A Vendetta of the Hills

CHAPTER XXXIV – Heart Searchings

AS Mrs. Darlington had anticipated, the trio of young Americans were discovered in the cosy corner. Grace and Munson were engaged in a tête-à-tête that was obviously very delightful to themselves, while Merle at a discreet distance was busily engaged in watering the pot plants and flowers. She was the first to sound a note of warning.

“Here comes mother, and Mr. Robles, also, I do declare.”

The young lovers started a little apart, and Grace in a moment was demurely busy over a bit of sewing that had been resting undisturbed in her lap during the previous half hour.

Merle advanced toward Mr. Robles.

“This is delightful,” she exclaimed, as she warmly shook hands. “You will stay to luncheon, of course.”

“No, my dear. This is to be only a brief visit, I am sorry to say.”

Grace had also come forward, and he saluted her in his usual quiet, kindly manner. But for Munson he had a word of sly banter.

“Better than drilling a squad or cataloguing musty old books,” he remarked, bestowing a significant side glance in Grace’s direction.

“Infinitely better,” replied the ex-soldier and amateur librarian, with frank and unabashed satisfaction.

Mr. Robles took a seat close to Merle.

“I came to bring you two pieces of news,” he said, taking her hand, yet addressing his words to all the company. “First and foremost, by tomorrow the charge against Dick Willoughby will be withdrawn, and he will be a free man.”

“Oh, that is good news indeed,” cried Merle, fairly hugging its bearer.

“Then they have at last discovered the murderer of young Thurston?” enquired Munson in a tone of eager satisfaction.

“Yes, or rather he has discovered himself, I believe. Oh, you need not ask me for the name. It will only be made public when Willoughby formally claims his liberty.”

“I am so thankful,” murmured Grace. “But of course Dick’s complete exoneration was bound to come.”

“And I am the bearer of a special message to you, Mr. Munson. I have not read it. But it was given to me as the one most likely to get it promptly into your hands.”

Speaking thus, he passed over to Munson the hasty scrawl that Dick had written in the cavern and entrusted to Pierre Luzon for delivery.

Munson ripped open the envelope, first scanned the contents, then read aloud:

“On Tuesday night next, about six o’clock, meet me at Buck Ashley’s old store. I shall want you to ride over to Bakersfield with me next morning, where my acquittal is assured. Give Merle the glad news. Yours, Dick.”

“That I have already been privileged to do,” said Mr. Robles, as he smiled down on the young girl by his side. Their eyes met, and a look of grave earnestness came into Merle’s.

“And the second item of news, Mr. Robles?” she asked, in a low tone. “I hope it is also gladsome tidings.”

“Oh, it is of comparative unimportance,” he answered. “Simply that I am going away on a long journey, and may not see all you happy young people again for quite awhile.”

Merle’s face fell. “I am so sorry,” she murmured, a note of real feeling in the softly-spoken words.

“As you grow older you will realize that the world is full of partings, Merle,” he answered.

“But why should there be partings among us?” she protested. “Now that Dick is free, there is not a shadow on all our happiness. And we do so wish you to share it, Mr. Robles. It will not be just the same if you are gone.”

“It is very kind of you to think like that.”

“That’s just how we all think,” interjected Grace. “But when duty calls, one must needs answer,” replied Robles. “Right there is an end to all argument.”

“And where are you going this time, Mr. Robles?” enquired Merle.

“On a long journey – as far as Europe, I hope. But my plans are not quite certain, except that I start tonight. However, I shall be in correspondence with Mrs. Darlington, and I trust that when you young people come to make that contemplated foreign tour, your footsteps will be turned in my direction. Meanwhile you have, all of you, as you already know, my warmest congratulations and heartiest good wishes.”

As he spoke, Mr. Robles rose. His manner indicated that he wished no further questioning. After a comprehensive glance around, he advanced, first of all, to Munson and extended his hand.

“Mr. Munson, you will receive a letter tomorrow that contains an offer for you to continue your work in my library, which I hope will prove acceptable, at least for the present. Grace, my dear, I take the liberty of an old friend.” And he kissed her brow. “With your mother I already have had a good long talk,” he continued, as he pressed Mrs. Darlington’s hand and looked into her eyes. “And now, Merle, dear, I am going to ask you to gather me some roses in your garden. I want them for a particular purpose, and, as you know, there are no roses like those of La Siesta.”

Merle was standing eager and happy to do his bidding – privileged to have the chance of conferring such a little service on her dear old friend, her friend from the earliest childhood days of her remembrance. With impulsive good-nature, Grace was ready to help as well. But a quiet look from her mother restrained her, and Merle and Mr. Robles passed from the verandah, hand in hand.

