A Vendetta of the Hills

CHAPTER III – Feminine Attractions

TOM BAKER, the sheriff, cleared his throat. “You fellers, I’m assoomin’, are all boys. I have been loafin’ ‘round in this man’s land for forty years. I was here the day Don Manuel had been buryin’ his old father and mother from the little Mission Church, less than a quarter of a mile from where we are settin’. He was standin’ right in front of this store when young Ben Thurston and two of his ranch hands rode up. If ever I saw real bravery it was that mornin’. Don’t take much bravery to do some things heroic when you have your artillery handy, but it requires the real stuff when you’re gunless.

“Young Thurston spoke to his companions and they drew their guns and kept them leveled at Don Manuel as their boss dismounted.

“Don Manuel was one of the handsomest young fellers I ever laid my two eyes on. He walked straight up to Thurston, and notwithstandin’ the two loaded pieces of artillery was pintin’ straight at him said:

“‘Ben Thurston, you are the man who killed my sister.’

“‘You are a damned liar!’ retorted Thurston.

“‘Yes, you killed her,’ went on Don Manuel. I found this button in her dead hand, and right there, by God! is where it came from. Look at your coat. Your life shall pay for this dastardly murder. If I had my gun I would settle the matter now, notwithstandin’ that today I have been burying my beloved father and mother.’

“When young Thurston heard about there bein’ no gun, he snatched the tell-tale button from his accuser’s hand, swung himself into his saddle, laughed mockingly, and with his quirt struck Don Manuel across the face; then he wheeled round his pony and rode away with his bodyguards in a cloud of dust.

“God! I will never forget it. Don Manuel stood there, as white as a piece of paper, and never moved for a whole minute. The quirt had drawn the blood from his face in one long streak. At last he turned away with a resolve in his eyes – one of them there terrible resolves that change the life of a man, and went back to the little church to finish the last sad rites to his people. It’s my opinion Don Manuel, from that very hour, turned bandit in his heart and took oath to murder all the gringos in California.

“As I said before, that was thirty years back, and mebbe a little more, and I have never seen him since. But we all heard of him good and plenty. He certainly left a red trail.”

A silence followed. Presently Buck Ashley in the way of explanation, said:

“That tombstone on his sister’s grave was put up one night. Nobody saw it done, but everyone knows, of course, it was the work of Don Manuel. It has just one word – ’Hermana’ – chiseled on the cross of white marble. That’s the Mexican for ‘sister,’ guess you all know. So the name Rosetta is only remembered by old-stagers here, like Tom Baker and me. And we ain’t forgotten her pretty face either. Poor little girl!”

“A doggoned shame,” muttered the sheriff, meditatively, his eyes cast down.

“How about the law?” asked Lieutenant Munson. “The law!” exclaimed Baker, raising his eyes and flashing a look of withering contempt. “What kind o’ law was there in those days and in these parts? A gun was usually both judge and jury. Besides, with the only bit of evidence gone, how could Don Manuel prove anything agin a rich young feller like Ben Thurston?”

“But if he was laying for him all the time, how is it that the White Wolf never got his man all through those thirty years?”

“Because Ben Thurston lit out – he was too demed scared to live on the rancho any longer. But that’s another story.”

“Let’s have it, sheriff.”

“Well, it’s a longish yarn, and p’raps you fellers are about tired of hearing me.”

No one protested; there was rather a movement of settling down in pleased expectancy of something worth listening to. So Tom Baker continued:

“Ben Thurston had one warnin’, good and plenty, and he didn’t wait around for a second one. After Don Manuel’s threat, he seldom left his home, and a little later went back East again. It wasn’t till more’n a year that he showed up agin at the rancho. This time he brought with him his Eastern bride, a fine slap-dash young woman who could ride a horse and handle a team in good shape. But we could all see that she wasn’t too happy, for Ben Thurston started in to drink heavily, and she was ashamed of him and showed it.”

