment a bright flame sprang up.

“The bottle’s empty,” observed the sheriff. “The next one’s on me, Buck.”

“Guess we’ll charge it to syndicate account,” grinned the storekeeper, whose momentary grouch seemed to have been dissipated by the cheerful blaze. “We’ll have to open books, boys, and go about things in a reg’lar way,” he added, as he drew the bolt of the door that communicated with the store and groped his way into the darkness beyond.

Buck needed no candle, and was soon back with another bottle of the Kentucky bourbon. Glasses were filled and clinked and pledges of brotherhood renewed.

“It’s champagne we’ll be drinkin’ tomorrow night, Buck, old sport,” exclaimed Tom, slapping his old crony on the shoulder.

“I’ll long-distance Bakersfield for a case in the morning,” responded Buck, genially. “By gosh, we’ll be swimmin’ in wine afore long, boys. First thing I’ve got to do is to sell out this ‘ere store.”

“Sell it!” cried the sheriff, contemptuously. “You can afford to give it away, Buck. We ain’t a-goin’ to be pikers in our old age, are we now?”

“I ain’t old by a danged sight,” snapped back the storekeeper, for Tom had touched a sore spot once again. “Besides, when I’ve got a barrel of Joaquin Murietta’s gold safe in the bank, you’ll see me friskin’ around like a two-year-old colt,” he added, his momentary surliness changing to a smile.

“And it ain’t only gold, boys,” said Tom Baker. “That ‘ere story old Pierre told me about the grotto cavern havin’ a lake of oil in it as big as a city block, sure ‘nuff got me goin’. Why, we’ll be able to blossom out into oil kings.”

“What’s that?” asked Munson.

“Why, the Frenchie told me, you know, confidential like, comin’ along on our motor car that since fifty years back those bandit fellers skimmed oil from the surface of that lake and burned it in lamps down in that cavern.”

“By Jove, that’s interesting,” replied Munson.

“We know there is oil to the west, oil to the north, and oil to the south, and it stands to reason there must be oil here as well.”

“Yes,” interposed Buck, “but old Ben Thurston would never allow any drillin’ on his place.”

“Who the hell wants oil anyhow?” exclaimed Jack Rover. “We’ll have all the money we need with the buried gold and Guadalupe’s placer mine.”

“Yes, but oil is oil,” replied the storekeeper, with a shrewd nod of his head. “They say Rockefeller has only to raise the price a quarter of a cent a gallon whenever he wants to give away another million or so to a university or a hospital.”

“Well, we ain’t interested in universities or hospitals,” said Tom Baker. “But I agree with Buck that oil’s oil, and I, for one, intend to take everything that’s comin’ to me. My God, we can afford to buy Ben Thurston out and do some drillin’ for ourselves on San Antonio Rancho. It’ll help to pass the time anyways.” As he finished, he began to pour out another round of drinks.

“Help to keep you from the booze,” muttered Buck, in an inaudible aside. But he drained his own glass and smacked his lips with satisfaction. “Guess I’ll be gettin’ another bottle, boys,” he said aloud, genially.

“Oh, we’ve had enough,” mildly protested Munson.

“Not by a jugful,” replied Buck. “You and Jack ain’t goin’ to ride home till mornin’, and there’s lots of things to be talked over yet.”

“Great Scott, it’s already two o’clock,” remarked Munson, consulting his watch.

“Then the night’s still young, boys,” exclaimed Tom Baker, hilariously. “Get the brew, Buck. The empty bottles will keep the tally. Come on, lieutenant, drain your glass. No heel taps in this crowd.”

They had started their conversation in low tones so as not to disturb the slumbers of Pierre Luzon. But this precaution, or act of delicate consideration, had been long since forgotten. They were talking loud now, and often all together, and when Buck Ashley had returned from yet another pilgrimage to the store, none heard or noticed the door of the bedroom being cautiously pushed open by just the fraction of an inch.

All four chairs had been again drawn around the cheerful log fire.

“You were talking, Tom, of buying out Ben Thurston,” remarked Jack Rover. “Then you haven’t heard there’s an option been given to a Los Angeles syndicate? Guess mebbe Ben Thurston won’t be the owner of the big rancho very much longer.”

“And a good job, too,” replied the sheriff, as he helped himself to yet another drink.

Buck Ashley shook his head incredulously. “Oh, lots of fellers have paid down money for an option, as they call it, on the Thurston property, and finally when the rub came they didn’t come across and live up to their bargain, and so they just naturally lost their option money.”

“I was talking to a geologist,” intervened Munson, in whose mind the oil question seemed to be still uppermost, “and he says there is every indication that the Midway Oil fields, a few miles north, are not one whit better than wells that can be opened up right here.”

“But what’s the use,” said Tom Baker, “of all the oil fields in California to us fellers if we are about to be let into the secret door of a big cavern where they’ve got twelve or fifteen millions of twenty-dollar gold pieces stacked up, jest awaitin’ for us to take ‘em.” The whisky was beginning to do its work; he had already forgotten his aspirations of being an oil king.

“That’s right,” said Jack Rover, “and don’t forget, while you’re counting them twenty-dollar gold pieces, that Pierre Luzon has promised to show us the shallow riffle in the mountain stream where Guadalupe gets all that placer gold.” In the cowboy’s case the alcohol was making only still more fixed the one fixed idea in his brain.

