CHAPTER XVTHE SHERIFF FINDS A CLEW
“Miss Pettis,” Captain Wilding remarked to his office attendant, a day or two after he had been summoned to meet Solange and had heard her rather remarkable story, “I’ll have to be going to Maryville for a day or two on this D’Albret case. I don’t believe there will be anything to discover regarding the mine and the man who killed her father, but, in case we do run into anything, I’d like to be fortified with whatever recollection you may have of the affair.”
“I don’t know a thing except what I told the dame,” said Marian, rather sullenly. “This guy Louisiana bumps the old man off after he leaves our place. Pete was comin’ in and was goin’ to take granddad in with him on the mine, but he can’t even tell where it was except that it was somewhere along the way he had come. You got to remember that I was just a kid and I don’t rightly remember anything about it except that this Louisiana was some little baby doll, himself. His looks were sure deceiving.”
“Well, how old was he at this time?”
“Oh, pretty young, I guess. Not much more than a kid. Say that French dame has a crust, hasn’t she,190comin’ in here after all these years, swellin’ round with her face covered as if she’s afraid her complexion wouldn’t stand the sun, and expectin’ to run onto that mine, which, if she did find it would be as much mine as it is hers. And who’s this Delonny guy she’s bringin’ with her? Looks to me like a bolshevik anarchist or a panhandler.”
“Humph!” said Wilding, musingly. “He’s nothing like that. Fact is, she’s got a gold mine right there, and she wants to divorce it. Now, you’re sure Louisiana did this and that he left the country? Ever hear what became of him?”
“Nary a word,” said the girl, indifferently. “I reckon everybody has forgotten him around here except Snake Murphy, who works for Johnny the Greek. Snake used to know this guy, and it was for shootin’ him that Louisiana was run out of the country. Fact is, I’ve heard most of what I know from Snake.”
“I’d better interview him, I suppose,” said Wilding.
“If you can get any info out of him as to where that mine is you ought to tell me as quick as that French dame,” said Marian. “Believe me, I’m needing gold mines a lot more than she does. She ain’t so hard up that she can’t go chasing around the country and livin’ at swell hotels and hiring lawyers and things while I got to work for what I get. Anyway, half of that mine belongs to me.”191
“The mine belongs to whoever finds it,” said Wilding. “It was never filed on, and any claim D’Albret might have had was lost at his death. In any event, I imagine that it has been so long ago that the chance of locating it now is practically nonexistent.”
“Me, too,” said Marian. “Unless——” and she paused.
“Unless what?”
“Whatever brings this dame clear over from France to look for a mine after twenty years? D’you reckon that any one in their sober senses would squander money on a thing like that if they didn’t have some inside info as to where to look? Seems to me this Frog lady must have got some tip that we haven’t had.”
“Perhaps she has,” said Wilding. “In fact, she would hardly come here, as you say, with nothing definite to go on. But I’m not interested in the mine. What I want to know is where this Louisiana went after he left here.”
“Maybe Snake Murphy knows,” said Marian.
Wilding was inclined to agree with her. At least no other source of information appeared to offer any better prospects, so with some distaste he sought out Murphy at the pool room. He began by tactfully remarking about the changes from the old times, to which Murphy agreed.
“You’ve lived here since before the Falls was192built, haven’t you, Murphy?” asked Wilding, after Snake had expressed some contempt for new times and new ways.
“Me!” said Snake, boastfully. “Why, when I come here there wasn’t anything here but sunshine and jack rabbits. Iwasthe town of Sulphur Falls. I run a ferry and a road house down here when there wasn’t another place within five miles in any direction.”
“You knew the old-timers, then?”
“Nobody knew them any better. They all had to stop at my place whenever they were crossin’ the river. There wasn’t no ford.”
Wilding leaned over and grew confidential.
“Snake,” he said, in a low tone, “I’ve heard that you know something about this old-time gunman, Louisiana, and the killing of French Pete back about the first of the century. Is there anything in that?”
Snake eyed him coolly and appraisingly before he answered.
“There seems to be a lot of interest cropping up in this Louisiana and French Pete all of a sudden,” he remarked. “What’s the big idea?”
“I’m looking for Louisiana,” said Wilding.
“And not fer French Pete’s mine?”
“No interest at all in the mine,” Wilding assured him. “I’ve got an idea that Louisiana could be convicted of that murder if we could lay hands on him.”
“Well, you’re welcome to go to it if you want,”193said Snake, dryly. He held up his stiffened right wrist and eyed it cynically. “But, personally, if it was me and I knowed that Louisiana was still kickin’, I’d indulge in considerable reflection before I went squanderin’ around lookin’ to lay anything on him. This here Louisiana, I’m free to state, wasn’t no hombre to aggravate carelessly.Ifound that out.”
“How?” Wilding asked.
“Oh, it was my own fault, I’ll admit at this day. There was a lady used to frequent my place who wasn’t any better than she should be. She took a grudge against Louisiana and, bein’ right fond of her at the time, I was foolish enough to horn in on the ruction. I’ll say this for Louisiana: he could just as well have beefed me complete instead of just shootin’ the derringer out of my fist the way he done. Takin’ it all together, I’d say he was plumb considerate.”
“He was a bad man, then?”
“Why, no, I wouldn’t say he was. He was a rattlesnake with a six-shooter, but, takin’ it altogether, he never run wild with it. Not until he beefs French Pete—that is, if he did down him. As for me, I never knew anything about that except what I was told because I was nursin’ a busted wrist about that time. All I know was that the boys that hung around here was after him for gettin’ me and that he headed out south, stoppin’ at Twin Forks and then goin’ on194south toward the mountains. Nobody ever saw him again, and from that day to this he ain’t never been heard of.”
“Looks like he had some reason better than shooting you up to keep going and never come back, don’t it?”
“It looks like it. But I don’t know anything about it. Might have been that he was just tired of us all and decided to quit us. Anyhow, if there’s anything rightly known about it I reckon it’ll be over at Maryville. There’s where they held the inquest at the time.”
Snake evidently knew nothing more than he had told and Wilding again decided that his only chance of gaining any real information would be at Maryville. Accordingly, he got an automobile and started for that somnolent village on the next day.
After arriving at the little town, he spent two or three days in preliminary work looking toward filing the petition for mademoiselle’s divorce and arranging to secure her nominal residence in Nevada. Not until this had been accomplished did he set out to get information regarding the long-forgotten Louisiana.
