The Fifth Ace.

by Douglas Grant.

CHAPTER I

GENTLEMAN GEOFF'S BILLIE

Kearn Thode mounted his pinto and rode out of the courtyard of the Baggott Hotel and down the Calle Rivera under a seething tropic sun.

Limasito's princ.i.p.al street was well-nigh deserted in the lethargy of the noon-day siesta, but the flower-market was a riotous blaze of color in the glistening white plaza, from which radiated broad vistas of fantastically painted adobe and soberer concrete, ending in a soft green blur.

The young petroleum engineer had pictured a ten-year-old boom town in the Mexican oil belt as a wilderness of rough shacks and board sidewalks, with possibly a dancehall or two and an open-air movie as the only attractions, and the thriving little city had proved a welcome surprise.

"Limasito," he mused. "That means 'Little Lemon.' Wonder who tacked that name to this burg? Peach of a town, I call it."

A long, low adobe house, tinted a screaming blue which rivaled the skies, faced the southern end of the plaza, covering nearly an entire block. As Thode jogged past, a door in the side wall opened, and a girl appeared. She was tall with a lithe slenderness that betokened well-poised strength rather than fragility. Ma.s.ses of sloe-black hair waved beneath the broad brim of her sombrero, but her skin was unbelievably fair and the eyes she lifted to his in frank scrutiny were the deep blue of a wood violet.

The young man caught his breath as she turned and started across the plaza, walking with long, free, swinging strides.

"Peach of a town," he repeated, with added conviction. "All to the good!"

The Calle Rivera dwindled into a dusty, white, winding road, straggling, flower-choked gardens replaced the city blocks and gave way in turn to haciendas whose flat fertile acres teemed with the luscious harvest. The pinto covered the ground at an easy lope which ate up the miles, and Thode sat his high Mexican saddle, as easy as a rocking-chair, scanning each turn of the road for landmarks.

The sun was well upon its western course when he reined in at a low stout gateway. A peon, lazily hoeing in the ditch, straightened his bent back and eyed the stranger in mild curiosity.

"This Hallock's ranch?" Thode asked, laconically.

The peon nodded and waved a brown hand toward the house half hidden among the trees.

"Senor Hallo', si, Senor."

The engineer wheeled and cantered up the winding driveway, with the serried rows of grapefruit trees spreading out endlessly on either side of the little rising where the square white ranch-house squatted, its broad wings outstretched like those of a brooding hen.

In the shade of a mahogany tree, an excessively fat, excessively bald person sprawled in a low chair by a rustic table, alternately sipping from the tall gla.s.s at his elbow and mopping his ruddy glabrous brow with a vivid bandanna.

He rose to his short legs as Thode swung himself from the saddle and advanced.

"Mr. Hallock?"

"That's me, Stranger. Howdy!" He held out a pudgy hand, and noting the fresh coat of sunburn on his visitor, he added: "Just come over the border?"

"Further than that, Sir; from New York. I'm Kearn Thode. Perhaps Mr.

Larkin mentioned me to you; Perry Larkin, of the Mexamer Oil Company."

"To be sho'! I'm right glad to see you, Thode."

Benjamin Hallock pumped his hand vigorously. "Been kinder expectin'

you down in these parts. We'll set a spell out here, it's hotter'n blazes inside. Hey, Luis! Juan!"

Two mozos scurried from the veranda in response to the bull-throated roar, and Thode found himself seated opposite his host with another tall gla.s.s before him and a slender black cigar between his fingers.

"Great country for you folks, down here," Hallock remarked. "We've got the largest producing oil wells in the world right in this leetle strip of land along the Gulf and, at that, the undeveloped resources are a d.a.m.n' sight greater'n you can judge from what's been brought to light.

Yes, Sir, I shouldn't be surprised any day to strike a gusher right here on my ranch! Rufe Terwilliger, twelve miles yonder at the Dos Zapotes, spudded in only six months ago on a hunch, and now with the valve-gate only part-way open, he's bringing in a thousand barrels a day!"

"I know that the development which has taken place here is, speaking relatively to the possibilities, only a beginning," Thode a.s.sured the heated enthusiast. "I'm down here to look after Mr. Larkin's interests, and those of the Mexamer Company with a view to extending their holdings if I can pick up anything promising. By the way, Mr.

Hallock, that was a curious yarn you told Mr. Larkin, about some mysterious lost pool in a swamp with surface oil indications. He happened to mention it one day. The Pool of the Lost Souls, wasn't it?"

Hallock nodded, grinning expansively.

"You've got it right," he chuckled. "So Larkin bit, did he? It's nothing but pure bunk, one of those old Mex' legends that run back to the beginning of time. We pa.s.s it on to every green operator from over the border, but I reckoned Larkin was too wise a bird to take any stock in it."

"He didn't," Thode returned carelessly. "Up in Oklahoma where I've been locating some sections for the company there are any amount of Indian myths and queer old traditions handed down from the first settlers, and I made a collection of them. It's rather a hobby of mine. I was discussing them with Mr. Larkin when he recalled this odd tale. He had forgotten the particulars, but he said you would be able to supply them. The pool was supposed to be located somewhere around here, wasn't it?"

