A Vendetta of the Hills

It was now only three days from the trial, and the whole county was agog with expectation.

That night in the small hours five masked men rode very quietly through the streets to the vicinity of the jail. All were heavily armed, and one of them was leading an extra saddle horse. The party dismounted under the shadow of some trees. One man held the horses, while his four companions, with drawn revolvers, advanced to the gateway. Whether it was a simple case of cowardly yielding to threats, or whether there had been preliminary financial greasing of locks and bolts, aided perhaps by sympathy for the prisoner, the fact remains that within a very few minutes Dick Willoughby had been brought from his cell.

“You are a free man, Mr. Willoughby,” said the leader of the masked band in a low voice. “You will come with us.”

“Who are you?” asked Dick.

“We are friends – that is enough.”

“I have no wish to go,” protested Dick in the hearing of the jailers. “The jury must acquit me – I am ready to remain here until they do acquit me.”

“Take care. The man with the money can put the rope round your neck.”

“I am not afraid.”

“There is another reason. The name of a certain young lady must not be introduced into this case.”

“I have begged her not to testify.”

“But she will testify if this trial goes on – that you know well. Now you will come with us, for her sake if not for your own.”

“Be it so then,” replied Dick. “Lead the way.” Just as quietly as they had come the little band of riders rode through the silent and deserted streets. They took the southern road, and for the first few miles kept to the thoroughfare. Then, reaching a stretch of unreclaimed land, they started across country. The night was moonless and dark, but Dick knew instinctively that they were making for the mountainous country to the north of the Tejon Pass.

The leader rode a short distance ahead. Not a word was spoken. In about two hours they were among the foothills. The pace slackened, and then, as they reached a clump of oaks, a halt was called. From under the shadow of the trees a man appeared, leading two sturdy little mountain ponies. The newcomer wore no mask.

“This man will be your guide from now on,” announced the leader, whose features were still concealed by the strip of black cloth tied around the lower part of his face. “I am sorry we must ask you to wear a blindfold, Mr. Willoughby. But you are among friends, and I feel sure you will help us all by your ready assent.”

“I am in your hands,” replied Dick, quietly. A few minutes later he was seated on one of the ponies, his eyes securely bandaged. The saddle was a big comfortable Mexican one, and he rested his hands on the horn; for there was no bridle, only a leading rein held by the man mounted on the other pony.

“Adios!”

It was the leader’s voice again, and now once more Dick was on the move, the nimble little pony cantering gently over the turf.

Hour succeeded hour. The sun had risen, as the blindfolded rider could tell from the warmth of the atmosphere. The canter had long since changed to a walk, and Dick knew that they had been climbing steadily, with many a turn and sometimes up precipitous slopes.

At last a strange chilliness came into the air. Dick imagined that he heard a growl, as of some savage animal. Then there came a stop, and he caught some whispered words – a woman’s voice he could have sworn, speaking in some strange tongue. After a few minutes his pony started again.

But they had not gone more than a hundred yards further when his guide called out.

“Here we are, sir. I will help you to descend. Zen I take ze bandage away. You see again.”

The voice had a quaint foreign accent. For a little time Willoughby remained blind. Then he began to see things, and involuntarily rubbed his eyes in amazement.

He was in a vast vaulted cavern with no visible entrance revealed by the dim light of several lanterns suspended from the roof. In the far distance a log fire was burning, and silhouetted against its ruddy glow was the figure of the aged Indian squaw, Guadalupe, with a great dog-like creature standing by her side.

“Guadalupe!” exclaimed Dick in profound surprise, turning to his guide.

This man he now saw was old, with short gray hair and a short gray beard. His face was pale, but there was a pleasant gleam in his eyes.

“Yes, Guadalupe,” the guide replied. “Guadalupe, she guard ze entrance to our cave – she and ze white wolf. No one can get past ze white wolf unless Guadalupe speaks ze word.”

“And who are you?”

“Oh, call me Pierre. I am Mr. Willoughby’s servant. Here are fine beefsteaks ready for breakfast. Come.”

“Pierre!” murmured Dick. “Pierre Luzon?”

“Zat is my name. I am Pierre Luzon.”