For nearly an hour they wandered among the rose bushes, picking the choicest blooms, talking a little on many things, silent at times, but both happy in each other’s companionship. At last Mr. Robles looked at his watch. The hour of parting had come.

Merle had deftly tied the roses in a bunch, and now she placed them in his hands.

“A bouquet from me – from your little friend Merle,” she murmured, with a wistful attempt at a smile.

“From my dear little friend, Merle,” he replied, gravely repeating her words as he looked down into her upraised face. It was a beautiful face, in its fresh youthfulness, its eager joy of living, the sublime unconsciousness of self that reveals the spotless soul. For an instant their eyes met.

During that brief spell Robles’ whole being trembled. His arms moved as if to enfold the sweet girl to his breast. But with a mighty effort he controlled himself, and he simply kissed her on the brow, just as he had done to Grace in the cosy corner.

“God bless you, Merle, my dear,” he murmured as he turned away with a final wave of his hand.

In a moment he was gone from her view. But the girl’s gaze remained fixed – still directed down the avenue of trees along which the figure of her life-long friend had disappeared. There was a look of dazed wonderment in her eyes.

“Oh, can it be so – could it be so?” she faltered, as she raised a hand to hold back the tears.

An hour later Robles was in the little Mexican churchyard, scattering the rose blooms gathered by his daughter Merle on the graves of the dead relatives whose names she would never know as such. Already there were the flowers that Tia Teresa had that morning brought – a garland of white arum lilies around the cross that marked the sleeping place of Rosetta, wreaths of rich red carnations on the tombstone inscribed with the father’s and the mother’s names.

And now on the turf beneath the memorials Don Manuel, with lingering fingers, dropped the roses here and there, as if to rest with their beauty and their fragrance on the forms of his beloved dead. The last bloom fluttered to the ground. Then, standing erect, hands upraised, no words uttered, but with the unspoken words none the less reverberating through his very soul, he vowed once again the vendetta which he had sworn on the identical spot thirty long years before.

When he turned to leave the tiny hamlet of the dead, a wonderful transformation had come over his countenance. The placid calm was gone; the fierce fire of implacable hatred and unswervable resolve burned in his eyes. He had bidden adieu to all the softer things in this life. His sole concern now was with the enemy whom he had marked down for death that night.

CHAPTER XXXV – At Comanche Point

BEN THURSTON, during the afternoon, seated in his big armchair, had first nodded over a newspaper and then dropped off to sleep. He was awakened by a touch on the shoulder – rudely awakened, for he jumped to his feet, and in a dazed way glared at the disturber.

“Excuse me,” apologized Leach Sharkey, “but I want to remind you that this is the afternoon when we are to meet that old Portugee I told you about.”

“I need no reminder,” was the gruff reply. “I am ready to start when you are. By the way, what’s the fellow’s name?”

“José, he said. He claims to know every nook and corner in the range. Has lived in the mountains for many years; keeps goats and bees, and shoots a mountain lion occasionally, earning the bounty as well as getting the skin.”

“Shoots,” echoed Thurston, somewhat nervously.

“Oh, that was in his younger days mostly, I fancy. Today he is a tottering old man who couldn’t hold a rifle straight if he tried. But he’s well acquainted with the mountains, that’s the main thing. He tells me he has known where Dick Willoughby is hiding since the very day after he broke jail.”

“Then why didn’t he come to me?”

“Because he knew nothing about the reward. But at our very first chance meeting among the hills I very soon made five thousand dollars look mighty good to him. By gad, you should have seen his eyes pop and his hands tremble.”

“It is a fortune for such a man.”

“That’s what got him. He has been supplying Willoughby with goats’ milk, but is paid only two bits a quart. So he grabbed at my bait like a hungry coyote. You have the money ready, I suppose? Treasury bills – that’s what he stipulated for, because he’s too frail to hump a sack of gold around.”

“The money is in that wallet on my desk. You had better carry it.”

Sharkey stepped across the room and shoved a fat leather wallet into the breast pocket of his coat.

“So frail, is he?” Thurston went on, musingly. “Well, I needn’t take a gun.”

Sharkey smiled. He knew Ben Thurston’s timidity in even handling a revolver, and the man’s abject reliance on his armed bodyguard.

“Not the slightest necessity,” assented the sleuth. “I’ve always got my brace of bulldogs ready;” and the professional gunman, touching the broad leather belt to which his holsters were attached, grinned complacently.

“And no danger to be feared from Willoughby himself, you said?”

“None whatever. In fact, he don’t have a gun, José declares. So he only sneaks out after dark for a constitutional. The old fellow will take us to the spot where we can grab him by the neck.”