His first place of call was the coroner’s office. A local undertaker held the position at this time and he had been in the country no more than ten years. He knew nothing of his predecessors and had few of their records, none going back as far as this event.195
“There seems to be a lot of curiosity cropping up about this old murder,” he volunteered, when Wilding broached the subject. “Another man was in here yesterday asking about the same thing. Tall, good-looking fellow, dressed like a cowman and wearing a gun. Know him?”
Wilding asked a few further details and recognized the description as that of De Launay. This satisfied him, as he had no doubt that mademoiselle’s nominal husband was employed on the same errand as himself. So he merely stated that it was probably the man in whose interests he was working.
“Well, I didn’t know anything about him and didn’t discuss the matter with him. Fact is, I never heard of the murder so I couldn’t tell him much about it.”
“Still, I’m sure there was an inquest at the time,” said Wilding.
“There probably was, but that wouldn’t mean any too much. In the old days the coroner’s juries had a way of returning any old verdict that struck their fancies. I’ve heard of men being shot tackling some noted gun fighter and the jury bringing in a verdict of suicide because he ought to have known better than to take such a chance. Then it’s by no means uncommon to find them laying a murder whose perpetrator was unknown or out of reach against a Chinaman or Indian or some extremely unpopular individual on the theory that, if he hadn’t done this196one, he might eventually commit one and, anyway, they ought to hang him on general principles and get rid of him. This was in 1900, you say?”
“About then.”
“That doesn’t sound early enough for one of the freak verdicts. Still, this country was still primitive at that time, and they might have done almost anything. Anyway there are no coroner’s records going back to that date, so I’m afraid that I can’t help you or your client.”
Wilding was discouraged, but he thought there might still be a chance in another direction, although the prospects appeared slim. Leaving the coroner he sought out the sheriff’s office and encountered a burly individual who welcomed him as some one to relieve the monotony of his days. This man was also a newcomer, or comparatively so. He had fifteen years of residence behind him. But he, too, knew nothing of French Pete’s murder.
“To be sure,” he said, after reflecting, “I’ve heard something about it and I have a slight recollection that I’ve run onto it at some time. There used to be considerable talk about the mine this here Basco had found and many a man has hunted all over the map after it. But it ain’t never been found. I’ve heard that he was shot from ambush by a gunman, and his name might have been Louisiana. Seems to me that whoever shot him must have done it because he had found the mine, and since the mine197ain’t ever been discovered it looks like the murderer must have wanted its secret to remain hidden. That looks reasonable, don’t it?”
“There might be something in it,” admitted Wilding.
“Well, if that’s the case, it’s just as reasonable to figure that, if it was a white man that shot him, he’d come back in time to locate the mine. But he ain’t ever done it. Then I’d say that proves one of two things: either it wasn’t no white man that shot him or if it was the man was himself killed before he could return. Ain’t that right?”
“But if not a white man who would have done it?”
“Indians,” said the sheriff, solemnly. “Them Indians don’t want white men ringing in here and digging up the country where they hunt. Back in those days I reckon there was heaps of Indians round here and most likely one of them shot him. But, come to think of it, the files may have a record of it in ’em. We’ll go and look.”
Wilding followed him, still further convinced that he was on a hopeless search. The sheriff went into the office and led the way up to an unlighted second-story room, hardly more than an attic where, in the dust and gloom, slightly dissipated by the rays of a flashlight, he disclosed several boxes and transfer cases over which he stooped.
“Nineteen hundred. It wouldn’t be in one of these transfer cases because I know they didn’t have no198such traps in those days. One of these old boxes might have something. Lend a hand while I haul them out.”
The two of them hauled out and opened two or three boxes before they found one the papers in which seemed to be dated in the years before and after nineteen hundred. This they carried downstairs and soon were busy in pawing over the dusty, faded documents. The search produced only one thing. The sheriff came upon it and held it up just as they were giving up hope. Then, with Wilding eagerly leaning over his shoulder, he read it slowly.
REWARD!
The sheriff of Esmeralda County, State of Nevada, hereby offers a reward of FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS for the capture, dead or alive, and evidence leading to the conviction of Lewis Delaney, alias Louisiana Lou, alias Louisiana, who is wanted for the murder, on October 18, 1900, of Peter Dalbray, commonly known as French Pete, at a point near the entrance of Shoestring Cañon in Township 42 N., Range 5 East. This reward is guaranteed and authorized by Isaac Brandon, of Twin Forks, Nevada.
DESCRIPTION!
Just short of six feet, slim, quick, regular features, age about nineteen or twenty years, smooth face, brown hair, gray eyes. Dressed when last seen in open flap chaps, silver conchas, blue shirt. Boss of the Range Stetson, wearing wide belt with conchas and holster stamped with sunflowers. Carried a black rubber-handled Colt .41-caliber gun with which he is very expert. Has probably picked up a 30-30 rifle, Winchester or Marlin, since last seen, with which he committed the crime. Speaks with slight Southern accent. Police of all cities notified.
199
“That,” said the sheriff, reluctantly, “seems to dispose of my Indian theory. They wouldn’t have offered any such reward if they hadn’t been pretty sure they had the right man. But it’s equally sure that they never caught him or we’d have some record of it. On my second theory then, he’s either dead, or else he’d have come back to locate that mine, or else he’s been taken up for some other crime and has been serving time somewhere.”
Wilding took the faded, yellow handbill with its crude printing. “It looks that way,” he said. “Evidently they couldn’t get a photograph of him, and the description seems to be vague except as to his weapons and accouterments.”
“That’s the way with them old-timers. They didn’t pay so much attention to a man’s looks as to his saddle and horse and gun. But if it’ll do you any good take it along. It’s outlawed as far as the reward’s concerned, so I don’t reckon I’ll go hunting this fellow. The county wouldn’t pay me, and old Brandon’s been dead a year or more.”200
The lawyer had to be satisfied with this, and, indeed, it seemed to settle the matter fairly conclusively. His business having been completed, he got out his automobile and once more headed back for Sulphur Falls.
