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THE FIFTH ACE
by
DOUGLAS GRANT
Frontispiece by George W. Gage
[Frontispiece: "Peach of a town," he repeated with added conviction]
Grosset & Dunlap
Publishers
New York
Copyright, 1918, by
W. J. Watt & Company
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. GENTLEMAN GEOFF'S BILLIE
II. A SUPERFLUOUS KNIGHT-ERRANT
III. THE COMING OF EL NEGRITO
IV. GENTLEMAN GEOFF PASSES THE DEAL
V. A GRINGO CINDERELLA
VI. TIA JUANA'S CAULDRON COOLS
VII. ALIEN KIN
VIII. WILLA SITS IN
IX. BIRDS OF A FEATHER
X. AN ACE IN THE HOLE
XI. A CHANGE OF FRONT
XII. COALS OF FIRE
XIII. THE CHALLENGE
XIV. THE KNIGHT-ERRANT ONCE MORE
XV. GONE
XVI. THE POOL OF THE LOST SOULS
XVII. ANGIE SCORES
XVIII. MIDNIGHT FOR CINDERELLA
XIX. THE VENDER OF TOMALES
XX. WINNIE MASON STANDS BY
XXI. THE RETURN OF TIA JUANA
XXII. WHERE TRAILS MEET
XXIII. THE SLIPPER OF CINDERELLA
XXIV. THE LOST SOULS' TREASURE
XXV. INTO HER OWN
THE FIFTH ACE
CHAPTER I
GENTLEMAN GEOFF'S BILLIE
Kearn Thode mounted his pinto and rode out of the courtyard of the
Baggott Hotel and down the Calle Rivera under a seething tropic sun.
Limasito's principal street was well-nigh deserted in the lethargy of
the noon-day siesta, but the flower-market was a riotous blaze of color
in the glistening white plaza, from which radiated broad vistas of
fantastically painted adobe and soberer concrete, ending in a soft
green blur.
The young petroleum engineer had pictured a ten-year-old boom town in
the Mexican oil belt as a wilderness of rough shacks and board
sidewalks, with possibly a dancehall or two and an open-air movie as
the only attractions, and the thriving little city had proved a welcome
surprise.
"Limasito," he mused. "That means 'Little Lemon.' Wonder who tacked
that name to this burg? Peach of a town, I call it."
A long, low adobe house, tinted a screaming blue which rivaled the
skies, faced the southern end of the plaza, covering nearly an entire
block. As Thode jogged past, a door in the side wall opened, and a
girl appeared. She was tall with a lithe slenderness that betokened
well-poised strength rather than fragility. Masses of sloe-black hair
waved beneath the broad brim of her sombrero, but her skin was
unbelievably fair and the eyes she lifted to his in frank scrutiny were
the deep blue of a wood violet.
The young man caught his breath as she turned and started across the
plaza, walking with long, free, swinging strides.
"Peach of a town," he repeated, with added conviction. "All to the
good!"
The Calle Rivera dwindled into a dusty, white, winding road,
straggling, flower-choked gardens replaced the city blocks and gave way
in turn to haciendas whose flat fertile acres teemed with the luscious
harvest. The pinto covered the ground at an easy lope which ate up the
miles, and Thode sat his high Mexican saddle, as easy as a
rocking-chair, scanning each turn of the road for landmarks.
The sun was well upon its western course when he reined in at a low
stout gateway. A peon, lazily hoeing in the ditch, straightened his
bent back and eyed the stranger in mild curiosity.
"This Hallock's ranch?" Thode asked, laconically.
The peon nodded and waved a brown hand toward the house half hidden
among the trees.
"Señor Hallo', si, Señor."
The engineer wheeled and cantered up the winding driveway, with the
serried rows of grapefruit trees spreading out endlessly on either side
of the little rising where the square white ranch-house squatted, its
broad wings outstretched like those of a brooding hen.
In the shade of a mahogany tree, an excessively fat, excessively bald
person sprawled in a low chair by a rustic table, alternately sipping
from the tall glass at his elbow and mopping his ruddy glabrous brow
with a vivid bandanna.
He rose to his short legs as Thode swung himself from the saddle and
advanced.
"Mr. Hallock?"
"That's me, Stranger. Howdy!" He held out a pudgy hand, and noting
the fresh coat of sunburn on his visitor, he added: "Just come over the
border?"
"Further than that, Sir; from New York. I'm Kearn Thode. Perhaps Mr.
Larkin mentioned me to you; Perry Larkin, of the Mexamer Oil Company."
