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!”
0205
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!”