That evening he drew up at Wallace’s ranch and there found Solange about to start into the mountains. He stayed the night, and delivered to her the handbill after telling her what he had done regarding the divorce and the search for the murderer. Solange listened to the first part of it with slight interest. Her desire to be free of De Launay had lost its force lately and she found herself somewhat indifferent. As Wilding formally laid down the procedure she would have to go through she even found herself vaguely regretting that she had moved so promptly in that matter. Somehow, in this land of strangers, kind and sympathetic as they had been, she felt that her search was hopeless without some more intimate help. The tall soldier, broken and desperate as he seemed to be, was closer to her than any one else and she felt that, if she should lose him, her plight would be forlorn. As she had last seen him standing in his cell, making his quiet promise of service to her, he appeared to be a rock on which she could lean. To her mind came back the stories she had heard of him, the wild and stormy tale of his rise from an outcast of the Légion des Etrangers to a high and honored place in the French army.201He had done wonderful things and had overcome tremendous obstacles. Such a man could still do marvels, and it was marvels that one must do to help her in her search.
Some inborn superstition of her native mountains worked upon her. In his absence the things which had prejudiced her against him faded while the smooth efficiency and ease of her journey to this distant land was recalled, with the realization that that comfort and speed must have been due entirely to him whom she had thought spending his time in drunken carouses. He had brought her so far, to the very threshold of what she sought, and, if he should now abandon her, that threshold must remain uncrossed. De Launay had taken on some of the attributes of a guardian angel, a jinni who alone could guide her to the goal she sought. And she was about to divorce him, to cut the slight tie that bound him to her.
This was her feeling when Wilding showed her the handbill, and the ancient, faded poster carried instant conviction to her that she was at last on the trail of the murderer. When the lawyer repeated the sheriff’s deductions as to Louisiana’s death or detention, she merely shook her head. Although the description carried little meaning to her she seemed to envision a figure, sinister and evil, something to seek and something to find. Or something that De Launay would surely find!202
She went out to where the two young men were working with the pack outfit and horses which had been brought in for their journey.
“My friends,” she said soberly, “we must hurry and be gone to-morrow. I have a feeling that we shall find this man. But it will be with Monsieur de Launay’s help. I do not know why but I feel that he will bring us to the man. We must rejoin him as soon as possible.”
“All right,” said Sucatash, shortly. Dave muttered, “Damn De Launay!” But they both turned back to their work and hastened their preparations.203
CHAPTER XVIIN THE SOLITUDES OF THE CANYON
The great wall of the Esmeraldas is split at one point by a ragged chasm opening out into the foothills and the grass plains to the north. This was the outlet of Shoestring Creek, a small stream of water which flowed out into the plain and was finally lost in the sands. It ran back into the range almost to the top of the main divide, forming a sort of natural pathway through the rugged mountains, a pathway much followed by the sheep-herders in driving their flocks from winter to summer range.
There was no road, properly speaking. In fact, when one had penetrated a few miles into the cañon passage was rendered arduous and difficult by a series of rocky terraces down which the stream tumbled. At many points the sheep trails winding along the slopes of the cañon walls formed the only practical thoroughfare.
Farther up, the cañon became more level, but no one had ever built a road through it. A good trail ran along it, generally at the level of the stream. Once past the terraced and rough part, there were no difficulties worthy of mention, at least in other seasons than winter.204
It was into this entrance to the Esmeraldas that Solange and her cavaliers rode, pushing on steadily so as to be able to make camp above the obstructions. Sucatash and Dave, finding that the girl was a capable horsewoman and apparently able to bear any reasonable amount of fatigue, had pushed their first day’s travel relentlessly, covering the twenty miles between the ranch and the mountains, and aiming to penetrate another ten miles into the hills on the first day.
There had been little conversation. The two boys had the habit of their kind and kept silence for the most part while on the trail. As for Solange, though interested in the strange and wild country, she was engrossed in her own thoughts, aloof from all about her, wondering ceaselessly what her search would eventually develop.
There had been many times, even after starting on her pilgrimage, when the whole adventure had appealed to her as one that was no better than a weird, senseless obsession, one that she would do well to turn back from and forget. Probably, at first, she had only been kept to the task by a certain spirit of adventure, a youthful and long-repressed urge for romance, fortified by inherited traditions of the sacredness of vengeance. It is even probable that, had it not been for the fortuitous advent of De Launay and the wild impulse which had led her to205enlist him in the affair, she would have remained at home and settled down to—what?
It was that memory of what her fate must be at home that had always furnished the final prick to her faltering resolution. Better to wander, lonely and helpless, fighting and struggling to achieve some measure of independence, than remain to what her existence must be in France, whether it was the drab life of a seamstress or shopgirl, the gray existence of a convent, the sluggish grind of a sordid marriage—provided she could find a man to marry—or the feverish degradation of thedemi-monde.
But now, as she rode under the frowning, yellow-brown, black-patched rocks of the Esmeraldas, or looked backward over the drab plain behind her, she felt an ever-increasing exaltation and tingling sense of expectation. She could not guess what was going to happen. She had no idea of what awaited her among those mountains, but she had a strong and distinct impression that fate was leading her on to a final accounting.
Why De Launay should be inextricably entangled in that settlement she could not imagine but he was always there. Her recollections of him were those of disgust and contempt. To her he was merely a fallen, weak, dissipated man, criminally neglectful of opportunities, criminally indifferent to his obligations. She recalled him as he had stood in the cell of the jail, unkempt, shattered of nerve, and she206shivered to think that he had been a man who was once considered great. The fact that she was bound to him, even though the affair was one purely of form, should have affected her as something degrading.
Peculiarly, however, it did not. Most of the time she never considered the marriage at all. When she did it was with a feeling of mingled security and comfort. It was convenient and, somehow, she felt that, in De Launay, she had the one husband who would not have been a nuisance or have endeavored to take advantage of the circumstances. The marriage being a matter of form, a divorce was inevitable and simple, yet, when she considered that matter of divorce, she felt a queer sort of reluctance and distaste, as though it were best to shove consideration of that point into the future as far as possible.
The gaunt, bare cañon thrilled her. She felt as though she were breaking into some mysterious, Bluebeard region where danger, adventure and intrigue awaited her. The mine, indeed, remained a mere vague possibility, hoped for but hardly expected. But her father’s slayer and the vengeance that she had nursed so long became realities. The rocks that blocked the way might hide him and, somewhere in those hills, rode De Launay, who would lead her to that evil beast who had blighted her life.207
Again, why De Launay? She did not know, except that she felt that the drunken soldier held the key to the search. Probably he was to be the instrument of vengeance; the slayer of the criminal; the settler of the blood feud. He was hers by marriage, and in marrying her had wedded the vendetta. Besides, he was the type. A légionnaire, probably a criminal, and certainly one who had killed without compunction in his time. The instrument of Providence, in fact!
