XV
At a point where the road, having left the valley and climbed a gradeto a mesa that gave almost an air-plane view of the San Gregorio,Miguel Farrel looked back long and earnestly. For the first time sinceentering the car, at Kay Parker's invitation, he spoke.
"It's worth it," he announced, with conviction, "worth a fight to afinish with whatever weapons come to hand. If I-- By the holypoker! Sheep! Sheep on the Rancho Palomar! Thousands of them. Look!Over yonder!"
"How beautiful they look against those green and purple and goldhillsides!" the girl exclaimed.
"Usually a sheep is not beautiful to a cow-man," he reminded her."However, if those sheep belong to Loustalot, they constitute thefairest sight mine eyes have gazed upon to date."
"And who might he be?"
"That shaggy thief I manhandled a few minutes ago. He's a sheep-manfrom the San Carpojo, and for a quarter of a century he has not daredset foot on the Palomar. Your father, thinking I was dead and that theranch would never be redeemed after foreclosure of the mortgage, leasedthe grazing-privilege to Loustalot. I do not blame him. I do notthink we have more than five hundred head of cattle on the ranch, andit would be a shame to waste that fine green feed." Suddenly the sadand somber mien induced by his recent grief fled his countenance. Heturned to her eagerly. "Miss Parker, if I have any luck worth whileto-day, I think I may win back my ranch."
"I wish you could win it back, Don Mike. I think we all wish it."
"I hope you all do." He laughed joyously. "My dear Miss Parker, thisis the open season on terrible practical jokes. I'm no judge of sheepin bulk, but there must be not less than ten thousand over on thathillside, and if the title to them is vested in Andre Loustalot to-day,it will be vested in me about a month from now. I shall attach them;they will be sold at pub-lie auction by the sheriff to satisfy in partmy father's old judgment against Loustalot, and I shall bid themin--cheap. Nobody in San Marcos County will bid against me, for I canoutbid everybody and acquire the sheep without having to put up a centof capital. Oh, my dear, thoughtful, vengeful old dad! Dying, heassigned that judgment to me and had it recorded. I came across it inhis effects last night.
"What are sheep worth, Don Mike?"
"I haven't the slightest idea, but I should say that by next fall,those sheep should be worth not less than six dollars a head, includingthe wool-clip. They will begin to lamb in February, and by the timeyour father dispossesses me a year hence, the increase will amount toconsiderable. That flock of sheep should be worth about one hundredthousand dollars by the time I have to leave the Palomar, and I _know_I'm going to collect at least fifty thousand dollars in cash inaddition."
He drew from his vest pocket a check for that sum, signed by AndreLoustalot and drawn in favor of John Parker, Trustee.
"How did you come by that check?" Kay demanded. "It belongs to myfather, so, if you do not mind, Mr. Farrel, I shall retain it anddeliver it to my father." Quite deliberately, she folded the check andthrust it into her hand-bag. There was a bright spot of color in eachcheek as she faced him, awaiting his explanation. He favored her witha Latin shrug.
"Your father will not accept the check, Miss Parker. Loustalot came tothe hacienda this morning for the sole purpose of handing him thischeck, but your father refused to accept it on the plea that the leasehe had entered into with Loustalot for the grazing-privilege of theranch was now null and void."
"How do you know all this? You were not present."
"No; I was not present. Miss Parker, but--this check is present; thosesheep are present; Andre Loustalot was present, then absent, and is nowpresent again. I deduce the facts in the case. The information that Iwas alive and somewhere around the hacienda gave Loustalot the frightof his unwashed existence; that's why he appropriated that gray horseand fled so precipitately when he discovered his automobile had a fiattire. The scoundrel feared to take time to shift wheels."
"Why?"
"He had the promise of a Farrel that a great misfortune would overtakehim if he ever get foot on the Rancho Palomar. And he knows the tribeof Farrel."
"But how did you secure possession of that check, Don Mike?"
"Miss Parker, when a hard-boiled, unconvicted murderer and grass-thiefborrows my horse without my permission, and I ride that sort of mandown, upset him, sit on him, and choke him, the instincts of myancestors, the custom of the country, common sense, and my latemilitary training all indicate to me that I should frisk him for deadlyweapons. I did that. Well, I found this check when I friskedLoustalot back yonder. And--if a poor bankrupt like myself may bepermitted to claim a right, you are not so well entitled to that checkas I am. At least, I claim it by right of discovery."
"It is worthless until my father endorses it, Don Mike."
"His clear, bold chirography will not add a mite to its value, MissParker. Checks by Andre Loustalot on the First National Bank of ElToro aren't going to be honored for some little time. Why? I'll tellyou. Because Little Mike the Hustler is going to attach hisbank-account this bright April morning."
She laughed happily.
"You haven't wasted much time in vain regret, have you?" she teasedhim. "When you start hustling for a living, you're a man what hustles,aren't you?"
"'Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty,'" he quoted. "Those sheepweren't visible to us from the floor of the valley; so I take it I wasnot visible to Loustalot's shepherds from the top of those hills when Iredeemed my father's promise to their employer. They'd never suspectthe identity of either of us, I dare say. Well, Pablo will hold him_incomunicado_ until I've completed my investigations."
"Why are you incarcerating him in your private bastile, Don Mike?"
"Well, I never thought to profane my private bastile with that fellow,but I have to keep him somewhere while I'm looking up his assets."