"To be sho'! I'm right glad to see you, Thode."
Benjamin Hallock pumped his hand vigorously. "Been kinder expectin'
you down in these parts. We'll set a spell out here, it's hotter'n
blazes inside. Hey, Luis! Juan!"
Two mozos scurried from the veranda in response to the bull-throated
roar, and Thode found himself seated opposite his host with another
tall glass before him and a slender black cigar between his fingers.
"Great country for you folks, down here," Hallock remarked. "We've got
the largest producing oil wells in the world right in this leetle strip
of land along the Gulf and, at that, the undeveloped resources are a
damn' sight greater'n you can judge from what's been brought to light.
Yes, Sir, I shouldn't be surprised any day to strike a gusher right
here on my ranch! Rufe Terwilliger, twelve miles yonder at the Dos
Zapotes, spudded in only six months ago on a hunch, and now with the
valve-gate only part-way open, he's bringing in a thousand barrels a
day!"
"I know that the development which has taken place here is, speaking
relatively to the possibilities, only a beginning," Thode assured the
heated enthusiast. "I'm down here to look after Mr. Larkin's
interests, and those of the Mexamer Company with a view to extending
their holdings if I can pick up anything promising. By the way, Mr.
Hallock, that was a curious yarn you told Mr. Larkin, about some
mysterious lost pool in a swamp with surface oil indications. He
happened to mention it one day. The Pool of the Lost Souls, wasn't it?"
Hallock nodded, grinning expansively.
"You've got it right," he chuckled. "So Larkin bit, did he? It's
nothing but pure bunk, one of those old Mex' legends that run back to
the beginning of time. We pass it on to every green operator from over
the border, but I reckoned Larkin was too wise a bird to take any stock
in it."
"He didn't," Thode returned carelessly. "Up in Oklahoma where I've
been locating some sections for the company there are any amount of
Indian myths and queer old traditions handed down from the first
settlers, and I made a collection of them. It's rather a hobby of
mine. I was discussing them with Mr. Larkin when he recalled this odd
tale. He had forgotten the particulars, but he said you would be able
to supply them. The pool was supposed to be located somewhere around
here, wasn't it?"
"Anywhere within a radius of two hundred miles." His host drained his
glass and settled back comfortably. "I judge it about that, for I've
been pretty much over this whole country and it's only around these
parts that you hear of the Lost Souls' Pool. I got the tale from a
hunchbacked half-breed and he got it from his grandmother.
"It seems that away back in the times when the Spaniards were scrapping
with the Indians for a foothold, an old grandee named Del Reyes had
staked out a claim hereabout. Mighty poor judgment he showed, too, for
he wouldn't have known what to do with oil if he'd found it in those
days and by all accounts the land couldn't have been much good for
anything else; swampy and low-lying, without even timber. He had a
beautiful daughter, Dolores, of course. Funny how that gal Dolores
manages to get herself mixed up in every yarn below the border, ain't
it? There was a kid brother, José, too, but he don't figure much.
"Dolores must have been some Jane for all the male population, what
there was of it, went plumb loco about her, among 'em a young Spanish
explorer and the son of the chief of the tribe, whose claims Del Reyes
and the rest had jumped. Dolores favored the explorer, but the young
chief had seen her first, and being a simple-hearted child of nature,
he decided that the way to get what he wanted was to go right out after
it.
"Accordingly, he showed up unexpected at the Del Reyes hacienda with
his outfit one moonlight night and laid hands on the gal. Dolores was
packing a knife, though, and she let him have it, full to the hilt.
His outfit vamoosed, taking the corpse with them, and the settlement
got ready for trouble.
"Nothing happened, howsomever, until the night of the fiesta for
Dolores' marriage to the explorer. Then the old chief dropped in,
informal like, and wiped out the whole wedding party. He macheted all
but the bride, throwing the bodies into a shallow pool on the claim.
Her he roped up, tied heavy weights to and stood up in the pool; the
water came about to her shoulders. Then he held the knife before her
eyes, the knife she'd stuck his son with, and waited for the weights to
drag her down. I reckon he waited some time, for Dolores must have
been a right-strong young woman, but she went under finally. The only
one that escaped the pool was the kid brother, José, and him the old
chief carried off.
"According to the yarn, Dolores still breathes in the pool, the bubbles
rise to the surface and there's a murmuring from the other souls that
went down unshriven. What's more, the water is never ruffled but
smooth and glassy, with streaks that gleam in the moonlight. Of
course, that's oil, all right, or would be if the pool ever existed,
but nobody's found it yet."