Ahead of her rode Sucatash, ahead of him the long string of laden pack horses and ahead of them the silent Dave. The two cow-punchers had jogged throughout the day with silent indifference to their surroundings, but after they had entered the foothills and were creeping into the shadow of the cañon they evinced more animation. Every now and then Solange observed that one or the other cast a glance up into the air and ahead of them, toward the interior of the range. She was riding closer to Sucatash who motioned toward the distant crest of the range which showed through the gap of the cañon.
She nodded. She was mountain born and bred and recognized the signs.
“There will be a storm, monsieur.”
Sucatash rewarded her with an admiring glance. “Afraid we’re headed into it,” he said. “Better turn back?”208
“It will take more than storms to turn me back,” she answered.
Sucatash nodded and turned again to look at the sky turning gray and gradually blackening above the dim line of the ridge. Even as they watched it, the sky seemed to descend upon the crest and to melt it. The outlines became vague, broken up, changed.
“Snowing up there,” he said. “By’n by, it’ll be snowin’ down here. Snow ain’t so bad—but——”
“But what?”
“She drifts into this here cañon pretty bad. There ain’t no road and down hereaways where these rocks make the goin’ hard at the best of times, the drifts sure stack up bad.”
“What is it that you mean, Monsieur Sucatash?”
“I mean that we ain’t goin’ to have no trouble gettin’ in, mad’mo’selle, but we may have a fierce time gettin’ out. In two days the drifts will be pilin’ up on the divide and the trail on the other side, and in a coupla days more they’ll be blockin’ the cañon down this a way.”
Solange shrugged her shoulders. “We have food,” she answered. “At any rate, I am going on. I have promised that I would meet Monsieur de Launay in this cañon. I cannot keep him waiting.”
Sucatash accepted her ultimatum without protest. But, after a momentary silence, he turned once more in his saddle.209
“Say, mad’mo’selle,” he said, “this here De Launay, now; he’s sure enough your husband?”
“Of course.”
“But he ain’t noways a regular, honest-to-God husband, is he?”
“We are married,” said Solange. “Is that not enough?”
“I reckon so. Still, there’s Dave and me—we would sure admire to know how this feller stands with you.”
Solange looked at him, and he found difficulty, as usual, in concentrating on what she said or on anything but the fathomless eyes. Yet he comprehended that she was speaking, that she was smiling kindly, and yet that speech and smile were both destructive of his immature romance.
“He stands—not at all, monsieur, except as an instrument. But—that way—he and I are bound together forever.”
It was in her eyes that Sucatash read meaning. Somewhere in their depths he found a knowledge denied even to her, perhaps. He heaved a profound sigh and turned to yell at Dave.
“Get a wiggle on, old-timer! You an’ me are just hired hands on this pasear.Madame de Launaywill be gettin’ hungry before we make camp.”
Dave swung quickly around, catching the slight emphasis on the strange name. Over the backs of the pack horses his and his companion’s eyes met.210Then he turned back and jogged up the pace a trifle.
By five o’clock in the evening they had passed the worst stages of the journey and were well up into the cañon. But the storm was worse than they had thought. Already occasional snowflakes were drifting down, and the chill was beginning to bite even through the warm fleece that lined mademoiselle’s coat. The men decided to make camp.
They pitched Solange’s tent in a sheltered spot not far above the stream. They themselves slept in the open under heavy tarps. Sucatash sighed again when, during that evening, Solange showed that she was no helpless creature of civilization but could fully perform her part of any tasks that were to be done. She cooked over a camp fire as though she had been born to it, and the food was better in consequence.
But Sucatash was uneasy. In the morning he consulted Dave and that young man shared his fears.
“It ain’t goin’ to be bad for several days,” he said. “But when she drifts in earnest we all are liable to be stuck in here until spring. I ain’t aimin’ to get anxious, Dave, but we ain’t fixed to buck snow.”
“She ain’t goin’ to turn back, so what can we do?” asked the other.
“This here De Launay will probably be up near the crater. Once we get her up there we ain’t responsible. But there ain’t no telling how soon the211snow’ll drift. I’m thinkin’ one of us ought to mosey back to the ranch and bring in webs and dogs.”
“He’d better get a-going, then,” said Dave.
“You’d better stay with the lady and take her on. I hate to leave her alone with a feller like you, but I reckon she’ll meet up with her husband by night and he can settle you if necessary. I’ll pull my freight out o’ here and git the snowshoes and a dog sled and team. We’ll maybe need a heap more grub than we’ve got if we hole up here too long.”
“You’re shoutin’,” agreed Dave.
Mademoiselle, when the plan was broached to her, made no objection. She was constitutionally fearless where men were concerned, and the departure of Sucatash did not in the least alarm her. She also recognized the wisdom of taking precautions against their being snowed in.
Thus the party broke up in the morning. Sucatash, before departing, took his rifle and a full belt of ammunition and fastened it to the girl’s saddle.
“If Dave gets gay,” he said, with a grin, “just bust him where he looks biggest with this here 30-30.”
After assisting in packing the horses, he mounted and rode down the cañon while Solange and Dave resumed their journey in the opposite direction.
Sucatash, as soon as he had passed out of sight, quartered up the side of the cañon where sheep trails promised somewhat easier going than the irregular212floor of the gulch. Thus he was enabled to get an occasional glimpse of them by looking backward whenever favorable ground exposed the valley. But he was soon past all hope of further vision, and when the distraction was removed settled down to make the best speed on his journey.
He gave no heed to anything but the route ahead of him and that was soon a task that engrossed him. It had been snowing some all night, and it was now slithering down in great flakes which made the air a gray mystery and the ground a vague and shadowy puzzle. Sucatash did not care to linger. Without the girl to care for he was one who would take chances, and he rushed his horse rapidly, slogging steadily along the trails, without attention to anything but the ribbon of beaten path immediately ahead of him.