“Guess it was to drown his conscience and keep from thinkin’ about Rosetta,” interjected Buck Ashley.

“Like as not,” assented Tom. “Well, anyhow, he hadn’t been here very long afore Don Manuel got him – yes, got him fair and square, although he managed to save his neck at the last moment. There was card-playin’ and drinkin’ one night at the rancho – Thurston had got a bunch o’ gay young dogs down from San Francisco. Mrs. Thurston had left the room, and was sittin’ out alone in the moonlight on the verandah. Suddenly she heard a sound that made her sit up and listen – the clatter o’ twenty pairs o’ gallopin’ hoofs a-comin’ straight for the house. She must ha’ known something about the vendetta, for she rushed in terror to her husband and gave him warnin’. He escaped by a back door, and a minute later the place was surrounded. The shootin’ came first from some of the ranch hands, who had tumbled out of the bunk house and were spyin’ around corners. They said later that the hold-up party numbered more’n twenty, some of them masked with handkerchiefs tied around their faces, but others bold as brass and not carin’ a dang who saw ‘em. Among these last was Don Manuel. But Pierre Luzon was a downy duck, for no one spotted him, although later on we came to know that he played the principal part that night, next to the leader of the gang.

“Well, after the shootin’-scrap became general, there was a pretty scare in the ranch house – one of the card-players dropped, and the others were hiding under tables, when Don Manuel appeared and asked for Ben Thurston. His wife, mighty brave, denied that he was there – he had left that afternoon for Visalia to buy some cattle, she boldly declared. Don Manuel, always the true gentleman, mark ye, was for believin’ her when Pierre, his face masked, came in from the verandah and in a low voice passed some words to his chief. Mrs. Thurston knew in a moment that her bluff was goin’ to be called, and, while the outlaws were confabbin’, darted from the room.

“But Pierre was just as quick out by the verandah, and before she got to the door o’ the woolshed beyond the horse corral, he was there to block her passage. It was Pierre who had caught a glimpse of the fugitive sneakin’ into this outbuilding, and now he knew for certain that Thurston was hiding among the bags o’ wool inside. But a cornered man is a dangerous animal, and it might mean a good few lives if the door was opened and any attempt made to rush the place.

“The gang was soon buzzin’ all around; the woman, now almost in hysterics, was hustled aside, and a few bundles of loose hay was being dumped into the shed through an open window. A match did the rest. Within three minutes the door opened and Thurston came staggerin’ out through thick clouds of smoke. Pierre grabbed him and had a noose around his neck in doublequick time.

“The shootin’ was over before this, and some of the ranch hands were lookin’ on from a little distance, for now everyone knew that it was only the boss that the night-riders were after. So more’n one was able afterwards to tell the story – how the young wife threw herself at Don Manuel’s feet, and with sobs and tears pleaded for mercy. And by the living God she won out even after the rope, with her husband at the end of it, had been swung over the limb of a near-by sycamore.

“The White Wolf stood stock-still for perhaps a minute, weighin’ things like, his arms folded across his breast. Then he raised the weepin’ woman, and, turnin’ to Thurston, now half-dead with fear, laid hold of him by the shoulder and shook him as a terrier shakes a rat. Then with his other hand he flung the noose from around his neck. ‘Take your miserable life, then, this time’ – that’s what Don Manuel said. ‘Take it, but the day will come when we shall meet again, man to man, with no woman’s tears to save you.’ And he pushed Thurston away contemptuously, topplin’ him over like a ninepin, and a minute later rode off at the head of his men.”

The narrator paused, and there was a general murmur of repressed excitement.

“My word, that’s a peach of a story,” exclaimed Jack Rover.

“He certainly was a chivalrous fellow, this oldtime Don Manuel,” remarked the lieutenant.