"It's got the punch to it, as a story." Thode paused to relight his
cigar. "Did your hunchbacked friend give you any further description
of the pool itself or its location?"
"Nothing to work on, Son. This flat part of the country don't run much
to scenery. He did say something about a mahogany tree close by, that
grew up with two outstretched branches like a cross and then turned to
stone, but I'm not letting my peons loaf on the job while I go moseying
around looking for it."
"It's a great little ranch you have here." Thode turned in his chair
to survey the close-packed avenues of low-hanging trees. "Any oil on
your land, Mr. Hallock?"
"Not here. Got two gushers over near Tuxpam, next to some property
that I reckon you'll want to look into for the Mexamer people. Larkin
told me himself that he thought of taking it over."
The talk drifted into a discussion of relative values and prospects,
and when Thode cantered down the driveway an hour or so later he had
secured a good working knowledge of the surrounding country with which
to commence his labors. He had parted with some little difficulty from
his host, who insisted on sending in to Limasito for the young
engineer's baggage and wholeheartedly desired that he make the Hacienda
de Rosa his headquarters.
Kearn Thode, however, had other intentions. He must be free to go and
come as he pleased on his mission and he determined to make the town
itself the center of his activities. Moreover, Hallock's hacienda was
a bachelor establishment and in Limasito there were girls; girls with
blue eyes and black hair and incredibly white skin, who looked a man
straight in the eyes and made him feel as if maybe he'd found a friend.
That blue adobe house on the southern end of the square began to loom
large in the architecture of Limasito. Thode had caught a glimpse of
the patio as he swung past; it had looked cool and green and inviting,
with a fountain playing and little tables scattered about. What was
it, anyway, and how could one meet a girl who lived there?
The curious old tale of the Lost Souls' Pool was temporarily forgotten
in speculations of a more warmly personal nature. Was she an
Americano? She seemed of too fair a type for a native daughter, in
spite of her dark hair, and that, together with her violet-blue eyes,
gave more than a hint of Irish ancestry. What could bring a girl of
her sort to a boom town below the border?
So absorbed was the young engineer in his cogitations that he had
reached the outskirts of Limasito before he awoke from his reverie.
The swiftly falling curtain of twilight had wrapped the spreading
orchards and haciendas in fragrant gloom and a myriad of mysterious
chirpings and rustlings forecasted the coming night, when the harsh,
grating screech of a horn blared upon their monotone and a low roadster
appeared suddenly around a turn in the road, careening sharply on two
wheels, and bore down recklessly upon the lone rider.
Thode's pony was quicker than he and leaped aside barely in time to
avoid disaster as the car shot past and hurtled on into the dusk. He
turned in his saddle and watched its unlighted shape swerve drunkenly
from side to side of the road, until a further turn hid it from view.
With a muttered imprecation, he gave the sure-footed pinto its head,
and as it floundered out of the ditch the white, jeering face of the
man at the wheel, as he had seen it in that flashing glimpse, rose
again before his consciousness. It seemed for a startling instant to
be grimly, portentously familiar, then the fancy faded before the fact
of its obvious absurdity, and he laughed contemptuously. The danger of
the moment had played tricks with his nerves.
A long-drawn, tremulous moan from the roadside broke in upon his
thoughts and he halted the pinto abruptly. A small crumpled figure lay
face downward in the ditch, twisting and quivering like a shot rabbit,
and, bending over it, Thode saw a slender feminine form which made his
pulse miss a beat or two and then race on with unaccountable
acceleration. He flung himself from the saddle and reached the edge of
the ditch, hat in hand, just as a pair of soft violet eyes were raised
to his. It was the girl of the adobe house on the plaza.
"There has been an accident?" he stammered.
She nodded briefly.
"Put on your hat and help me tote him. He lives in that shack just
over yonder."
Her voice was low and musically clear, but it bore a ring of authority
as well as of impatience at the obviousness of his question, and Thode
meekly obeyed.
The prostrate figure was that of a boy, dark-skinned and thin to the
point of emaciation. He was clad only in a ragged shirt and trousers,
with a battered straw hat lying torn and crushed beside him.
"Stand aside, please. I can carry him," Thode directed, and as he
slung the inert form gently over his shoulder he saw that the boy's
shoulders were pathetically humped.
In spite of his assertion, he found it no easy matter to struggle up
from the steep ditch, cumbered by his helpless burden, but the girl
steadied it with a capable hand and leaped lightly up beside him.
"Put him across your galapago, I'll walk on the other side and hold him
up. It's only to that shack there, where the light is."