There was every reason to believe that the hills were empty of all humankind except for their own party and De Launay, who was ahead and not behind them. Sucatash was entirely ignorant of the fact that, among the rocky terraces of the cañon, Jim Banker camped, after having followed their trail as long as the light would allow him to do so.
The prospector was up and on the move as soon as Sucatash. He and his burros were trudging along among the rocks, the old man muttering and talking to himself and shaking his head from side to side as onewhosebrain has been affected by years of solitude213and unending search for gold. His eyes were never still, but swept the trail ahead of him or the slopes on either hand, back and forth, back and forth, restlessly and uneasily as though there were something here that he looked for and yet feared to see.
Far ahead of him and high on the slope he finally beheld Sucatash, riding alone and at a rapid trot along a sheep trail, his long, lean figure leaning forward, raised in his stirrups, and his hands on saddle horn. He was evidently riding in haste, for that gait and attitude on the part of a cow hand means that he is in a hurry and has a long way to go.
The prospector hurriedly unslung a field glass and focused it on Sucatash. When he was sure of the man and of his route he grinned evilly.
“One of ’em right into my hands,” he chuckled.
He then dismounted and ran to one of the burros. From the pack he dragged a roll of wire which he carried there for some purpose or other, probably for the construction of a short length of fence whenever he stopped long enough to make it desirable. He glanced up at the gray sky, noting the swirl of snowflakes which settled down like a cloud. A few moments ago they had almost ceased, enabling him to glimpse the rider at a distance and now they were providentially falling again. Luck was surely with him.214
Above him, about fifty yards up the slope of the cañon wall, was a long bench, rather narrow and beaten flat by the passage of countless sheep. Under it the hill sloped sharply, almost precipitously. It was as though made to order for his purpose.
He mounted his horse and spurred it around and quartering up the hill even as Sucatash wound in and out among the swales and depressions of the cañon wall, now coming into dim view and now vanishing behind a bend. Banker had plenty of time.
He reached the bench and hurriedly dismounted, to run to a scrubby cedar growing almost on the edge of the ledge. Round this, at no more than six inches above the ground, he twisted an end of the wire. Then he ran with the other end across the bench and snubbed it around a scrub oak growing on the slope. The branches of the little tree were thick, and the tough, prickly leaves still hung to it in some quantity.
He dropped the wire and went out and led his horse back among the scrub oaks. He then stood up close to the tree, almost invisible against the tangled branches and dead leaves. In one hand he held the coil of wire snubbed about the roots of the scrub oak while the other was clutching the nose of his horse.
Finally out of the smother of snow Sucatash came driving, head bent and hat brim pulled down to avoid the snow. The road was easy enough and he thought215of nothing but getting along with all the speed possible. He did not notice that his horse, when emerging onto the bench, broke its stride and threw up its head as though seeking something. Instead he sank his spurs and urged the beast on.
The horse broke into a lope on the level stretch in answer to the spur. They came sweeping down until opposite where the prospector crouched.
Banker released his hold on his horse’s nose and tightened the pull on the wire at the same time. His horse neighed.
Shrilly and loud, Sucatash’s mount answered. Head thrown high and turned to the side he half checked his stride at the call of his kind. Startled, Sucatash also threw up his head and turned.
Then the wire clutched the forelegs of the horse and, with a crash, he went down. Sucatash went with him, and, catlike, strove to throw himself from the saddle. Unfortunately, he leaped on the outer side where the ledge fell away steeply.
He freed himself from the plunging horse, but his head struck hard against the gnarled trunk of a juniper and, half stunned, his body slid over the edge and dropped.
Chuckling and mouthing, rubbing his hands together, Banker slunk from his ambush. He retrieved his wire and then looked at the horse kicking on the ground.
“No use lettin’ him go back to the ranch,” he216said, slyly. Then he drew his six-shooter and shot the animal.
Leading his own horse he climbed carefully down the slope and worked his way to where the body must have fallen. But it took him some time to find it, as Sucatash had rolled far after striking the slope.
He came upon it at last wedged against a clump of greasewood. There was blood on the head and the sightless eyes stared up to the gray sky. Snowflakes fell steadily and melted against the white cheeks. The body lay awkwardly twisted.
“Dead!” chuckled Banker. “All of ’em die! Old Jim don’t die, though! Old Jim’ll find it! He’ll find the gold. French Pete hid it; Panamint hid it; this here Frog lady is hidin’ it. But old Jim’ll find it. Old Jim’ll find it after all of ’em’s dead. Dead! Dead! Dead!”
He burst out into shrill laughter, and his horse snorted and tried to pull away. He instantly broke off laughing to curse foully, mouthing obscenities and oaths as he jerked cruelly at the spade bit. The trembling horse squatted back and then stood with wildly rolling eyes.
Muttering, Jim stamped heavily down the hill, dragging the horse with him and leaving the still form to the mercies of the snow. The falling flakes were already filling up the trail that he left. In an hour or two there would be no sign of his presence.217
CHAPTER XVIITHE SECRET OF THE LOST MINE
Through most of the day Dave and Solange pushed on up the cañon and the snow fell steadily, deepening under foot. As yet there were no drifts, for the wind was not blowing and progress was easy enough. After a few hours the snow grew deep enough to ball up under the feet of the horses and to cause some inconvenience from slipping. More than once Solange was in danger of being thrown by the plunge of her horse as his feet slid from under him. This served to retard their progress considerably but was not of much consequence aside from that and the slight element of added danger.
They had no more than fifteen miles to go before reaching the rendezvous, and this they made shortly after noon. Dave, who had become more silent than ever when he found himself alone with the girl, pitched the tent and then went to gather a supply of wood. Unused to strenuous riding, Solange went into her tent and lay down to rest.
They had expected to find De Launay, but there was no sign of him. Dave said that he might be within a short distance and they not know it, and218asserted his intention of scouting around to find him after he had got the wood.
Solange was asleep when he came back with a load snaked in with his lariat, and he did not disturb her. Leaving the wood he rode on up the cañon looking for signs of De Launay. But, although he spent the better part of the afternoon in the search, riding in and out of every branch gully, and quartering up the slopes to where the black stands of timber began, he found no trace of the man.
Finally, fearing that Solange would begin to be frightened at his absence, he turned and started back to the camp. He had marked it by a large outcrop that stuck out of the cañon wall, forming a flat oblong bench of rock. This had hung on the slope about a hundred feet above the floor of the valley, and so he made his way along at about that height. It was beginning to get dark, the snow was falling heavily and he found it difficult to see far in front of him.