“Damn this store business anyway,” said Buck Ashley, inconsequentially returning to the theme that appealed to him most directly. “Do you ‘spose I’m goin’ to work my fingers off tying up groceries after we find old Murietta’s money and the White Wolf’s treasure? Not by one hell of a sight, if I know myself, and I ‘low as how I do.” And at the slightly opened bedroom door old Pierre, Luzon whom they all thought to be fast asleep, was listening to every word!

“But there is one thing,” cried Tom Baker, striking the table fiercely as he set down his glass, “I want you fellers to get next to yourselves now and make up your mind to.”

“Wa’al, don’t stop, Tom,” said Rover. “Go on and tell us what you’re thinking about. Get it off your chest, old man.”

“It’s just this way. By God, you fellers are not entitled to as much of this ‘ere twelve or fifteen million dollars as I am, for I’m the feller that went to the governor and got his parole and brought Pierre back here to Tejon. Do you get me?” Buck Ashley had straightened up and looked at Tom Baker with an ugly scowl on his face. “It was me,” he said, “got that letter from Pierre Luzon and we all throwed in, share and share alike, all five of us. And we’ll cut what we find, too, whether it’s one million or fifteen million, into five equal parts, or there’ll be blood flowin good and plenty.”

Baker staggered to his feet, steadied himself for a moment and began to roll up his sleeves.

“There be some things,” he ejaculated, “that you jest can’t let wait and settle up when the deal is all closed. I know what my rights are and you fellers can’t bluff me, not by a derned sight.”

“Hold on, hold on, gentlemen,” interposed Munson. “Let’s not commence quarreling about something we are not even sure we shall ever see. Of course we hope to be escorted into the cavern by old Pierre Luzon, and we likewise hope that he’ll find a hidden treasure. And by the way, Buck, this reminds me – the cut has to be into six equal parts, not five, for we owe Luzon the squarest of square deals.”

“Oh, I’m not agin’ that,” muttered Buck. “I just didn’t remember him.”

“Well,” resumed Munson, “why quarrel about something that is as yet nothing but a myth? It occurs to me that we should rather, individually and collectively, be exceedingly thankful that Pierre Luzon is alive, and that the White Wolf is dead, and that the one man who holds the secret has promised to show us this treasure.”

“I’ve never believed one cussed word about the White Wolf being dead,” growled Buck Ashley.

“Well, it sure was in the newspapers,” said Tom Baker, turning down his sleeves and resuming his seat.

“Yes, it sure was in the newspapers,” replied Buck, “and they jest seemed to settle the fact, leastways to their own satisfaction. But I’ve been a-thinkin’ about Dick Willoughby. I don’t believe he ever killed Marshall Thurston, I don’t.”

“Whoever did kill him,” put in Jack Rover, “did it good and plenty. Put the shot right square through his heart.”

“Well,” said Tom Baker, reaching for more whisky, “I ain’t got much to say, but what I says I stands to on this ‘ere subject, and that is – ” Almost with one accord all turned at the creaking of the bedroom door, and there was Pierre Luzon, looking as if he had seen a ghost. His short prison-cropped hair seemed to be standing on end like bristles, and his eyes stared wildly at the four men. At last he cried out in a shrill voice that was almost a scream:

“Ze son of Ben Thurston killed! Ah, ha!” he laughed, hysterically. “Shot through ze heart! – vengeance at last begins! Ze White Wolf is not dead! He is one live man!”

The door was hastily closed with a loud bang, and the weird figure vanished like an apparition.

For a few moments the revellers sat in stupefied silence. Finally Buck Ashley said in a low voice: “Damn that whisky anyhow. It has made us talk too loud.”

“Yes,” remarked Tom Baker, “and also too dangnation much, I’m a-thinkin’.”

Both were sober men now.

“Believe I’ll have a snooze,” said Jack rover, seating himself on an old lounge in a corner of the room. But he did not lie down.

Nothing more was said for perhaps a full half hour; all were nodding or busy with their brooding thoughts.

At last Buck Ashley rose and tiptoed toward the bedroom.

“Guess I’ll see if poor Pierre has gone to sleep again,” he murmured.

A moment later he shouted out from the inner chamber:

“Hell, boys! – he’s gone! He’s given us the slip – the damned old jail-bird!”

CHAPTER XIX – The Jail Delivery

AROUND Dick Willoughby there had been woven a web of circumstantial evidence that even before his trial had convinced most people of his guilt. Only a few tried friends who absolutely refused to believe him capable of shooting down an unarmed man from ambush clung to their faith that he had had nothing to do with the slaying of young Marshall Thurston. Among the general public the only question in discussion was whether the jury were likely to find extenuating circumstances and, should the life of the prisoner come to be spared, how long would be his sentence.

Ben Thurston had lavished money with a free hand toward securing every possible piece of testimony in support of the prosecution, and before his return home even the cautious New York lawyer, Mr. Hawkins, had admitted that the case against Willoughby appeared to be conclusive. It was only a matter of a few weeks now when Thurston would be leaving the district.

Already San Antonio Rancho was in possession of the syndicate; their foreman was in charge, the stock under their control, and it was only out of consideration that the former owner was being permitted to linger a little longer in residence. But for the gloomy and morose man there seemed to be gloating satisfaction in the grim thought that before shaking off forever the dust of his old home he would first of all ensure the hanging of his son’s murderer.

Among the most regular visitors at the jail were the ladies of La Siesta, and rumor now began to run around that Miss Merle Farnsworth, despite Willoughby’s pleading that she should not mix her name up in the case, would offer some surprising evidence in favor of the accused man – evidence that might not exonerate Willoughby from responsibility for the deed, but perhaps would fully justify his act to the minds of the jurymen.