Again Thode obeyed, but he could not forbear a further query.
"You are not hurt yourself, are you? It was that maniac in the car who
ran him down?"
"I came on him just now, lying that-a-way in the ditch. Poor little
José! I know who did it, though; he passed me a minute before, going
like hell. It was Wiley."
Thode started as the forceful comparison fell artlessly from her lips,
but at the final word a hot wave as of rage swept through his veins and
receded, leaving him tense and cold. So his vision had not tricked
him, after all. The man in the car had been no stranger.
"I know. He almost ran me down, too." Thode set his jaw firmly. "Is
this where we turn off?"
"This" was a narrow rutted lane, half-obliterated in the encroaching
underbrush, at the end of which a weather-beaten shack squatted in a
clump of zapote trees. As they drew up in the little cleared space
before it the door opened and a shriveled, white-haired woman peered
out, a light held high in her trembling hand.
"Madre de Dios!" she cried. "José!"
The girl turned to her with a rapid flow of soft liquid Spanish and the
old crone, weeping and muttering, stood aside to let them enter. Thode
was forced to stoop under the low, sagging doorway and he stumbled as
he made his way to a rickety bed in the corner and laid his burden down.
The girl took the light from the old shaking hands and together they
bent above the injured lad.
"I don't think there are any bones broken," Thode announced at last.
"But he's had a pretty bad shaking up for a cripple and that is rather
a nasty cut on his head. Can you find anything clean to tie it up
with?"
Without reply the girl stooped, turned back her short khaki skirt and
tore a wide strip from a snowy petticoat. Then with a basin of water
dipped from the bucket upon a bench beside them she bathed and bandaged
the wound deftly. The old crone had lighted a flaring oil lamp and by
its leaping glow Thode saw to his surprise that the shack although old
and ramshackle was scrupulously, incredibly clean, and its chatelaine
bore herself not without a certain dignity, despite her agitation.
She was tall and stiffly angular with piercing black eyes deep-set in
her wrinkled face, and there was a peculiar wild grace in the rapid
gestures of her withered claw-like hands. She hovered anxiously about
as between them Thode and the girl ministered to the stricken lad, and
dropped to her knees as his eyes opened at length.
For a moment his startled gaze roved over them and then settled upon
the face of the girl.
"Señorita!" His voice was a mere convulsive whisper. "Señorita! It
was the Americano, Señor Wiley! He cursed me and laughed! I heard him
when he struck me!"
"Never mind, José. You must rest and get well quickly and then we will
attend to Señor Wiley. I will come to you to-morrow. Tia Juana--" she
laid her hand gently on the old woman's bowed shoulder--"I will send
Margarita--"
The rest was lost in a rapid patter of Spanish, but its purport was
unmistakable, for the woman seized her hand and kissed it, and even the
boy flashed a worshiping smile.
As they turned to the door, Thode jingled some coins in his pocket
tentatively, but the girl stopped him with a decisive gesture, and when
the door closed behind them and they stood out in the starlit darkness,
she gave a little, soft, low gurgle of laughter.
"Reckon you're new to these parts!" she exclaimed. "Let her see one
wink o' gold, and you'd have been knifed good and proper. Tia Juana's
no beggar, to be insulted with alms. She's proud; some of the
half-breeds are, when the strain is strong enough."
"I didn't know," Thode responded humbly. "I'd like to do something for
the kid. Shall I send a doctor out, if I can find one?"
The girl shook her head.
"He'll do, all right. It was a wicked thing to run him down like that,
but Wiley hasn't got the decency of a coyote, and he had it in for
José." She broke off suddenly, and held her hand out to the young
engineer. "Adios, stranger, and thanks for your help."
"But won't you let me take you home, or wherever you are going?" Thode
asked.
"No, thanks. I left my basket down in the ditch--"
"I'll get it for you," he urged. "It isn't safe for a girl like you to
go about alone after nightfall in a place like this."
The girl's eyes sought his wonderingly in the darkness.
"Me?" she ejaculated. "Stranger, I came to this town when it was
nothing but four shacks and a gusher, and I know everyone in it, white,
yellow and Mex. Not safe? Why every dog knows Gentleman Geoff's
Billie!"
"You?" he stammered.
"That's me. My Dad is Gentleman Geoff," she explained proudly. "He
owns the Blue Chip, and it's the squarest gambling-house from Chihuahua
to Campeche. It's kind of you to offer to go with me, but I don't need
any protection. I sort of belong to Limasito, I reckon. Adios!"