“High time old Sucatash was fannin’ in fer dogs,” he said to himself. “The winter’s done set in for sure.”
Fearing that he would miss the camp by keeping so high he headed his horse downward and finally reached the bottom of the cañon. Here the snow was deeper but the going was better. He turned downward with some relief, and was just about to spur his horse to greater speed when, through the219gray mist of snow, a shadowy figure loomed up before him.
“Hey, De Launay?” he called. The figure did not answer but moved toward him.
He reined in his horse and leaned outward to look more intently. Behind the man, who was mounted, he saw the blurred outlines of pack animals. “De Launay?” he called again.
The figure seemed to grow suddenly nearer and more distinct, descending close upon him.
“It ain’t no Delonny,” chuckled a shrill voice. “It’s me.”
“Huh!” said Dave, with disgust. “Jim Banker, the damned old desert rat!”
“Reckon you ain’t so glad to see me,” wheezed Jim, still chuckling. “Old Jim’s always around, though; always around when there’s gold huntin’ to do. Always around, old Jim is!”
“Well, mosey on and pull your freight,” snarled Dave. “We don’t want you too close around. It’s a free country, but keep to windward and out o’ sight.”
“You don’t like old Jim! Hee, hee! Don’t none of ’em like old Jim! But Jim’s here, a-huntin’—and most of them’s dead that don’t like him. Old Jim don’t die! The other fellers dies!”
“So I hears,” said Dave, with meaning. He said no more, for Banker, without the slightest warning, shot him through the head.220
The horses plunged as the body dropped to the ground and Jim wheezed and cackled as he held his own beast down.
“Hee, hee! They all of ’em dies, but old Jim don’t die!”
With a snort Dave’s horse wheeled and galloped away up the cañon. The sound of his going frightened the prospector. He ceased to laugh, and cowered in his saddle, looking fearfully about him into the dim swirl of the snow.
“Who’s that?” he called.
The deadly silence was unbroken. The old man shook his fist in the air and again broke into his frightful cursing.
“I ain’t afraid!” he yelled. “Damn you. I ain’t afraid! You’re all dead. You’re dead, there; French Pete’s dead, Sucatash Wallace’s dead, Panamint’s dead. But old Jim’s alive! Old Jim’ll find it. You bet you he will!”
He bent his head and appeared to listen again. Then:
“What’s that? Who’s singin’?”
He fell to muttering again, quoting doggerel, whined out in an approach to a tune: “Louisiana—Louisiana Lou!”
“Louisiana’s dead!” he chuckled. “If he aint he better not come back. The gal’s a-waitin’ fer him. Louisiana what killed her pappy! Ha, ha! Louisiana killed French Pete!”221
He turned his horse and slowly, still muttering, began to haze his burros back down the cañon.
“Old Jim’s smart,” he declaimed. “All same like an Injun, old Jim is! Come a-sneakin’ up past the camp there and the gal never knew I was nigh. Went a-sneakin’ past and seen his tracks goin’ up the cañon. Just creeps along and rides up on him and now he’s dead! All dead but the gal and old Jim! Old Jim don’t die. The gal’ll die, but not old Jim! She’ll tell old Jim what she knows and then old Jim will find the gold.”
Through the muffling snow he pushed on until the faint glow of a fire came to him through the mist of snowflakes. A shadow flitted in front of it, and he stopped to chuckle evilly and mutter. Then he dismounted and walked up to the camp, where Solange busied herself in preparing supper.
“That you, Monsieur David?” she called cheerily, as Jim’s boots crunched the snow.
Jim chuckled. “It’s just me—old Jim, ma’am,” he said, his voice oily and ingratiating. “Old Jim, come to see the gal of his old friend, Pete.”
Solange whirled. But Jim had sidled between her and the tent, where, just inside the flap, rested the rifle that Sucatash had left her.
“What do you wish?” she asked, angrily. Her head was reared, and in the dim light her eyes glowed as they caught reflections from the fire. She showed no fear.222
“Just wants to talk to you about old times,” whined Banker. “Old Jim wants to talk to Pete’s gal, ma’am.”
“I heard a shot a while ago,” said Solange sharply. “Where is Monsieur Dave?”
“I don’t know nothin’ about Dave, ma’am. Reckon he’ll be back. Boys like him don’t leave purty gals alone long—less’n he’s got keerless and gone an’ hurt hisself. Boys is keerless that a way and they don’t know the mount’ins like old Jim does. They goes and dies in ’em, ma’am—but old Jim don’t die. He knows the mount’ins, he does! He, he!”
Solange took a step toward him. “What do you wish?” she repeated, sternly. Still, she did not fear him.
“Just to talk, ma’am. Just to talk about French Pete. Just to talk about gold. Old Jim’s been a-huntin’ gold a many years, ma’am. And Pete, he found gold and I reckon he told his gal where the gold was. He writ a paper before he died, they say, and I reckon he writ on that paper where the gold was, didn’t he?”
“No, he did not,” said the girl, shortly and contemptuously.
“So you’d say; so you’d say, of course.” He chuckled again. “There wasn’t no one could read that Basco writin’. But he done writ it. Now, you tell old Jim what that writin’ says, and then you and old Jim will find that gold.”223
Solange suddenly laughed, bitterly. “Tell you? Why yes, I’ll tell you. It said——”
“Yes, ma’am! It said——”
He was slaveringly eager as he stepped toward her.
“It said—to my mother—that she should seek out the man who killed him and take vengeance on him!”
Jim reeled back, cringing and mouthing. “Said—said what? You’re lyin’. It didn’t say it!”
“I have told you what it said. Now, stand aside and let me get into my tent!”
With supreme contempt, she walked up to him as though she would push him aside. It was a fatal mistake, though she nearly succeeded. The gibbering, cracked old fiend shrank, peering fearfully, away from her blazing eyes and the black halo, rimmed with flashing color, of her hair. For a moment it seemed that he would yield in terror and give her passage.
But terror gave place suddenly to crazy rage. With an outburst of bloodcurdling curses, he flung himself upon her. She thought to avoid him, but he was as quick as a cat and as wiry and strong as a terrier. Before she could leap aside, his claw-like hands were tangled in her coat and he was dragging her to him. She fought.
