“I’ll allow Pierre Luzon fooled me proper,” concurred Tom Baker. “However, he got what was cornin’ to him all right, a life sentence, though he ought to have been hanged. Well, perhaps it is only the White Wolf and Pierre Luzon who now know the cave where Joaquin Murietta cached his treasure.”
“And Guadalupe perhaps as well,” remarked Buck Ashley.
“Yes, perhaps Guadalupe also,” assented the sheriff. “But the White Wolf keeps guard over her.”
“That’s the real White Wolf this time,” laughed
Dick Willoughby, with a nod toward the young lieutenant, who had been listening intently to the tale of weird romance.
“The real White Wolf?” replied Munson, enquiringly. “You’ve got me all tangled up. What do you mean?”
“Don’t you know how Don Manuel came by his name of the White Wolf?” asked the sheriff.
“No, all this folk lore is new to me.”
“Why, gosh all hemlock! He is named because of a darn big white wolf that has been seen at different times in this here country for a hundred years.”
“Wolves don’t live so long,” protested the lieutenant incredulously.