“Five thousand dollars are for the French warder at San Quentin who smuggled Pierre Luzon’s letter out of the prison, and the balance is for the syndicate.”
“What syndicate?” gasped Buck, for the moment quite bewildered.
“The Hidden Treasure Syndicate, of course,” exclaimed Jack Rover. “Pierre Luzon has sent each man back the hundred dollars he put up to get him out of the pen, and five thousand dollars extra to divide among us.”
Buck and Tom sprang simultaneously to their feet.
“Hooroosh!” shouted the sheriff. “I always knew there was no yellow streak in old Pierre Luzon.”
“And I always said I liked him, too,” observed Buck. “But come into the parlor, boys,” he went on, with a cautious look around. “Let’s count the money.”
“And divvy it up,” added Tom eagerly. “Gosh ‘lmighty, boys! I’ve never yet seen a thousand dollars in gold at one time outside a bank cashier’s window. And to think there’s that amount cornin’ to me right now!”
“One thousand, one hundred, pal, to be exact,” laughed Jack Rover, lifting the package and following the storekeeper into the sanctum beyond the counter.
The gold was in United States twenty-dollar pieces, bearing dates which showed they had been minted more than twenty years ago.
“Some of Joaquin Murietta’s loot,” remarked Jack Rover, when attention had been drawn to this detail.