She struck him, kicked and twisted with all her splendid, lithe strength, but it was in vain. He clung like a leech, dragging her closer in spite of all she224could do. She beat at his snarling face and the mouth out of which were whining things she fortunately did not understand. His yellow fangs were bare and saliva dripped from them.
Disgust and horror was overwhelming her. His iron arms were bending her backward. She tried again to tear free, stepped back, stumbled, went down with a crash. He sprang upon her, grunting and whistling, seized her hair and lifted her head, to send it crashing against the ground.
The world went black as she lost consciousness.
The prospector got to his feet, grumbling and cursing. He did not seem to feel the bruises left on his face by her competent hands. He stooped over her, felt her breast and found her heart beating.
“She ain’t goin’ to die. She ain’t goin’ to die yet. She’ll tell old Jim what’s writ on that paper. She’ll tell him where the gold is.”
He left her lying there while he went to get his outfit. The packs were dragged off and flung to the ground, where saddle and rifle followed them. Then he went into the tent.
He pitched the rifle left by Sucatash out into the snow, kicked the girl’s saddle aside, dumped her bedding and her clothes on the floor, tore and fumbled among things that his foul hands should never have touched nor his evil eyes have seen. He made a fearful wreck of the place and, finally, came upon her hand bag, which, womanlike, she had clung to225persistently, carrying it in her saddle pockets when she rode.
The small samples of ore he gloated over lovingly, mouthing and gibbering. But finally he abandoned them, reluctantly, and dug out the two notes.
Brandon’s letter he read hastily, chuckling over it as though it contained many a joke. But he was more interested in the other scrawl, whose strange words completely baffled him. He tried in vain to make out its meaning, turning it about, peering at it from all angles, like an evil old buzzard. Then he gave way to a fit of rage, whining curses and making to tear the thing into bits. But his sanity held sufficiently to prevent that.
Finally he folded the paper up and tucked it into a pocket. Then he gathered up the bedding, took it outside and roughly bundled the girl in it. She lay unconscious and dreadfully white, with the snow sifting steadily over her. Her condition had no effect on the old ruffian who callously let her lie, covering her only to prevent her freezing to death before he could extract the information he desired.
He finished her culinary tasks and glutted himself on the food, grunting and tearing at it like a wild animal. Then he dragged out his filthy bedding and rolled himself up in it, scorning the shelter of the tent, which stood wanly in the white, misty night.
It was morning when Solange recovered her senses. She awoke to a gray, chill world in which she alternately226shivered and burned as fever clutched her. For many minutes she lay, swathed in blankets, dull to sensation, staring up at a leaden sky. The snow had ceased to fall.
Still unable to comprehend where she was or what had happened, she made a tentative attempt to move, only to wince as the pains, borne of her struggle and of lying on the bare ground, seized her. Stiff and sore, weakened, with head throbbing and stabbing, the whole horrible adventure came back to her. She tried to rise, but she was totally helpless and her least movement gave her excruciating pain. Her head covering had been laid aside before she had begun preparation of supper the night before, and her colorless and strangely brilliant hair, all tumbled and loose, lay around her head and over her shoulders in great waves and billows, tinged with blue and red lights against the snow. Her face, delicately flushed with fever, was wildly beautiful, and her eyes were burning with somber, terrible light deep in their depths.
It was this face that Jim Banker looked down upon as he came back from the creek, unkempt, dirty. It was these eyes he met as he stooped over her with his lunatic chuckle.
He winced backward as though she had struck him, and his face contorted with sudden panic. He cowered away from her and covered his own eyes.227
“Don’t you look at me like that! I never done nothing!” he whined.
“Canaille!” said Solange. Her voice was a mere whisper but it fairly singed with scorn. Fearless, she stared at him and he could not meet her gaze.
His gusty mood changed and he began to curse her. She heard more foulness from him in the next five minutes than all the delirium of wounded soldiers during five years of war had produced for her. She saw a soul laid bare before her in all its unutterable vileness. Yet she did not flinch, nor did a single symptom of panic or fear cross her face.
Once, for a second, he ceased his mouthing, abruptly. His head went up and he bent an ear to the wind as though listening to something infinitely far away.
“Singin’!” he muttered, as though in awe. “Hear that! ‘Louisiana! Louisiana Lou!’”
Then he cackled. “Louisiana singin’. I hear him. Louisiana—who killed French Pete. He, he!”
After a while he tired, subsiding into mutterings. He got breakfast, bringing to her some of the mess he cooked. She ate it, though it nauseated her, determining that she would endeavor to keep her strength for future struggles.
While she choked down the food the prospector sat near her, but not looking at her, and talked.
“You an’ me’ll talk pretty, honey. Old Jim ain’t goin’ to hurt you if you’re reasonable. Just tell old228Jim what the writin’ says and old Jim’ll be right nice to you. We’ll go an’ find the gold, you and me. You’ll tell old Jim, won’t you?”
His horrible pleading fell on stony ears, and he changed his tune.
“You ain’t a-goin’ tell old Jim? Well, that’s too bad. Old Jim hates to do it, pretty, but old Jim’s got to know. If you won’t tell him, he’ll have to find out anyhow. Know how he’ll do it?”
She remained silent.
“It’s a trick the Injuns done taught old Jim. They uses it to make people holler when they don’t want to. They takes a little sliver of pine, jest a little tiny sliver, ma’am, and they sticks it in under the toe nails where it hurts. Then they lights it. They sticks more of ’em under the finger nails and through the skin here an’ there. Then they lights ’em.
“Most generally it makes the fellers holler—and I reckon it’ll make you tell, ma’am. Old Jim has to know. You better tell old Jim.”
She remained stubbornly and scornfully silent.
The prospector shook his head as though sorrowful over her pertinacity. Then he got up and got a piece of wood, a stick of pitch pine, which he began to whittle carefully into fine slivers. These he collected carefully into a bundle while the helpless girl watched him.
Finally he came to her and pulled the blankets from her. He stooped and unlaced her boots, pulling229them off. One woolen stocking was jerked roughly from a foot as delicate as a babe’s. She tried to kick, feebly and ineffectively. Her feet, half frozen from sleeping in the boots, were like lead.
The prospector laughed and seized her foot. But, as he held it and picked up a sliver, a thought occurred to him. He got up and went to the fire, where he stooped to get a flaming brand.
