"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."
"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.