“That sounds like business,” replied Thurston, rubbing his hands. “And shoot him down, Sharkey, if he runs.”

“He won’t give us the slip this time – you can bet dollars to doughnuts on that. But of course he’s got to have the chance of hands-up before I fire. Killing is killing, and I prefer the handcuffs. There is really less trouble in the long run.”

“Well, perhaps I, too, would prefer to see him hanged,” murmured Thurston, with gloating satisfaction. “But don’t forget that we must get him this afternoon, dead or alive. I’m sick of this life of watching and waiting.”

“The end’s in sight at last.”

“Then we’ll go back East – after I have had my revenge. It will be sweeter to me after all the trouble we’ve encountered. And by God, we’ll drag that Farnsworth girl, too, through the mire. Hell to all of them! I’ve never had anyone but enemies around me here.”

While speaking, Thurston reached for his overcoat thrown across the back of a chair.

“All right, we’ll start,” said Sharkey. “I’ll go and get the horses ready.”

It was about half past three o’clock when the riders reached the base of the mountain barrier not far from the entrance to Tejon Pass.

“We’ve got to make it on foot now,” remarked Sharkey, as he swung himself from the saddle. “I’ll tether the horses to this manzanita.” Thurston dismounted, and while his companion led the animals under the trees, he gazed aloft at the precipice beetling in front of them.

“Damn it, I wish you had chosen any other place than Comanche Point,” he exclaimed irritably.

“We had to come to the spot where we can find our man,” replied Sharkey complacently. “It is on the ridge above that Willoughby has his place of hiding. Come along, we have a good stiff climb before us.”

He led the way up the first slope of the winding trail and Ben Thurston followed, reluctantly now, half doubting the wisdom of his having left his home for such an adventure.

Meanwhile there had been two other riders on the range that afternoon, mounted on little hill ponies. The one man was blindfolded; the other rode in advance and guided the second pony by a leading rein. It had been the usual experience to which Dick Willoughby had now become accustomed – hour after hour along winding, maze-like trails. At last the call had come to dismount, and the bandage had been removed from Dick’s eyes. He saw that he was in a little box-like nook in the mountains.

“You will remain here,” said Pierre Luzon, “until I whistle for you – you know my signal. Zen you will lead ze ponies along zis path. When you come to me, I will put you on ze road for home, and we will say good-bye.”

“I suppose I may smoke,” laughed Dick, philosophically. The day of surprises had left him dulled to any further wonderment.

“Sure, smoke,” replied Pierre. “But remember ze forest regulations,” he added with a chuckle, “and do not set ze brush on fire.”

“Oh, I’m no green tenderfoot,” laughed

Willoughby, as he drew his briar-root from his pocket. “And it’s quite a balmy afternoon for October.”

He sat down and propped his back against a moss-grown rock.

“You must not stir from here,” continued Pierre. “Remember I have to find you again.”

“Guess I’ve learned to obey orders. I’m quite comfortable where I am.” And Dick started contentedly smoking.

Pierre, following the little path to which he had drawn Dick’s attention, pushed through the brushwood and disappeared.

Just ten minutes later Pierre Luzon stood on Comanche Point and gazed down the trail leading up from the pass below.

“Zey are coming, zey are coming!” he exclaimed eagerly to himself, with finger outpointed in the direction of the two climbers on foot half way up the ascent. Then he slipped back into the shadow of a clump of stunted pines that grew close to the cliff.

Fifteen minutes or so passed. Then the heads of Ben Thurston and Leach Sharkey showed above the final steep ascent that led directly on to the projecting spur known as Comanche Point. Thurston was breathing hard after the difficult climb.

“Here we are at last,” remarked Sharkey cheerfully, as he glanced around.

Even as he spoke, a tottering figure came forth from among the pines. A few minutes before, Pierre Luzon had been erect and vigorous and nimble on his feet, but now he seemed to be indeed a frail and bowed old man.

“I have come,” he said, as he approached the figures on the cliff.

“Hands up, then,” cried the sleuth, half laughing. “You remember, I said I would search you for a gun.”

“I have no gun,” Pierre answered, as he halted and elevated his arms.

Sharkey advanced and, without taking the trouble to draw either of his own weapons, ran his fingers with the quick touch of experience over the old man’s clothes.

“I knew you were on the square, José,” said the bodyguard, quickly satisfied. “Well, I’ve brought the mazuma.”

He drew from his pocket the fat wallet, opening it for a moment to display the wads of greenbacks. Then he put it back again.

“Now where is our man?”

“He is down here, just a little distance,” replied Pierre, in a cautious whisper. “I am not strong enough to hold him. But you come. Ze boss, he can remain here for ze present.”