CHAPTER XX – In the Cavern

WHEN Dick proceeded to follow Pierre Luzon he found that the ponies had already trotted away through the semidarkness, evidently quite capable on their own account of finding their accustomed stable. Leading the way across the cavern, Pierre entered a corridor at the far end of which bright lights were burning. Soon, Dick, to his great wonderment, found himself in a comfortably, almost luxuriously furnished apartment.

There were big thick rugs on the floor, and the rock walls were completely hidden by tapestries. The dining table in the centre was set with napery, china, glass, cutlery and silverware that would have done credit to a first-class hotel. Above swung a bronze lamp of antique pattern. Another table was laden with books, newspapers and magazines. In one corner gleamed the snow-white counterpane of a massive bedstead built of oak in Old Mission style. Here and there portable oil stoves were burning, diffusing a genial warmth throughout the grotto.

Pierre watched the guest’s look of bewilderment as he gazed around him.

“You will be very comfortable here,” said the Frenchman. “I have orders to attend to all your wants.”

“Orders, from whom?” asked Dick abruptly. “After breakfast you will know. I have one letter for you in my pocket.”

With characteristic philosophy Dick accepted the situation. The very mention of breakfast gave a keener edge to an already sharply whetted appetite. Pierre departed and presently returned with a superb sirloin steak sizzling on a hot platter. Under his arm was tucked a bottle of wine. As he set down the latter, Dick noted that it was dusty and cobwebby, as if it had emerged from some ancient cellar.

“Zis is not ze vintage of California,” remarked Pierre, as he drew the cork. “It is rare old Burgundy – all ze way from my beloved France.”

“La belle France,” murmured Dick. “I spent a year there, Pierre, most of the time in Paris.”

“Ah, monsieur knows France and Paris,” exclaimed the old man in great delight. “Zen you speak French, too?”

“Un peu,” laughed Dick. “Mais je fais beaucoup de fautes, mon ami.”

“Non, non, monsieur,” cried Pierre, breaking into voluble French. “Your accent is perfect – it is delightful to hear my native language again. We shall be great friends, Mr. Willoughby. Already I am your devoted servant.” He bowed deferentially, as he held Dick’s chair ready for him to be seated.

“You will breakfast with me, Pierre?” asked Dick, still in his best French.

“No, no. I wait on monsieur. I shall breakfast in good time.”

Pierre was not to be persuaded to take a place at the table, so Dick sat down in solitary state and was served in lordly fashion.

With the demi-tasse of black coffee at the close of the meal came a box of cigars – cigars fit for a prince, as Dick knew from the first fragrant whiff.

The table was now cleared and Pierre ready to withdraw. He had taken a letter from his pocket and was holding it in his hand. But Dick, warmed and fed and supremely contented, was watching the ascending rings of tobacco smoke.

“Do you know, Pierre,” he said between complacent puffs, “that I was one of the bunch that helped to get you out of San Quentin?” He had lapsed into English.

“Oh, yes, I know,” replied Pierre, also dropping his French. “Ze five men who made up ze purse – I am very grateful to you all.”

“Then what about the hidden treasure?”

“Ah, I was to show ze hidden treasure. But one great change come about. I made one big mistake.”

“Then the story of all this gold was a frame-up, was it?” laughed Willoughby.

“No, no,” protested Pierre earnestly. “Ze cave – you are here in ze cave, although you do not know ze secret hiding place. Ze treasure, it is here, too. But I can no longer show ze gold, for ze man to whom it all belong he is not dead – he is alive.”

“Whom do you mean?”

“Don Manuel de Valencia – him you call ze White Wolf.”

“Great guns! So he has appeared again. The newspaper stories were all wrong?”

“Zat is how I made my mistake. But I did not know until I came back to Tehachapi. Ze White Wolf is alive. It is he who has brought you here as his guest. Now you will read zis letter, and zen all things you will comprehend.”

Pierre laid the missive on the damask table cloth in front of Dick. The latter fastened his eyes on it in speechless surprise. Before he recovered himself Pierre, lifting the tray of empty dishes, had noiselessly disappeared.

“Mystery upon mystery,” murmured Dick as he broke the seal. The letter was a brief one, and began without any of the usual forms of personal address:

“You are in safe and honorable keeping. Have no care. Nor need you worry about your friends – they will be informed of your safety.

