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Steptoe's followers, unaware that his design had been discovered, and confident that they could easily reach the claim before Marshall and the surveyor, had lingered. Some of them had held a drunken carouse at their rendezvous at Heavy Tree.
On the 9th, General Scott, accompanied by Captain R.E. Lee, made an examination of the works near the San Antonio gate, where they discovered Mexican soldiers busily at work. On the 9th Riley took position to the right of Piedad, and was joined on the 11th by Smith's brigade and Francis Taylor's and Edward James Steptoe's batteries.
Indeed, the hotel proprietor might have confounded them together, and, perhaps, Van Loo was not far wrong in his belief that their identity had not been suspected. Nor were Steptoe's followers very much concerned in an episode in which they had taken part only at the suggestion of their leader, and which had terminated so tamely.
For there sprang up in the outlaw's brain the same hideous idea that he voiced to his companions at the Divide. With a hoarse cry to his followers, he crashed his pickaxe into the brain of Marshall, who stood near him, and sprang forward. Three or four shots were exchanged. Two of his men fell, a bullet from Stacy's rifle pierced Steptoe's leg, and he dropped forward on one knee.
When there was some cessation of firing from the castle, Captain Lee, under direction of General Scott, using the wall of the aqueduct as a parapet, placed two pieces of artillery under Captain Horace Brooks, which opened fire. Steptoe's battery kept up a continuous firing.
Was it not a proof of the richness of Heavy Tree Hill? So strongly was this reflected on their faces that a casual observer, contrasting them with the thoughtful countenances of the real owners, would have thought them the lucky ones. It touched Barker's quick sympathies, it puzzled Stacy, it made Demorest more serious, it aroused Steptoe's active contempt.
Van Loo's brother!" said Demorest, recoiling. "No!" said Jack, with a grim face, "it's what I have long suspected, it's Steptoe's son!" "His son?" repeated Demorest. "Yes," said Jack; and he added, after looking at the two bodies with a long-drawn whistle of concern, "and I wouldn't, if I were you, say anything of this to Barker." "Why?" said Demorest.
That they would have liked a "row," in which Jack Hamlin would have been incidentally forced to disgorge his winnings, there was no doubt, but that their interference was asked solely to gratify some personal spite of Steptoe's against Van Loo was equally plain to them. There was some grumbling and outspoken criticism of his methods.
The reports seemed simultaneous, but Jack's bullet had pierced Steptoe's brain even before the outlaw's pistol exploded harmlessly in the air. The two men dismounted, but by a common instinct they both ran to the prostrate figure that had never moved. "By God! it's a boy!" said Jack, leaning over the body and lifting the shoulders from which the head hung loosely.
As it cracked Steptoe's horse seemed to have suddenly struck some obstacle ahead of him rather than to have been hit himself, for his head went down with his fore feet under him, and he turned a half-somersault on the road, flinging his two riders a dozen feet away. Steptoe scrambled to his knees, revolver in hand, but the other figure never moved. "Hands up!" said Jack, sighting his own weapon.
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