FOR a few moments Don Manuel contemplated the cowering figure of Ben Thurston in contemptuous silence. His end was accomplished; his enemy was in his power; like the cat with the mouse just a few inches from its paw, he could strike at any moment. He spoke now with measured calm.
“Do you remember what day this is? The eleventh of October.”
He paused for a reply. Thurston’s lips were parted but remained dumb. Don Manuel resumed:
“Thirty years ago this very night—here at this very spot, you brutally killed my poor little sister, Rosetta.”
Thurston shrank back. His lips moved, but no sound came.
“Oh, attempt no denial,” continued Don Manuel, for the moment clenching a menacing fist over him. “You cannot forget the tell-tale button which you snatched from my hand to hide the proof. Nor have I forgotten the lash of your quirt that drew blood from my cheek”—and he wiped his face with the tips of his fingers as if to rub away the memory of the deadly insult—“the very day on which I buried my dear father and mother,” he added, in a voice vibrant with emotion.
He bowed his head; there was another brief period of silence. Then he recovered himself and went on:
“The deaths of my beloved parents are just as much on your head, Ben Thurston, as the death of the guileless, innocent, young girl whom you betrayed, and then with coward hands pushed over this cliff, mangling her body on the rocks below. My vengeance has been slow in coming, but after all, I am glad of the delay. For all through these years you have not only suffered the agony of constant fear, but I have lived to see you landless, bereft of the broad rich acres which belonged to my father and were never rightfully yours.”
“That’s not so—my claim was established in the law courts.” Thurston managed to articulate the words. The sound of his voice seemed to restore some little measure of courage, for he sat up, and leaning an elbow on a rock, adjusted himself in a more comfortable position. But he did not seek to gain his feet—the bandit’s figure still towered over him.
“Law courts—your American law courts!” exclaimed Don Manuel, with ineffable scorn. “You know you bribed the judge who gave the decision. Dare you deny it?”
Thurston ventured no denial—his dropped jaw proclaimed his consciousness of guilt.
“Nothing was too base for you,” Don Manuel proceeded. “You robbed, despoiled, destroyed my home. But now at last your hour has come. I have waited patiently for this hour. On many an occasion, Ben Thurston, I could have shot you dead from a distance. But I have waited—waited—waited for the time when you would know that it was I, the White Wolf, who was sending you to your doom just as I have already sent your ruffian son to his.”
“So it was really you—who murdered my boy?” stammered Thurston.
“Don’t call it murder—it was righteous retribution for both him and you. Oh, I can tell you something tonight, for a secret does not pass from a dead man’s lips.”
The victim so confidently doomed, shuddered. Don Manuel continued:
“Merle Farnsworth is my daughter; your vile and debauched son dared to insult her, and so he died—rightly died. Yes, at my hands—I take full responsibility. And I am glad to tell you this before you follow him out of the world. Tonight, Ben Thurston, you go over this cliff—you die the death you gave to my sister.”
As he spoke, Don Manuel cast loose his Spanish cloak, and dropped both it and his sombrero to the ground.
Thurston at last staggered to his feet.
“So get ready now to fight for your life,” Don Manuel resumed, folding his arms across his breast as he surveyed his victim.
“But I am unarmed,” cried Thurston, pointing to the revolver at the other’s belt. His outstretched hand trembled, his voice was a terrified shriek.
“Then I, too, shall be unarmed,” replied Don Manuel, as he unbuckled his belt and tossed it lightly from him. “Come along, then—it is man to man with naked hands.” His tone now was one of concentrated passion and hate, and he advanced with arms extended for an enfolding embrace.
Now did Ben Thurston realize that his only chance for life lay in his superior weight, possibly his superior strength. At the thought, craven fear changed of a sudden to the courage of desperation, and like a wild cat he leaped at the throat of his adversary.
Then began a terrible struggle—two strong men writhing in each other’s grip like savage beasts. Soon their clothes were torn, their bodies begrimed with sweat and mud, their faces and naked arms bespattered with blood, for Ben Thurston’s nose had been broken in one of the first falls. Thurston, besides his extra pounds, had also the advantage of being younger by a few years. But Don Manuel was in better physical condition and his muscles were like bands of steel. So it was pretty much of a level match in this grim fight to the death.
0305
As they tugged at each other, as each attempted to bear the other down or trip and throw him, as at times, each tried in their locked embrace to crush in his adversary’s ribs and squeeze the last breath out of his body, as they milled round and round, swayed and fell and rolled over and then for a moment regained a kneeling or an upright position—both men realized that it was the one who could last the longest with whom the mastery would rest.
Pierre Luzon, running up the trail, came to the edge of the open space where the desperate contest was in progress. But the onlooker did not attempt to interfere—he had had his orders; he just crouched and watched the swaying, writhing figures.
For an hour or more the fight proceeded, at times fast and furious, with breathing spells to follow, during which grips were tenaciously maintained. Points of advantage alternated now to the one side, now to the other, but after each succeeding tussle both combatants were exhausted without victory being pronounced for either. Every vestige of clothing above the belt line had long since been torn away, and they were sweating like lathered horses.
The milling and wrestling had gradually grown weaker, and it was clear now that the final test of endurance could not be much longer delayed. Yet again Don Manuel renewed the attack, and had forced Thurston to his knees, when the latter by a supreme effort raised himself again, and then by sheer weight pressed his opponent back a pace or two. But just at this moment Thurston’s strength seemed to give out, for he dropped down sideways, dragging his enemy after him.
Then Pierre Luzon saw the object of the manoeuvre. Thurston had gained the spot where Don Manuel’s discarded pistol belt was lying, and now he was reaching out with a disengaged hand to grab the gun.
The Frenchman darted forward.
“Keep out of this,” cried Don Manuel, peremptorily, although he was breathing hard.
“Look out! Your gun!” screamed Pierre, as he seized Thurston’s wrist in a vice-like grip.
Just an instant too late, however, for Thurston’s fingers had already closed round the weapon and it went off with a bang.
Pierre dropped to his knees. It was he who had received the bullet—through one of his lungs. But he had wrested the pistol from the treacherous villain’s grasp and now it fell, still smoking, to the ground.
The wounded man coughed a great mouthful of crimson blood on to the slab of rock. Then he recovered himself and raised his head. Thurston and Don Manuel, even in their weakened state, were fighting more desperately than ever, blinded by hate to every sense of danger, and Pierre was just in time to see them slip on some loosened stones and then, still locked in the death clench, go rolling over the edge of the precipice.
“Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu!” murmured the Frenchman. He staggered to his feet and without waiting turned and started down the steep trail, stumbling like a drunken man.
At the foot of the zig-zag pathway he gazed helplessly around. He would have pushed his way through the brushwood to seek his beloved chief. Dead! He must be dead. No one could have dropped that sheer three hundred feet onto the cruel jagged rocks below and live. Yet, who knows? A tree might have broken the fall—Don Manuel might still be alive.
Pierre, however, was incapable of further effort. His limbs trembled beneath him, and again he was spitting blood.
All of a sudden he spied the two horses tethered under the manzanita tree. He tottered toward them, untied the first one he reached, and with difficulty pulled himself up into the saddle.
To reach Dick Willoughby and get help—that was the thought in the reeling brain of Pierre Luzon as with a final effort, leaning forward over the saddle, he turned his steed in the direction of Buck Ashley’s old store, and urged it to a canter.