Ben Thurston had turned away and was looking down into the valley.

“We’ll be back in a short time,” called out Sharkey.

But Thurston, if he had heard, made no reply.

“Now show the way, old fellow,” continued the sleuth, addressing his guide.

A moment later Ben Thurston was alone.

Alone on Comanche Point – gazing over the broad sweep of lands that had been his princely heritage, but which he had now lost forever! The valley lay beneath him, bathed in the mellow evening sunshine. But his eyes were riveted on a single spot. And what a transformation scene for the erstwhile cattle king – this new city with its checkerboard of streets and all around it new homes amid plots of young fruit trees and meadows of alfalfa!

The whole picture was one of fascinating beauty – the city itself the finishing touch that gave it human interest. But in Ben Thurston’s soul there was nothing but bitterness and disgust. He had kept on complaining that he had been unscrupulously plundered by the Los Angeles syndicate, and with the realization now of what enterprise and enlightened progress could achieve, he began to feel that he had been mercilessly stripped of what was rightfully his. Greed and envy and vain regrets were all commingled in his surge of envenomed thoughts. But avarice predominated.

“Good God, to think I parted with the rancho at a beggarly acreage price, when I might have been selling town lots today. There will be a dozen other towns springing up to follow this one.”

In his agony he groaned aloud and covered his eyes with his hands to shut out the hateful sight.

Just at that moment the sound of a twig crackling underfoot smote his ear. He turned round; into his face stole an ashen look of terror as he watched an approaching figure wrapped in a Spanish cloak and crowned by a broad-brimmed sombrero. His haggard eyes asked: “Is it man or ghost?” He would have screamed aloud, but found himself voiceless from fear.

At last the figure stood before him with proudly folded arms.

“The White Wolf!” gasped Thurston, in a faint whisper.

“Yes, Don Manuel de Valencia – the White Wolf, as you choose to call him. And now at last, Ben Thurston, we meet face to face, and alone – after thirty long years, and without a woman’s tears this time to save you!”

Ben Thurston sank to the ground, a huddled heap, trembling in every limb.

CHAPTER XXXVI – Outwitted

PIERRE LUZON led Leach Sharkey along the trail. Beyond Comanche Point it dipped again owing to the contour of the mountain, then at a distance of about fifty yards, took a sharp turn round an abrupt face of rock.

“Where the hell are you taking me?” asked the sleuth, as they approached this bend.

“Only a little further,” replied the guide, in a feeble quavering voice as he glanced over his shoulder.

The men were only a few paces apart. In the shadow cast by the cliff, Pierre’s pallid face with its stubbly white beard looked like that of a veritable ancient, and his bent form and tottering steps completed the picture. The sleuth smiled at his momentary discomposure.

Around the turn, however, Pierre grabbed at a revolver lying ready to his hand on a ledge of rock, and when Sharkey followed, it was to find a hale and stalwart man, erect, alert, with the flash of conscious power in his eyes.

“Hands up!” cried Pierre, in a voice of stern command. Leach Sharkey was standing three short steps away and was looking now into the muzzle of a big automatic pistol. Over his countenance there stole a sickly smile. But he knew the rules of the game too well to attempt any resistance. His hands went slowly above his head until both arms were fully extended.

“You’ve got the drop on me all right, José,” he murmured, in self-apology.

“Face the rock,” came the next curt order – the very tone was reminiscent of old bandit days.

Sharkey obeyed in silence, and in a trice both his guns were withdrawn from their holsters and flung among the brushwood.

“You go ahead now,” said Pierre, stepping aside to let the other pass. “You can drop your hands, but if you cry out or attempt to run, zen you are one dead man.”

The discomfited sleuth meekly complied, although there was now a black scowl on his face as he stepped on ahead. In all his professional career, Leach Sharkey had never before fallen so ignominiously into a trap like this.

Not a word was spoken while a distance of some two hundred yards was being traversed. Then Pierre called out the one word: “Halt!”

Sharkey did not dare even to look round. He stood still as a piece of statuary.

“You sit on zat stone over zere,” continued Pierre, “and do not rise until I give you permission. Now we will proceed to business.”

Sharkey sat down as ordered.

“Hell, you can have your five thousand dollars right enough,” he said, pulling the wallet from his pocket.

“No, my friend. I did not bring you here to rob you. I am out on parole, and I never break my word. I am Pierre Luzon!” He spoke the name with triumphant pride.

“Good God!” exclaimed Sharkey, in dumfounded surprise. “You belonged to the White Wolf’s gang?”

“I belong now to ze gang. Ze White Wolf is alive!”

Leach Sharkey had looked sick before, but a ghastly grey pallor came into his face now.