"Anywhere within a radius of two hundred miles." His host drained his gla.s.s and settled back comfortably. "I judge it about that, for I've been pretty much over this whole country and it's only around these parts that you hear of the Lost Souls' Pool. I got the tale from a hunchbacked half-breed and he got it from his grandmother.

"It seems that away back in the times when the Spaniards were sc.r.a.pping with the Indians for a foothold, an old grandee named Del Reyes had staked out a claim hereabout. Mighty poor judgment he showed, too, for he wouldn't have known what to do with oil if he'd found it in those days and by all accounts the land couldn't have been much good for anything else; swampy and low-lying, without even timber. He had a beautiful daughter, Dolores, of course. Funny how that gal Dolores manages to get herself mixed up in every yarn below the border, ain't it? There was a kid brother, Jose, too, but he don't figure much.

"Dolores must have been some Jane for all the male population, what there was of it, went plumb loco about her, among 'em a young Spanish explorer and the son of the chief of the tribe, whose claims Del Reyes and the rest had jumped. Dolores favored the explorer, but the young chief had seen her first, and being a simple-hearted child of nature, he decided that the way to get what he wanted was to go right out after it.

"Accordingly, he showed up unexpected at the Del Reyes hacienda with his outfit one moonlight night and laid hands on the gal. Dolores was packing a knife, though, and she let him have it, full to the hilt.

His outfit vamoosed, taking the corpse with them, and the settlement got ready for trouble.

"Nothing happened, howsomever, until the night of the fiesta for Dolores' marriage to the explorer. Then the old chief dropped in, informal like, and wiped out the whole wedding party. He macheted all but the bride, throwing the bodies into a shallow pool on the claim.

Her he roped up, tied heavy weights to and stood up in the pool; the water came about to her shoulders. Then he held the knife before her eyes, the knife she'd stuck his son with, and waited for the weights to drag her down. I reckon he waited some time, for Dolores must have been a right-strong young woman, but she went under finally. The only one that escaped the pool was the kid brother, Jose, and him the old chief carried off.

"According to the yarn, Dolores still breathes in the pool, the bubbles rise to the surface and there's a murmuring from the other souls that went down unshriven. What's more, the water is never ruffled but smooth and gla.s.sy, with streaks that gleam in the moonlight. Of course, that's oil, all right, or would be if the pool ever existed, but n.o.body's found it yet."

"It's got the punch to it, as a story." Thode paused to relight his cigar. "Did your hunchbacked friend give you any further description of the pool itself or its location?"

"Nothing to work on, Son. This flat part of the country don't run much to scenery. He did say something about a mahogany tree close by, that grew up with two outstretched branches like a cross and then turned to stone, but I'm not letting my peons loaf on the job while I go moseying around looking for it."

"It's a great little ranch you have here." Thode turned in his chair to survey the close-packed avenues of low-hanging trees. "Any oil on your land, Mr. Hallock?"

"Not here. Got two gushers over near Tuxpam, next to some property that I reckon you'll want to look into for the Mexamer people. Larkin told me himself that he thought of taking it over."

The talk drifted into a discussion of relative values and prospects, and when Thode cantered down the driveway an hour or so later he had secured a good working knowledge of the surrounding country with which to commence his labors. He had parted with some little difficulty from his host, who insisted on sending in to Limasito for the young engineer's baggage and wholeheartedly desired that he make the Hacienda de Rosa his headquarters.

Kearn Thode, however, had other intentions. He must be free to go and come as he pleased on his mission and he determined to make the town itself the center of his activities. Moreover, Hallock's hacienda was a bachelor establishment and in Limasito there were girls; girls with blue eyes and black hair and incredibly white skin, who looked a man straight in the eyes and made him feel as if maybe he'd found a friend.

That blue adobe house on the southern end of the square began to loom large in the architecture of Limasito. Thode had caught a glimpse of the patio as he swung past; it had looked cool and green and inviting, with a fountain playing and little tables scattered about. What was it, anyway, and how could one meet a girl who lived there?

The curious old tale of the Lost Souls' Pool was temporarily forgotten in speculations of a more warmly personal nature. Was she an Americano? She seemed of too fair a type for a native daughter, in spite of her dark hair, and that, together with her violet-blue eyes, gave more than a hint of Irish ancestry. What could bring a girl of her sort to a boom town below the border?

So absorbed was the young engineer in his cogitations that he had reached the outskirts of Limasito before he awoke from his reverie.

The swiftly falling curtain of twilight had wrapped the spreading orchards and haciendas in fragrant gloom and a myriad of mysterious chirpings and rustlings forecasted the coming night, when the harsh, grating screech of a horn blared upon their monotone and a low roadster appeared suddenly around a turn in the road, careening sharply on two wheels, and bore down recklessly upon the lone rider.

Thode's pony was quicker than he and leaped aside barely in time to avoid disaster as the car shot past and hurtled on into the dusk. He turned in his saddle and watched its unlighted shape swerve drunkenly from side to side of the road, until a further turn hid it from view.

With a muttered imprecation, he gave the sure-footed pinto its head, and as it floundered out of the ditch the white, jeering face of the man at the wheel, as he had seen it in that flashing glimpse, rose again before his consciousness. It seemed for a startling instant to be grimly, portentously familiar, then the fancy faded before the fact of its obvious absurdity, and he laughed contemptuously. The danger of the moment had played tricks with his nerves.