At this moment, clear and joyous, although distant and faint, came a rollicking measure of song:
“My Louisiana! Louisiana Lou!”
The girl’s brain failed to react to it. She gathered nothing from the sound except that there was some one coming. But Banker reared as though shot and whirled about to stare down the cañon. She could not see him and she was unable to turn.
Shaking as though stricken with an ague, the prospector stood. His face had gone chalk white under its dirty stubble of beard. He looked sick and even more unwholesome than usual. From his slack jaws poured a constant whining of words, unintelligible.
Down the cañon, slouching carelessly with the motion of his horse, appeared a man, riding toward them at a jog trot. Behind him jingled two pack horses, the first of which was half buried under the high bundle on his back, the second more lightly laden.230
Banker stood, incapable of motion for a moment. Then, as though galvanized into action, he began to gabble his inevitable oaths, while he leaped hurriedly for his rifle. He grabbed it from under the tarpaulin, jerked the lever, flung it to his shoulder and fired.
With the shot, Solange, by a terrific effort, rolled over and raised her head. She caught a glimpse of a familiar figure and shrieked out with new-found strength.
“Mon ami! A moi, mon ami!”
Then she stifled a groan, for, with the shot, the figure sagged suddenly and dropped to the side of his horse, evidently hit. She heard the insane yell of triumph from the prospector and knew that he was dancing up and down and shouting:
“They all dies but old Jim! Old Jim don’t die!”
She buried her face in her hands, wondering, even then, why she felt such a terrible pang, not of hope destroyed, but because the man had died.
It passed like a flash for, on the instant, she heard another yell from Banker, and a yell, this time, of terror. At the same moment she was aware of thundering hoofs bearing down upon them and of a voice that shouted; a voice which was the sweetest music she had ever heard.
Dimly she was aware that Banker had dropped his rifle and scuttled like a scared rabbit into some place of shelter. Her whole attention was concentrated on231those rattling, drumming hoofs. She looked up, tried to rise, but fell back with the pain of the effort stabbing her unheeded.
A horse was sliding to a stop, forefeet planted, snow and dirt flying from his hoofs. De Launay was leaping to the ground and the pack horses were galloping clumsily up. Then his arms were around her and she was lifted from the ground.
“What’s the matter, Solange? What’s happened? Where’s the boys? And Banker, what’s he doing shooting at me?”
His questions were pouring out upon her, but she could not answer them. She clung to him and sobbed.
“I thought he had killed you!”
His laugh was music.
“That old natural? He couldn’t kill me. Saw him aim and ducked. Shot right over me. But what’s happened to you?”
He ran a hand over her face and found it hot with fever.
“Why, you’re sick! And your foot’s bare. Here, tell me what has happened?”
She could only sob brokenly, her strength almost gone.
“That terrible old man! He did it. He’s hiding—to shoot you.”
De Launay’s hand had run over her thick mane232of hair and he felt her wince. He recognized the great bump on the skull.
“Death of a dog!” he swore in French. “Mon amie, is it this old devil who has injured you?”
She nodded and he began to look about him for Banker. But the prospector was not in sight, although his discarded rifle was on the ground. The lever was down where the prospector had jerked it preparatory to a second shot which he had been afraid to fire. The empty ejected shell lay on the snow near by.
De Launay turned back to Solange. He bent over her and carefully restored her stocking and shoe. Then he fetched water and bathed her head, gently gathering her hair together and binding it up under the bandeau which he found among her scattered belongings. She told him something of what had happened, ascribing the prospector’s actions to insanity. But when De Launay asked about Sucatash and Dave she could do no more than tell him that the first had gone to the ranch to get snowshoes and dogs, and the latter had gone out yesterday and had not come back, though she had heard a single shot late in the afternoon.
De Launay listened with a frown. He was in a cold rage at Banker, but there were other things to do than try to find him. He set to work to gather up the wreckage of the tent and outfit. Then he rounded up the horses, leaving the burros and Banker’s233horse to stay where they were. Hastily he threw on the packs, making no pretense at neat packing.
“I’ll have to get you out of this,” he said. “With that lunatic bushwacking round there’ll never be a moment of safety for you. You’re sick and will have to have care. Can you ride?”
Solange tried to rise to her feet but was unable to stand.
“I’ll have to carry you. I’ll saddle your horse and lead him. The others will follow my animals. I’ll get you to safety and then come back and look for Dave.”
With infinite care he lifted her to his saddle, holding her while he mounted and gathered her limp form into his left arm. His horse fortunately was gentle, and stood. He was about to reach for the reins of her horse when something made her turn and look up the slope of the hill toward the overhanging, ledgelike rock above the camp.
“Mon ami!” she screamed. “Gardez-vous!”
What happened she was not able to exactly understand. Only she somehow realized that never had she understood the possibility of rapid motion before. Her own eyes had caught only a momentary glimpse of a head above the edge of the rock and the black muzzle of a six-shooter creeping into line with them.
Yet De Launay’s movement was sure and accurate.234His eyes seemed to sense direction, his hand made one sweep from holster to an arc across her body and the roar of the heavy weapon shattered her ears before she had fairly realized that she had cried out. She saw a spurt of dust where the head had appeared.
Then De Launay’s spurs went home and the horse leaped into a run. The pack horses, jumping at the sound of the shot, flung up their heels, lurched to one side, circled and fell into a gallop in the rear. Clattering and creaking, the whole cavalcade went thundering up the valley.
De Launay swore. “Missed, by all the devils! But I sure put dust in his eyes!”
He turned around and there, sure enough, was Banker, standing on the rock, pawing at his eyes. The shot had struck the edge of the rock just below his face and spattered fragments all over him.
De Launay laughed grimly as the groping figure shook a futile fist at him. Then Banker sat down and dug at his face industriously.
They had ridden another hundred yards when a yell echoed in the cañon. He turned again and saw Banker leaping and shrieking on the rock, waving hands to the heavens and carrying on like a maniac.
“Gone plumb loco,” said De Launay, contemptuously.
But, unknown to De Launay or mademoiselle, the high gods must have laughed in irony as old Jim235Banker raved and flung his hands toward their Olympian fastness.
De Launay’s shot, which had crushed the edge of the rock to powder, had exposed to the prospector the glittering gold of French Pete’s lost Bonanza!236