“Just as soon as possible the real slayer of Marshall Thurston will be revealed. You will be completely exonerated and can then return to the world, a free man. By this means a certain young lady will be spared from the gossip and the publicity which, although she has been brave enough to say it does not matter, would bring for her annoyance and pain.

“If she is dear to you, as the writer of this letter believes, you will help to shield her from vulgar curiosity by remaining quietly where you are until the proper hour for your deliverance comes. It is only necessary for you to give your word of honor to Pierre Luzon that you will make no attempt to escape or reveal your whereabouts. Your trustfulness will be rewarded – this is the solemn promise of

“Don Manuel de Valencia,

“Your friend.”

Dick read and re-read the strange message. All at once he became conscious that Pierre Luzon was again standing by his chair. Their eyes met.

“Does Mr. Willoughby give ze promise required?” asked Pierre.

Dick rose to his feet and extended his hand.

“I promise, Pierre. You have my word of honor. The letter says that is enough.”

“I have read ze letter before it was sealed. We all know Mr. Willoughby’s word is enough – it is as good as one gold bond.”

“I’d do anything for Merle Farnsworth,” continued Dick, carried away by his fervid emotion. “I would die for her, if need be, to save her from one moment’s pain.”

“Don Manuel he know that,” replied Pierre. Dick paused and his look changed.

“How the devil does he know I love the girl?”

“Ah!” The Frenchman shrugged his shoulders and smiled. “Ah! Don Manuel he know everything. But now, I am under orders not to speak. Over there you will find ze latest newspapers, sir,” he went on, pointing to the table laden with literature, “and every few days more will be brought for you – not only ze newspapers of Los Angeles and San Francisco, but also, ze newspapers of New York and London and Paris, all of which monsieur is accustomed to read.”

“Great Scott, you seem to know,” exclaimed Dick in a low voice.

Pierre continued placidly:

“And you play chess. There is a box of chess —échecs we call it in France, you will remember. I too play ze game. Don Manuel and I used to spend many hours over ze board. After I have had my breakfast, I, Pierre Luzon, challenge you to one game of chess.”

“Be it so,” laughed Dick. “But you must be hungry, man. For heaven’s sake go and eat. We’ll yarn later on. Meanwhile, I’ll have a glance through the newspapers.”

Dick handled the newspapers with renewed surprise – the very New York papers he was accustomed to receive regularly, also the old familiar. Times Weekly from London and the Paris Figaro to which he had subscribed ever since the old Quartier Latin days! The same with the magazines – all his favorites were on the table.

“Well, I’ll be blowed! Is it the guileless Sing Ling whom Don Manuel has been tapping for information? This certainly looks like home,” and again he glanced over the table. He looked at the titles of the books – several of the latest novels, a volume on socialism, another on the history of architecture.

“Seems to know my book tastes, too. I won’t be lonesome, that’s certain. Well, I can’t do better than make a start with the newspapers. I’ve fallen quite behind the times.”

He stretched himself out on a long rattan chair, and started with a Los Angeles daily. He had read lazily on for nearly an hour, when there came from his lips a little cry of surprise.

Starting up into a sitting posture, Dick again perused the paragraph that had excited his special interest.

It was an announcement stating that an ideal city was about to be built in the Tehachapi valley, and that a prize of ten thousand dollars was to be awarded to the designer of the best plans for laying out such a town. Reference was made to an advertisement on another page giving the details and the rules of the competition. To this Dick eagerly turned.

The advertisement set forth that the model city was to be located somewhere near the centre of San Antonio Rancho, that the land was traversed by the state highway, by two railroads, by two electric power lines and two oil-carrying pipe lines, also the great Owen’s River aqueduct that supplied Los Angeles, some two hundred miles away, with water from the high Sierras. It was further stated that the entire ranch was to be subdivided into small tracts, and that already hundreds of applicants were waiting to make choice of home sites just so soon as the survey work was completed and the land thrown open to selection.

The plans required, and for which the prize of ten thousand dollars was offered, were to show the finest landscape effects, the most impressive and convenient location of public buildings, the most attractive ideas for bringing into being a veritable ideal city provided with all the most modern conveniences and sanitary equipment.

“By gad, I’d like to have a shot at that,” murmured Willoughby as he lay back in his chair and meditated.