“And don’t you see,” said the sheriff, “that, when a man acted like that and spoke like that, his words must come true? Don’t tell me that Don Manuel today is dead while Ben Thurston is still alive. But he has taken mighty good care of himself ever since that day. He an’ his wife skipped East the very next morning, and I’m told they never stopped till they got to Europe. Nobody knows where exactly they lived during the time that followed, but news came through years later that the wife had died, somewhere in the south of England, leaving a son behind. That’s young Marshall who has come West with his dad now – the young man’s first visit and his father’s last one, I reckon, if he sells the ranch, as I’m told he’s trying to do.”

“But I say, boys,” observed Jack Rover, “what do you suppose the White Wolf did with all the gold he took away from the people? It’s said that in one stage robbery he got over fifty thousand dollars of the yellow stuff.”

“Hid it,” replied Buck Ashley, “with Joaquin Murietta’s hoarded gold. For it’s sure as sure can be that Don Manuel came to know the secret o’ the bandits’ cave where Murietta used to store his loot. The only thing anybody else knows is that it is around here somewheres.”

“But they do say,” observed one of the cowboys, “whatever Sheriff Baker may think, and you, too, Buck, that Don Manuel is sure ‘nuff dead. Most folks herabouts believe that the White Wolf has gone to his long restin’ place, sort a j’ined forces with old Joaquin Murietta. The Tulare Lake affair was, I guess, his last raid.”

“He ain’t dead,” muttered Tom, determinedly, while Buck Ashley also shook his head in repudiation of the cowboy’s theory.

“Well, I happen to know,” observed Dick Willoughby, “that Mr. Thurston has run down the story of the White Wolf’s death in that Seattle saloon brawl pretty thoroughly, and he is of the opinion that the big-featured articles in the San Francisco and Los Angeles papers were correct – that the dead man’s identity was absolutely established.”

“That’s how he’d wish it to be, at all events,” said Buck Ashley. “But even now, when Ben Thurston ventures to come home to the rancho, he brings with him a great big hulking bodyguard – Leach Sharkey, I’m told is the fellow’s name. That don’t look much like believin’ the White Wolf to be dead and the vendetta played out, does it? You can see it in his hang-dog face that it isn’t any real pleasure for him to be around in these parts. He ain’t once paid me a visit at the store. Guess he thinks his hide’ll last longer by stickin’ close to home. You owe your job o’ runnin’ his cattle, Dick Willoughby, to the fact that he’s still plumb scared.”

“Oh, well, I am in his employ,” said Dick loyally, “and I’m inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt as regards these ugly rumors and idle stories. He has always been on the square with me. But perhaps he’ll stick to the rancho, now he believes the White Wolf to be dead.”

“He may believe it, but, as Buck says, why then the bodyguard?” commented the sheriff as he relighted his pipe.

“Yes.” replied Dick Willoughby, “but I believe he is thinking of letting Leach Sharkey go. Personally I would be willing to wager that Don Manuel, whom no one has seen since that last raid on the stage coach, is dead and sleeping with his sires.”

“Well, dead or alive,” exclaimed Jack Rover, “I don’t care a hang for the White Wolf and his-buried treasure. But what I would like to know is the exact location of that rippling mountain stream, the identical sandbar where the old squaw Guadalupe gathers up her pocket change with which to buy groceries. That would be a heap better than any blooming cave. Them’s my sentiments.”

As he said this he threw some silver on the bar and invited everybody to lubricate.

“Just nominate your poison, boys, and let’s drink to my finding old Guadalupe’s gold mine.”

They all laughed good-naturedly, and Lieutenant Munson declared that he thought he would put in the balance of his furlough days prospecting. “You know,” he explained in an aside to the storekeeper while the latter was preparing the drinks, “I am only here to visit my old college pal, Dick Willoughby, and incidentally see the place where my father was a soldier in the early California days. He was stationed several years in Fort Tejon.”

“That was before my time,” said Buck Ashley.

“The soldiers had abandoned the old fort when I came first into these parts.”

