“Oh, I never heard about the elopement,” exclaimed the young Vigilante quickly. “What has that to do with the lost girl?”
“A good deal if Jack told the truth. You see, Harry, Jack’s wife was rich--her father had lots of the lumps--but she took up with Jack. Of course they had to run away, and the old man cut the girl off and cursed her besides. They had one child--a girl. She was born somewhere in Sacramento Valley. Jack and his wife showed that they could be as contrary as the old man. One day, five years after the elopement, a letter came from Jennie’s father; but she spunked up and chucked it into the fire without opening it. What war in it nobody knows. It war the last one thet come. Jack said thet night in his stable thet he would give his right arm--and it war his business arm, too, to know what thet letter said. But the fire had cindered it. To make a long story short, Harry, Jennie died a year after thet, and Jack loaned his baby girl to an old pard, who went under the time the Feather Injuns got on their ears and killed everybody.”
“Thet’s the mystery. Sometimes Jack used to say that his little Jennie war dead, and then he would think that, after all, he would see her agin. He would say that a big pile of money was coming to her. And now he is dead, Harry, what is your opinion of that big bonanza which filled his mind at the last moments? Mightn’t it mean more than imagination?”
The young Vigilante admitted that Maverick Joe might be right.
“I really wish he warn’t dead,” and the captain spoke with a deep sigh.
“May be he isn’t,” said Harry, a ray of hope lighting up his eyes.
“I guess all ar’ gone--Jack, little Jennie, the big bonanza--all! And no man in Colorado hates it more than Maverick Joe.”
The man looked up as he spoke; they were nearly out of the gulch; a few rods further on and the gray streaks of dawn would burst upon them from the far-away horizon, cloudless and gray.
But, all at once, in tones that startled both horse and rider, rung out a single word:
Reins and revolvers were instantly drawn.
“Form into single rank, an’ come on!” continued the same voice, which came from between two outstretched pistols. “I intend to hunt the big bonanza myself, and the throat of Tiger Tom is my property; it is not to be let out in shares. I’ve staked my claim, and I’m goin’ to work it alone. Form into single rank, an’ ride by. The first hand that goes up, drops.”