A VENDETTA OF THE HILLS By Willis George Emerson Author of “The Treasure of Hidden Valley,” “Buell Hampton,” “The Builders,” etc. Illustrated by A. Hutchins Boston: The Chappie Publishing Company, Ltd. 1917 TO MY WIFE BONNIE O’NEAL EMERSON Our enchanting years of pleasure, dear, are speeding all too fast, As our ever-fleeting joys become blest mem’ries of the past. Heaven’s blessings, glad and golden, strew with bliss the paths of life When a sweetheart, fond and cheery, Has her “hubby” for her dearie, And her “hubby” has a sweetheart for his wife. —The Author. January 18, 1917. CONTENTS CHAPTER I—Guadalupe CHAPTER II—Charmed Lives CHAPTER III—Feminine Attractions CHAPTER IV—Back to the Soil CHAPTER V—At La Siesta CHAPTER VI—The Quarrel CHAPTER VII—Old Bandit Days CHAPTER VIII—A Letter from San Quentin CHAPTER IX—Tia Teresa CHAPTER X—The Home of the Recluse CHAPTER XI—A Rejected Suitor CHAPTER XII—The Sped Bullet CHAPTER XIII—Accused CHAPTER XIV—Entanglements CHAPTER XV—Behind the Bars CHAPTER XVI—Pierre Luzon Returns CHAPTER XVII—The Bitter Bit CHAPTER XVIII—Elusive Riches CHAPTER XIX—The Jail Delivery CHAPTER XX—In the Cavern CHAPTER XXI—A Debt of Honor CHAPTER XXII—Underqround Wonders CHAPTER XXIII—The Unexpected Visitor CHAPTER XXIV—In a Tight Corner CHAPTER XXV—Love and Revenge CHAPTER XXVI—A Date is Fixed CHAPTER XXVII—Among the Old Oaks CHAPTER XXVIII—The Prize Winner CHAPTER XXIX—-The Rendezvous CHAPTER XXX—Don Manuel Appears CHAPTER XXXI—Shadows of the Past CHAPTER XXXII—Forebodings CHAPTER XXXIII—Old Friends CHAPTER XXXIV—Heart Searchings CHAPTER XXXV—At Comanche Point CHAPTER XXXVI—-Outwitted CHAPTER XXXVII—The Dawn of Comprehension CHAPTER XXXVIII—Exit Leach Sharkey CHAPTER XXXIX—The Fight on the Cliff CHAPTER XL—Revelation CHAPTER XLI—Beneath the Precipice CHAPTER XLII—Wedding Bells CHAPTER I—Guadalupe IT was a June morning in mid-California. The sun was just rising over the rim of the horizon, dissipating the purple haze of dawn and bathing in golden sunshine a great valley spread out like a parchment scroll. It was a rural scene of magnificent grandeur—encircling mountains, rolling foothills, and then the vast expanse of plain dotted here and there with clumps of trees and clothed with luxuriant grasses. Thousands of cattle were bestirring themselves from their slumbers—some sniffing the air and bellowing lowly, others paving the earth in an indifferent way, and all moving slowly toward one or other of the mountain streams that wound serpent-like through the valley, as if they deemed it proper to begin the day with a morning libation.