Meanwhile Dick Willoughby was clinking glasses with Jack Hover.

“There are some mighty pretty little senoritas hereabouts,” said Dick, “good American blood mixed with Spanish blood, you know, and all that. If a fellow could only find the right one – understand, I say the right one, Jack – he wouldn’t be losing any time in chasing after the old squaw’s secret gold mine or the White Wolf’s buried millions.”

Jack Rover laughed outright.

“I say, Dick, what are you reddening up about? Gee, if I had as fine a lead as you have staked out, I’d feel the same way. Ain’t that right, Buck?” Buck Ashley winked at Jack Rover and said: “If you mean who I think you mean, you sure are righter than right. I speak wide open and unrestrained when I give it as my opinion that Miss Merle Farnsworth is the finest specimen of young womanhood that I ever set eyes on, and I have seen some girls East as well as West. Take it from me, she is a jewel, she is a regular beauty rose. Yes,” he went on, “and too damned good for that young Thurston whelp, who hangs around tryin’ to act smart whenever she and that old duenna chaperon of hers comes here to trade. I’ll simply boot him out of the store one of these days.”

Dick Willoughby smiled in a satisfied way as he moved toward the door.

“Well, hold on, Dick,” called out Jack Rover, “don’t be in such a dangnation hurry. I’ll ride with you in a minute. I’ve just got this to say to you, Buck Ashley, that I like you better than ever for what you’ve said about Marshall Thurston. Even though I’m working for the Thurston outfit, I’m free to express my opinion that that young feller is about the meanest specimen of low-down humanity I’ve ever struck.”

“It’s a case of the second decadency, I suppose,” remarked Munson. “The worthless profligate, spawn of the rich old roué, Ben Thurston.”

“Such a drunken pup,” continued Rover, “aint’ good enough for a half-breed Indian, much less for the likes of the young ladies of La Siesta. Gee, if I thought there was one chance in a thousand for me with either of them, why goodbye to that placer gold mine ambition that’s eating my vitals, or to the planted millions of the White Wolf.”

As he spoke the last words, he followed Dick Willoughby into the open. Dick was standing by his pony.

“You’re superlatively in earnest, aren’t you?” he said as he laughed good-naturedly at the cowboy.

“You bet your life I’m in earnest,” replied Jack. “And if you don’t get busy with that love affair of yours, well, take it from me, you had better look out, for somebody will be picking the peach right from under your very nose. Well, so long, Dick; I’ve changed my mind; I’ll not ride with you. I’ll see to that bit of fence repairing up on the range. And who knows but I may find a sand-bar and a riffle sparkling with yellow gold?” He laughed like a big overgrown boy as he touched the rowel to his pony and galloped away across the valley.

CHAPTER IV – Back to the Soil

JACK ROVER is a great boy,” said Dick Willoughby to Lieutenant Munson as the two rode off at a leisurely pace toward the group of ranch buildings peeping through a clump of trees at the edge of the foothills.

“A type of Western character,” replied Munson, “that in a way is quite new to me. And yet, do you know, I rather like this Western atmosphere.”

“Like it!” exclaimed Dick. “Why, man, it is the atmosphere in which to live, move and have one’s being.”

They both laughed at his enthusiasm.

“Really,” continued Dick, soberly, “I would not live another year in New York City for all the property fronting on the Circle, the coming centre of old Gotham. Out here a man is a man for what he is worth. You grow bigger, you think broader thoughts, you are not confined to following precedents or taking orders from the man higher up.”

“Oh, I know,” replied Munson, “or at least I am beginning to understand something of what you mean. I have only been here ten days and I am already feeling loath to return to my post.”

“Ches,” exclaimed Dick, turning abruptly and facing his companion, “give it all up, old fellow, and come and live in this glorious country – California! There’s music in the very name. It is the land of sunshine, of fruits and flowers, and of pretty girls into the bargain.”

