“Sure, sure,” responded the others in unison. Tom turned to the Frenchman.
“I told you, Pierre, we’d play the game fair and square with you. Ain’t that right?”
“I trust you all,” replied Luzon. “I show ze cave tomorrow to my friend, Tom Baker, and you gentlemen who have been so kind to make up one purse to bring me back here from zat horrid prison.”
“Guess you’re about the only feller that knows where it is?” enquired Buck, cautiously.
Luzon looked at his questioner and spoke just one word: “Guadalupe.”
“Does Gaudalupe know?” exclaimed Jack Rover. “I thought her long suit was the riffle where she gets her placer gold.”
“Guadalupe,” answered Pierre, speaking slowly, “she know ze cave, but she not know where ze treasure is buried. Ze cave her home. She live zere. Lots and lots of times she come out, and nobody ever track her when she go back. Ze outlaws they sharp-shoot from places in ze hills nobody could see. But I show you,” he continued, nodding his head at Jack Rover, “I, Pierre, show you where zat riffle is. I know both where Guadalupe wash out placer gold and ze secret chamber in ze big cave where Joaquin Murietta bury him money and where ze White Wolf, Don Manuel—peace to his soul!”—Pierre Luzon crossed himself—“hide sacks and sacks of ze yellow gold. Oh, yes!”
This long speech had exhausted the old man. He dropped his head wearily.
“What you need now is a good long sleep,” exclaimed Tom Baker. “Another jolt of bourbon Pierre, and then you get in between the blankets, old fellow.”
“I’ve got your bed all ready in the next room,” observed Buck.