After a time he picked up the London journal, and the very first thing that met his eye was the identical advertisement on the back of the cover. He rose and began to search through the week’s file of the Figaro, and there again he found the announcement of the contest. He was too keenly excited now for more reading. He began to pace the chamber. What a clever head had planned all this world-wide publicity!

“That Los Angeles bunch of fellows are certainly great. They are evidently going into this thing right. Doubtless they are determined to build the ideal – the model – city of California. They want the best brains of all lands to help beautify the place. Gee! but I’d like to be in this contest game. But perhaps it would be presumption on my part. Yet, who knows the country better than I do? When it comes to landscape effects, I’m Johnny-on-the-spot all right. And they’re in a hurry – only sixty days for the drawings. Unusual, such a short time. But I guess they’re going to make the dust fly without a week’s unnecessary delay. They are certainly live wires – they began by getting old Ben Thurston on the run.”

He was chuckling to himself at the thought when Pierre reappeared.

“Pierre, old fellow,” cried Dick, “would you be able to get me a drawing board, a box of instruments, india ink, water-colors, drawing paper, and so on?”

“What are you going to do?” asked the old man with a smile. “Do you think you are again in ze Quartier Latin, Mr. Willoughby?”

“No. But while I’m here I’m going back to the old Quartier Latin life, that’s a cinch. Can you buy me that stuff?” he added, diving into his hip pocket.

But he had forgotten – he had come out of jail, and his personal possessions had been left behind.

Pierre Luzon, however, had interpreted both the gesture and the thought that had prompted it.

“You need no money here, Mr. Willoughby,” he said. “My orders are to get you everything you call for. Write all you need on a piece of paper. I send a trusty messenger, and we have ze drawing paper, ze instruments, ze ink and ze paints here very soon – yes, very soon.”

“Then, by thunder, I’m going to win that ten-thousand-dollar prize.”

“But she is worth millions of dollars.”

“What do you mean?”

“Ze young lady – she very rich young lady, Miss Merle.”

Dick laughed.

“Oh, that’s quite another prize, Pierre,” he replied. “And if she is so very rich, as you say, why that puts her further out of my reach than ever.”

Pierre nodded his head determinedly.

“If I was you, Mr. Willoughby, ze prize I would try to win is ze beautiful young lady.”

When Pierre had gone, Dick again lay back in the long chair. But he was day-dreaming and love-dreaming now, wondering whether Merle Farnsworth really cared for him, whether he might dare whisper to her the story of his passionate love.

CHAPTER XXI – A Debt of Honor

PUBLIC excitement had been running high over the approaching trial of Dick Willoughby, but his delivery from jail by the masked night-riders came as the culminating climax. Mystery and romance were piling up. Despite the strength of the circumstantial evidence, the sudden fate that had overtaken the young heir to San Antonio rancho had been shrouded with uncertainty; no witness had seen the actual doing of the murderous deed. The sensational arrest of Dick Willoughby had been followed by his still more sensational disappearance; for he seemed to have vanished from the face of the earth – he had been spirited to some place of concealment to which there was not the slightest clue, while also the identity of his rescuers remained a profound enigma.

All sorts of speculations were rife, and it was small wonder that the name of the famous bandit, Don Manuel, came to be revived. This was just the sort of audacious work the White Wolf would have gloried in – breaking into a prison, defying the authorities, leaving behind him a trail of mystery and vague terror. But shrewd old-timers pointed out that Don Manuel had never in his whole career helped a gringo – that his hand had been against every American, and that in his earlier days at all events he had killed ruthlessly, out of sheer lust for vengeance against the race of newcomers who had despoiled him of his ancestral acres. What reason, therefore, could he have had to help Dick Willoughby to liberty? Even if it had been the outlaw’s hand that had pulled the trigger against the son of his hated enemy, Ben Thurston, little would he have cared if a score of gringos had come to their end, justly or unjustly, as an aftermath of the tragedy.

Old Ben Thurston had discussed this very question with himself. The slaying of his only son, the clever business deal that had called his own tricky and dishonest bluff and lost him his principality, the sight of his herds being driven away, the approaching eviction from his home – all these events crowding one upon the other had exasperated him beyond measure and completed the change of the already grouchy, disgruntled man into a veritable wild beast snapping and snarling at everyone. Yet his mind was completely obsessed by the idea that it was Dick Willoughby, and Dick Willoughby alone, who had shot his son, so there was no room in his small and obfuscated brain for any seriously renewed apprehension that his old enemy, the White Wolf, had come to life again.