“You keep telling me of the pretty girls, but when am I to see them?” questioned Munson. “If you have any real senoritas who will cause a fellow to forsake his Eastern home and send in his resignation to army headquarters, let me get a peep at them.”

Again they both laughed, this time at the challenge in Munson’s words.

“All right,” said Dick, “you shall see them. And, by the way, don’t you remember that this is the very day we have arranged to call on Mrs. Darlington at the Rancho La Siesta? It is a beautiful place, this little rancho, and Mrs. Darlington you will find to be a most admirable woman. But just wait until you see Grace Darlington.”

“How about Miss Farnsworth?”

“Not for you, old man,” replied the other quickly, reddening at the temples. “Not as long as my name is Dick Willoughby – providing, you understand, always providing that I shall prove successful in my wooing.”

“Is it as bad as that, Dick?”

“Well,” – his laughing tone was only a mask to deeper feelings – “I cannot deny that I am pretty hard hit.”

“My, but you do whet my impatience,” said the lieutenant. “And I am about as anxious to be paying that afternoon call as I am to have my breakfast. I don’t know how you feel, Dick, but I’m as hungry as a lean coyote.” He paused a moment, then asked in a musing tone: “How far away is this wonderful La Siesta Rancho?”

“Oh, only about twenty miles.”

“Twenty miles! You speak of miles out here in the same way as we speak of city blocks back in New York. Surely it must be quite a farm.”

“Quite a farm? I should say! You musn’t confound our Californian ranchos with Eastern farms, old man. Why, this rancho of San Antonio covers over four hundred square miles of territory.”

“You astonish me.”

“La Siesta Rancho adjoins the great San Antonio possession and contains comparatively few acres, just under three thousand. But it surely is a beautiful little place, fixed up like a nobleman’s park in the old world. And then the ladies – ”

“Aha, the ladies,” repeated Munson, doffing his hat in courtly fashion and smiling audaciously.

Dick touched the flank of his pony with his spur, and for a few miles they rode on at a quicker pace and in silence. Soon they were approaching the ranch buildings. On the outer edge was a little cottage, covered with vines and surrounded by fruit trees, the place which Dick Willoughby, the cattle foreman, had called “home” for the past five years.

After turning their horses into a corral, they passed by way of a broad verandah into a big room, roughly but comfortably furnished. Some logs were smouldering in the fireplace, and quickly started into a bright blaze when Dick kicked them together. The warmth was grateful, for while out of doors everything was now bathed in genial sunshine, here the morning air was still keen.

A Chinaman appeared from the back quarters, and smiled expectantly.

“Breakfast, Sing Ling,” called out Dick, “and just as quick as you can serve it.”

Sing Ling departed as noiselessly as he had come.

“These are certainly great quarters,” observed Munson, settling himself in a big Old Mission rocker and glancing around.

The walls, curiously enough, were pretty well covered with pen-and-ink sketches and designs of buildings that might have adorned an architect’s office, while there was a partly completed landscape painting in oils standing on a rudely fashioned easel.

“And you’ve certainly stuck to the old line of work, Dick,” the lieutenant went on.

“Of course one must have something to think about when he is all alone in a new country,” replied Willoughby. “But most of that stuff I did in my first year here,” he added, following the other’s survey of the walls.

“You still paint, however,” remarked Munson, his eyes resting on the unfinished canvas.

“Or try to,” was the laughing response.

“Oh, that’s a modest way of putting it. Do you know, old man,” Munson went on, “since I came here I have often thought what a marvelous change has been wrought in you – what a transplanting has taken place? You were a chronic New Yorker, except for that one year you spent in the Latin Quarter of gay Paree. You thought then you were going to make a great painter. And, by gad, I almost believe so myself,” he added, bending forward to make a more critical scrutiny of the work on the easel. “By jove, that’s really fine, Dick.”

