A Vendetta of the Hills - Willis George Emerson

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said the sheriff, “two others were shot dead before they got back to the mountains. The White Wolf and Pierre were ridin’ alone when the Frenchie’s horse stumbled. They picked him up insensible, a broken leg and concussion of the brain, and he was the only one of the gang who ever went to jail.”

      “God ‘lmighty,” exclaimed Buck, “old Pierre used to sit around in this here store day after day, smokin’ an old foreign-lookin’ pipe, and hardly speakin’ a word. He used to pretend he knew no English. We never once suspected that he was one of Don Manuel’s bunch—always thought of him as an old sheepherder, a bit off his nut, who had saved a few dollars and was takin’ things easy. And hell, all the time he was the White Wolf’s look-out man, makin’ note of everything and passin’ the word o’ warnin’ when there was talk of the sheriff gettin’ busy.”

      “I’ll allow Pierre Luzon fooled me proper,” concurred Tom Baker. “However, he got what was cornin’ to him all right, a life sentence, though he ought to have been hanged. Well, perhaps it is only the White Wolf and Pierre Luzon who now know the cave where Joaquin Murietta cached his treasure.”

      “And Guadalupe perhaps as well,” remarked Buck Ashley.

      “Yes, perhaps Guadalupe also,” assented the sheriff. “But the White Wolf keeps guard over her.”

      “That’s the real White Wolf this time,” laughed

      Dick Willoughby, with a nod toward the young lieutenant, who had been listening intently to the tale of weird romance.

      “The real White Wolf?” replied Munson, enquiringly. “You’ve got me all tangled up. What do you mean?”

      “Don’t you know how Don Manuel came by his name of the White Wolf?” asked the sheriff.

      “No, all this folk lore is new to me.”

      “Why, gosh all hemlock! He is named because of a darn big white wolf that has been seen at different times in this here country for a hundred years.”

      “Wolves don’t live so long,” protested the lieutenant incredulously.

      “Well, this one does,” retorted Tom, curtly. “Leastwise he’s been seen from time to time since ever I can remember. In the old days they named the White Wolf Rancho after this monster animal. It has a charmed life. No one can kill this big fellow, altho’ lots of shots have been fired at him. And the same was true of Don Manuel de Valencia. He escaped so often that folks believed his life a charmed one. And so they called him the White Wolf.”

      “I saw the white wolf once myself,” said Buck Ashley, “the real white wolf that even now, as Tom says, guards old Guadalupe and makes it best for young fellows like you, Jack Rover, to leave the squaw alone when she makes back for her hidin’ place in the mountains. I’ll never forget that morning, although it’s more or less twenty years ago. The great shaggy brute was following Guadalupe along the trail like a Newfoundland dog. In those days I was out on the hills roundin’ up some mavericks. One of the calves broke from the herd and scampered along a trail that led directly in front of the old squaw. And say, boys, would you believe it? From less than half a mile away I saw with my own eyes that monster devil of a white wolf—white as the driven snow—make one terrific mad leap and grab that yearlin’ by the neck. Guadalupe spotted me and disappeared, and the white wolf trotted after her round the bend, carryin’ the dead calf in its jaws as a cat carries a mouse.”

      “Did you not shoot at the wolf?” excitedly asked Lieutenant Munson.

      “Shoot, hell! What would have been the use? Didn’t you hear what Tom Baker said? White wolves have charmed lives whether they go on two legs or four.”

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      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

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