Dick’s escape from jail almost gave Ben Thurston a fit of apoplexy. It was the sleuth, Leach Sharkey, who alone of those around him ventured to break the news. After his first paroxysm of wrath, Thurston paced the room like a caged animal. He had begun to make a confidant of this man, his constant attendant, the protector with the handy guns in his hip pockets on whom he had come to rely night and day, the one associate who phlegmatically endured his irritable moods and abusive language.

So, in Leach Sharkey’s presence, Thurston, as he walked to and fro, spoke his thoughts aloud.

“Damn all pretty faces, anyhow. First and last they have cost me a fine sum. And now it is a pretty face that has cost me my boy’s life. It’s hell, that’s what it is. But I will have my revenge. I’ll hang Dick Willoughby with my own hands if necessary – even if it is the last act of my life I’ll have his neck stretched for him.”

He was glaring down at the sleuth, and the pause seemed to call for some reply.

“Well, he’s given us the slip for the present,” Sharkey ventured. Then he caught the gathering fury in the other’s eyes, and hurriedly went on: “But there is no question in the world we’ll run the scoundrel down. I myself will shoot him like the dog he is the moment I lay my two eyes on him.”

“Well, don’t waste your breath telling me you are going to do it,” growled Thurston. “Hunt him down. Take all the money you need. Get all the men you can. Search every canyon. Guard every road out of the hill country. And don’t be misled by that damn fool talk about the White Wolf of which you’ve been telling me. That cursed outlaw is dead – dead as a herring. I ran the story of his death to earth – stood on his very grave in the potters’ field at Seattle. Dick Willoughby’s the outlaw now. Get him at any cost. Get him, or, by God, lose your own job, Leach Sharkey. Do you follow me?”

“Oh, I follow you,” replied the sleuth, a sardonic smile still further exposing the teeth that were the most prominent feature of his face and at all times gave him a hyena-like appearance. “I’ll get him, make no mistake, Mr. Thurston. Just draw me that check, and I’ll have twenty more men out on the range before morning.”

At the store, Dick Willoughby’s disappearance was for days the sole topic of conversation. One morning Tom Baker and Buck Ashley were gossiping together.

“What beats me,” remarked the storekeeper, “is that Chester Munson wears such a spry look. He was Dick’s closest chum, yet he don’t seem to be one bit anxious.”

“Oh, he’s got the word, make no mistake,” replied Tom. “Although the lieutenant is as close as wax, he knows Dick’s all right, for sure. And I’m told that up at La Siesta, where Dick has his girl, you know, they’re still a-playin’ the pianner and the fiddle all the time. Mark my words – there’s been some wireless telephone at work. Munson don’t worry, his lady friends don’t worry, so I begin to think we’re a couple of derned old fools to fret ourselves on Dick’s account.”

“It’s about Pierre Luzon I’m frettin’ most,” Buck Ashley rejoined. “To think that that damned Frenchman should have done us in the eye, got clean away and robbed us of our share of the buried treasure – that’s what worries me, Tom Baker. And you’ll allow now you made a mess of things by not havin’ the old convict shackled to the bedpost.”

“A mess of things!” cried the sheriff, rising anger in his voice and eyes. “You won’t keep your mouth shut till I teach you – ”

But just then there was the clatter of hoofs outside, and Tom stopped in the middle of his sentence. A moment later Munson and Jack Rover entered in a state of visible excitement. Munson carried in his arms a rotund canvas sack tied at the neck. The package was not very big, but clearly of considerable weight.

“Great Caesar,” exclaimed the lieutenant, without pausing to give any greeting. “A most surprising thing has happened. When I awoke this morning I found this bag lying on my table. And what do you think it contains?” As he asked the question he dumped the sack on the counter with a heavy thud.

“You’ve got us guessin’,” drawled Tom.

“Ten thousand, five hundred dollars in gold!” announced Munson.

“Good Lord!” ejaculated the sheriff in great surprise.

Munson went on:

“Five thousand dollars are for the French warder at San Quentin who smuggled Pierre Luzon’s letter out of the prison, and the balance is for the syndicate.”