“I’m afraid that’s flattery, Chester, my boy,” responded Willoughby. “However, it sounds good to hear you say so. A word of appreciation is what all hearts hunger for. Personally I even believe in a moderate amount of flattery. Its psychic influence is more potent in arousing and causing the heart to throb with ambition than all the stimulants, drugs or reasoning in the world. Indeed, without a certain amount of flattery one becomes ambitionless, languid, and perishes; whereas the unexpected caress or kindly words of praise from loved ones, just or unjust, adds more strength to the good right arm of the breadwinner than all the beef in Christendom, and makes the sunshine seem brighter and earth’s every breeze a south wind blowing across beds of violets.”

“A bit of a poet, too, I see,” smiled Munson.

Willoughby made no reply. He had crossed over to the open door and was looking out on the valley that stretched away for miles – great oak trees in the foreground, with cattle-dotted pasture lands beyond. Waving his hand toward the vast expanse, he said:

“Just look at that for a picture, and see how tame a man-made gallery is as compared with this great art gallery of Nature. Do you know, Ches, I despise New York? There was a time, when I first came here, that I felt I should die of ennui, yearning for the Great White Way once again. But I have outgrown all that. I know now, thank God, there’s nothing to it. Here a man can fill his lungs with pure air, and at the same time feast his soul all day long with beautiful things.”

There followed a brief interval of silence. Munson had risen and joined his comrade at the door. Both were gazing over the glorious sunlit sweep of territory rimmed by the distant, pine-clad hills. In the heart of Dick Willoughby was supreme contentment, in that of Chester Munson a vague longing to get away from red-tape army routine and breathe the exhilarating and inspiring freedom of life in the open.

“Blakeflast,” bleated a soft voice behind them, and turning round they found the suave, smiling Chinaman with hand outstretched toward the smoking viands upon the table. Sentiment was instantly forgotten in favor of lamb chops grilled to a turn, a great fluffled omelette with fine herbs that would have done credit to a Parisian chef, and coffee that was veritable nectar.

At last appetite was satisfied. The lieutenant had produced his cigar case, Dick was filling his briar-root pipe with tobacco from the humidor. The latter spoke:

“Say, Ches, we were talking about New York. Do you want me to give you a toast on that modern Babylon?”

“Sure, old man, go ahead! You know I haven’t lost my interest in old Gotham, by any manner of means. It may the a modern Babylon. But to me it is none the less the greatest of American cities.”

“That’s just the trouble,” said Dick, seriously. “It is too great. There identities are swallowed up. Individualism cannot survive. It is all one great composite.”

“Well, let us hear the toast.”

Dick raised his cup of coffee and said: “Very well, here it is; here is my opinion of New York:

 
‘Vulgar in manners; overfed,
Over-dressed and under-bred;
Heartless, godless, hell’s delight,
Rude by day and lewd by night.
Bedwarfed the man, enlarged the brute;
Ruled by boss and prostitute.
Purple robed and pauper clad;
Raving, rotten, money mad;
A squirming herd in Mammon’s mesh;
A wilderness of human flesh;
Crazed by avarice, lust and rum —
New York! thy name’s delirium.’.rdquo;
 

“Great Heavens, old man,” exclaimed Munson, when Dick had finished, “you are severe, to say the least.”

Willoughby laughed good-naturedly as he passed the match box to his friend.

“Not severe, only truthful,” he said. “You see, in New York no man dares think for himself. Everything is controlled by a machine-appointed chairman, secretary and committee, and you must hear the resolutions read before you know the doctrine you are perforce to advocate.”

Then he lit his pipe and rose from the table.

“Now, I have a lot of things to attend to, old fellow,” he resumed. “Make yourself comfortable. Here’s a bunch of Eastern newspapers – oh, I read them regularly, haven’t got rid of that bad habit yet. I’ll tell Sing Ling to have lunch ready on the stroke of noon. Then we’ll be in good time to start out for the Rancho La Siesta. So long!”