“God! I will never forget it. Don Manuel stood there, as white as a piece of paper, and never moved for a whole minute. The quirt had drawn the blood from his face in one long streak. At last he turned away with a resolve in his eyes—one of them there terrible resolves that change the life of a man, and went back to the little church to finish the last sad rites to his people. It’s my opinion Don Manuel, from that very hour, turned bandit in his heart and took oath to murder all the gringos in California. “As I said before, that was thirty years back, and mebbe a little more, and I have never seen him since. But we all heard of him good and plenty. He certainly left a red trail.” A silence followed. Presently Buck Ashley in the way of explanation, said: “That tombstone on his sister’s grave was put up one night. Nobody saw it done, but everyone knows, of course, it was the work of Don Manuel. It has just one word—’Hermana’—chiseled on the cross of white marble. That’s the Mexican for ‘sister,’ guess you all know. So the name Rosetta is only remembered by old-stagers here, like Tom Baker and me. And we ain’t forgotten her pretty face either. Poor little girl!” “A doggoned shame,” muttered the sheriff, meditatively, his eyes cast down. “How about the law?” asked Lieutenant Munson. “The law!” exclaimed Baker, raising his eyes and flashing a look of withering contempt. “What kind o’ law was there in those days and in these parts? A gun was usually both judge and jury. Besides, with the only bit of evidence gone, how could Don Manuel prove anything agin a rich young feller like Ben Thurston?” “But if he was laying for him all the time, how is it that the White Wolf never got his man all through those thirty years?” “Because Ben Thurston lit out—he was too demed scared to live on the rancho any longer. But that’s another story.” “Let’s have it, sheriff.” “Well, it’s a longish yarn, and p’raps you fellers are about tired of hearing me.” No one protested; there was rather a movement of settling down in pleased expectancy of something worth listening to. So Tom Baker continued: “Ben Thurston had one warnin’, good and plenty, and he didn’t wait around for a second one. After Don Manuel’s threat, he seldom left his home, and a little later went back East again. It wasn’t till more’n a year that he showed up agin at the rancho. This time he brought with him his Eastern bride, a fine slap-dash young woman who could ride a horse and handle a team in good shape. But we could all see that she wasn’t too happy, for Ben Thurston started in to drink heavily, and she was ashamed of him and showed it.” “Guess it was to drown his conscience and keep from thinkin’ about Rosetta,” interjected Buck Ashley.