“Why, I heard Pedro tell Sanders that he had fifty millions stowed away somewhere.”
“Ah, nonsense! Pedro has about as clear ideas of wealth as he has of the moon; and that’s something he knows nothing at all about. The story got wind from this simple circumstance: Father was one day walking up a little ravine a short distance from the house, prospecting, when he found a pretty good-sized nugget. The next day he picked up another, and a week or two afterward he found a third. He told some of the officers of it, and they spread it around. There were a few miners here then, and they at once crowded into the ravine and turned up every inch of it; but not another nugget was brought to light. That, however, did not serve to convince them that there was not a gold mine of wonderful richness hidden about there somewhere. They industriously circulated the report, and finally the story, together with the news of grandfather’s death and mother’s, reached the ears of a couple of men in San Francisco, who at once laid their plans to possess themselves of father’s wealth. They were Reginald and Richard Cordova, mother’s brother and cousin.
“They were graceless scamps, those same fellows—professional gamblers, who had been cast off by grandfather on account of their profligate habits. As our parents had never mentioned their names, no one out here knew that there were such men in existence. They came to the mountains, and, as bad luck would have it, the first man whose acquaintance they made was Ned Sanders. They pumped him carefully, and found that he was just the fellow they wanted, for he knew a good deal about our family, and would do anything for money. They unfolded their plans to him, which were to murder father and his boys, and claiming to be his brothers, seize upon his property. Sanders entered heartily into their scheme, but he proposed a slight change of programme.
“‘I’ve got better idees nor them,’ said he. ‘The ole major’s got a heap of money laid up somewhar, but it ain’t a drop in the bucket to what we’d finger if we could only find that hidden gold mine of his’n. We’ll make way with the boys, ’cause they won’t be of no use to us; but we won’t harm the major. In course he won’t want to tell us whar the gold mine is, and we can’t scare him into it, nuther, ’cause he’s one of them kind of fellers that don’t scare wuth a cent; but we can force it out o’ him in another way. We’ll make a pris’ner of him, and shut him up away from his horses, an’ his hounds, an’ his cattle, an’ keep him shut up till he is willin’ to tell us what we want to know.’
“Just see the heathenish ingenuity Sanders exhibited!” exclaimed White-horse Fred angrily. “Knowing full well that father could not be frightened into revealing his secret, he resolved to torture it out of him; and he decided, too, upon the only method that could by any possibility prove successful. Being a man of active habits, it would be but little short of death for him to be shut out from the world and deprived of occupation. Liberty and something to do were as necessary to his existence as the food he ate.
“Sanders also told the plotters that Major Mortimer and his boys were not the only ones with whom they would have to deal. There were some firm friends of the family who must be got rid of, or they would make trouble. First, there was Silas Roper. During a battle with the Indians, father had saved his life at the risk of his own, and Silas was so grateful for it that he gave up hunting and trapping and turned herdsman in order that he might always be near father. It wouldn’t be a safe piece of business to attempt to harm the major or any of his family while Silas was about. And there was old Juan and half a dozen others, who had been employed in the family in grandfather’s life-time. They could never be induced to lend their aid to so villainous a scheme, and they must be killed. In order to cope with so many men—Silas was a small army in himself—it would be necessary to have more help, and this Sanders agreed to furnish.
“The plan was thoroughly discussed, and a time set for carrying it into execution. When the night arrived, Sanders appeared with three choice spirits, named Smirker, Hale and Lutz. They began operations by effecting an entrance into the rancho through the cellar. Father was surprised in his bed, and bound hand and foot; three of the obnoxious Mexicans were murdered in their sleep; but old Juan, taking the alarm, fled from the house. He was seen, however, pursued, and overtaken on the brink of a deep gully, a short distance away. He was stabbed, shot twice, beaten on the head with the butt of a rifle, and finally thrown over the cliff; but he is to-night hale and hearty, in spite of his wounds and his ninety-five years.
“The next in order was Silas Roper. They surrounded his cabin, broke open the door, and there their operations in that quarter ceased. The trapper, who says he always keeps himself in trim for a fight, assumed the offensive at once, and whipped out his assailants with an ease that must have astonished them. Lutz, who was the first to enter the cabin, was shot dead in his tracks; Reginald received a blow over the head that laid him aside for a week or two; Sanders got another, and so did Smirker; and Silas escaped without a scratch.
“The next thing was to go back to the house after you and me. I remember as well how I felt when I awoke and found the outlaws in my room as if the incidents I am trying to describe had happened only yesterday. I remember, too, of seeing you jump out of bed, and draw a bee-line for the door. You got out, but Sanders ran after you and brought you back.”
“That must have been what he referred to when he told me that he and I once ran a foot-race,” said Julian.