"But he may sue you for false imprisonment, kidnapping, or--orsomething."
"Yes; and I imagine he'd get a judgment against me. But what goodwould that do him? I haven't any assets."
"But you're going to acquire some rather soon, are you not?"
"I'll give all my money to my friend, Father Dominic, to do with as hesees fit. He'll see fit to loan it all back to me."
"But can you hide ten thousand sheep?"
"If that fellow tries to levy on my sheep, I'll about murder him,"Farrel declared. "But we're crossing our bridges before we come tothem."
"So we are, Don Mike. Tell me all about this ancient feud with AndreLoustalot."
"Certainly. Twenty-five-odd years ago, this county was pestered by agang of petty cow-thieves. They'd run lots of from ten to twenty fatsteers off the range at a time, slaughter them in El Toro, and bury thehides to conceal the identity of the animals--the brands, youunderstand. The meat they would peddle to butchers in towns along therailroad line. The ringleader owned a slaughter-house in El Toro, and,for a long time, nobody suspected him--the cattle were driven in atnight. Well, my father grew weary of this form of old-fashionedprofiteering, and it seemed to him that the sheriff of San MarcosCounty was too great a simpleton to do anything about it. So my fatherstood for the office as an independent candidate and was elected on aplatform which read, 'No steers' taken off this ranch withoutpermission in writing from the owner.' Within six months, dad had halfa dozen of our prominent citizens in San Quentin Penitentiary; then heresigned the office to his chief deputy, Don Nicolas Sandoval, who hasheld it ever since.
"Now, during that political campaign, which was a warm and bitter one,Andre Loustalot permitted himself the privilege of libeling my father.He declared in a public address to a gathering of voters in the SanCarpojo valley that my father was a crook, the real leader of therustlers, and merely seeking the office of sheriff in order to protectthe cow-thieves. When the campaign ended, my father swore to a warrantcharging Loustalot with criminal libel and sued him for one hundredthousand dollars damages. A San Marcos County jury awarded my father ajudgment in the sum prayed fo
r. Loustalot appealed the case to theSupreme Court, but inasmuch as there wasn't the slightest doubt of hisguilt, the higher court affirmed the decision of the Superior Court.
"Loustalot was a poor man in those days. He was foreman of a sheepoutfit, with an interest in the increase of the flock, and inasmuch asthese Basques seldom reduce their deals to writing, the sheriff couldnever satisfy himself that Loustalot had any assets in the shape ofsheep. At any rate, the Basque and his employer and all of his Basquefriends denied that Loustalot had any assets.
"For twenty-five years, my father has, whenever the statute oflimitations threatened to kill this judgment, revived it by havingLoustalot up on an order of court to be questioned regarding hisability to meet the judgment; every once in a while my father would sueout a new writ of execution, which would be returned unsatisfied by thesheriff. Six months ago, my father had the judgment revived by duelegal process, and, for some reason best known to himself, assigned itto me and had the assignment recorded. Of course, when I was reportedkilled in Siberia, Loustalot's attorneys naturally informed him that myjudgment had died with me unless I had left a will in favor of myfather. But when my father died intestate and there were no knownheirs, Loustalot doubtless felt that at last the curse had been liftedand probably began doing business in his own name. He's a thriftyfellow and, I dare say, he made a great deal of money on sheep duringthe war. I hope he has. That old judgment has been accumulatinginterest at seven per cent. for more than a quarter of a century, andin this state I believe the interest is compounded."
"But why did Loustalot hate your father so?" the girl queried.
"We had good fences on our ranch, but somehow those fences alwaysneeded repairing whenever Andre Loustalot's flock wandered over fromthe San Carpojo. In this state, one cannot recover for trespass unlessone keeps one's fences in repair--and Loustalot used to trespass on ourrange quite frequently and then blame his cussedness on our fences. Ofcourse, he broke our fences to let his sheep in to water at ourwaterholes, which was very annoying to us, because sheep befoul a rangeand destroy it; they eat down to the very grass-roots, and cattle willnot drink at a water-hole patronized by sheep. Well, our patience wasexhausted at last; so my father told Pablo to put out saltpeter at allof our water-holes. Saltpeter is not harmful to cattle but it is deathto sheep, and the only way we could keep Loustalot off our rangewithout resorting to firearms was to make his visits unprofitable.They were. That made Loustalot hate us, and one day, over in the AguaCaliente basin, when Pablo and his riders found Loustalot and his sheepthere, they rushed about five hundred of his sheep over a rocky benchand dropped them a sheer two hundred feet into a canon. That startedsome shooting, and Pablo's brother and my first cousin, Juan Galvez,were killed. Loustalot, wounded, escaped on the pack-mule belonging tohis sheep outfit, and after that he and my father didn't speak."
Kay turned in her seat and looked at Farrel curiously.
"If you were not so desperately situated financially," she wanted toknow, "would you continue to pursue this man?"
He smiled grimly.
"Certainly. My father's honor, the blood of my kinsman, and the bloodof a faithful servant call for justice, however long delayed. Also,the honor of my state demands it now. I am prepared to make anysacrifice, even of my life, and grasp eagerly at all legal means--toprevent your father putting through tins monstrous deal with Okada."
She was troubled of soul.
"Of course," she pleaded presently, "you'll play the game with dad asfairly as he plays it with you."
"I shall play the game with him as fairly as he plays it with this landto which he owes allegiance," he corrected her sternly.