CHAPTER XXIGOLD SEEKERS
Puzzled, but watchful and alert, De Launay saw her retreating, sensing the terrible change that had come over her.
“Yes, I am Louisiana,” he said. “What is the matter?”
In answer she laughed, while one hand went to the breast of her shirtwaist and the other reached behind her, groping for something as she paced backward. Like a cameo in chalk her features were set and the writhing flames in her hair called up an image of Medusa. There was no change in expression, but through her parted lips broke a low laugh, terrible in its utter lack of feeling.
“And I have for my husband—Louisiana!Quelle farce!”
The hand at her breast was withdrawn and in it fluttered the yellow paper that Wilding had brought from Maryville to Wallace’s ranch. She flung it toward him, and as he stooped to pick it up, her groping hand fell on the pistol resting on the upturned log at the side of the bunk. She drew it around in front of her, dropped the holster at her side and snapped the safety down. Her thumb272rested on the hammer and she stood still, tensely waiting.
De Launay read the notice of reward swiftly and looked up. His face was stern, but otherwise expressionless.
“Well?” he demanded, his eyes barely resting on the pistol before they swept to meet her own blazing gaze. There was no depth to her eyes now. Instead they seemed to be fire surrounded by black rims.
“You have read—murderer!”
“I have read it.” De Launay’s voice was like his face, and in both appeared a trace of contempt.
“What have you to say before I kill you?”
“That you would have shot before now had you been able to do it,” answered De Launay, and now the note of contempt was deeper. He turned his back to her and leaned forward over the fire, one outstretched hand upon the stone slab that formed the rude mantel.
The girl stood there immobile. The hand that held the pistol was not raised nor lowered. The thumb did not draw back the hammer. But over her face came, gradually, a change; a desperate sorrow, an abandonment of hope. Even the light in her hair that had made it a flaming wheel seemed in some mysterious way to die down. The terrible fire in her eyes went out as though drowned in rising tears.
A sob burst from her lips and her breast heaved.273De Launay gazed down upon the fire, and his face was bitter as though he tasted death.
Solange slowly reached behind her again and dropped the heavy weapon upon the log. Then, in a choked voice she struggled to call out:
“Monsieur Wallace! Will you come?”
In the next room there was a stirring of hasty movements. Sucatash raised a cheery and incongruous voice.
“Just a minute, mad’mo’selle! I’m comin’ a-runnin’.”
He stamped into his boots and flung the door open, disheveled, shirt open at the neck. Astonished, he took in the strange attitudes of the others.
“What’s the answer?” he asked. “What was it you wanted, ma’am?”
Solange turned to him, her grief-ridden face stony in its hopelessness.
“Monsieur, you are my friend?”
“For mayhem, manslaughter or murder,” he answered at once. “What’s wanted?”
“Then—will you take this pistol, and kill that man for me?”
Sucatash’s eyes narrowed and his mottled hair seemed to bristle. He turned on De Launay.
“What’s he done?” he asked, with cold fury.
De Launay did not move. Solange answered dully.
“He is the man who—married me—when he was the man who had murdered my father!”274
But Sucatash made no move toward the pistol. He merely gaped at her and at De Launay. His expression had changed from anger to stupidity and dazed incomprehension.
“What’s that? He murdered your father?”
“He is Louisiana!”
“He? Louisiana! I allowed he was an old-timer. Well, all I can say is—heaven’s delights!”
Solange put out her hand to the edge of the bunk as though she could not support herself longer unaided. Her eyes were half closed now.
“Will you kill him, monsieur? If you do, you may have—of me—anything—that you ask!”
The words were faltered out in utter weariness. For one instant De Launay’s eyes flickered toward her, but Sucatash had already sprung to her side and was easing her to a seat on the edge of the bunk. Her head drooped forward.
“Ma’am,” said Sucatash, earnestly, “you got me wrong. I can’t kill him—not for that.”
“Not for that?” she repeated, wonderingly.
“Never in the world! I thought he’d insulted you, and if he had I’d a taken a fall out of him if he was twenty Louisianas. But this here notion you got that he beefed your father—that’s all wrong! You can’t go to downin’ a man on no such notions as that!”
“Why not?” asked Solange, in a stifled voice.
“Because he never done it—that’s whatever. You’d275never get over it, mad’mo’selle, if you done that and then found you was wrong! And you are wrong.”
Slowly, Solange dragged herself upright. She was listless, the lightness had gone out of her step. Without a word, she reached out and lifted her leather coat from the nail on which it hung. Then she dragged her leaden feet to the door. Sucatash silently followed her.
In the other room she spoke once.
“Will you saddle my horse for me, monsieur?”
“There ain’t no place for you to go, ma’am.”
“Nevertheless, I shall go. If you please——”
“Then I’ll go with you.”
She followed him to the door, putting on her coat. Outside, she sat down on a log and remained stonily oblivious as Sucatash hastily caught up several horses and dragged saddles andalforjasinto position. The westering sun was getting low along the rim of the crater and he worked fast with the knowledge that night would soon be upon them. Inside the cabin he heard De Launay moving about. A moment later as he entered to gather Solange’s equipment, he saw the soldier seated at the rough table busy with paper and fountain pen.
As Sucatash went past him, carrying an armload of blankets and a tarpaulin, De Launay held out a yellow paper.
“She will want this,” he said, and then bent over his writing.276
Again, when Sucatash came in for more stuff, De Launay stopped him. He held out the pen, indicating the sheet of paper spread upon the table.
“This needs two witnesses, I think, but one will have to serve. She is my wife, after all—but it will make it more certain. Will you sign it?”
Sucatash glanced hastily at the document, reading the opening words: “I, Louis Bienville de Launay, colonel and late general of division of the army of France, being of sound and disposing mind, do make, declare, and publish this my Last Will and Testament——”
His eye caught only one other phrase: “I give, bequeath, and devise to my dearly beloved wife, Solange——”
With an oath, Sucatash savagely dashed his signature where De Launay indicated, and then rushed out of the room. The soldier took another piece of paper and resumed his writing. When he had finished he folded the two sheets into an envelope and sealed it. Outside, Sucatash was heaving the lashings taut on the last packs.
De Launay came to the door and stood watching the final preparations. Solange still sat desolately on the log.
Finally Sucatash came to her and assisted her to rise. He led her to her horse and held the stirrup for her as she swung to the saddle. He was about277to mount himself when De Launay caught his eye. Instead, he stepped to the soldier’s side.
“Take this,” said De Launay, holding out the envelope. “Give it to her to-morrow. And—she needn’t worry about the mine—or Banker.”
“She’s not even thinkin’ about them!” growled Sucatash.
He turned and strode to his horse. In another moment they were riding rapidly toward the rim of the crater.
De Launay watched them for some time and then went into the cabin. He came out a moment later carrying saddle and bridle. On his thighs were now hanging holsters on both sides, and both were strapped down at the bottoms.
He caught and saddled his horse, taking his time to the operation. Then, searching the darkening surface of the crater wall, he found no trace of the two who had ridden away. But he busied himself in getting food and eating it. It was fully an hour after they had gone before he mounted and rode after them.
By this time Solange and Sucatash had reached the rim and were well on their way through the down timber. More by luck than any knowledge of the way, they managed to strike the game trail, and wound through the impeding snags, the cow-puncher taking the lead and the girl following listlessly in his wake. Before dark had come upon278them they had gained the level bench and were riding toward the gulch which led into the cañon.
After a while Sucatash spoke. “Where you aimin’ to camp, ma’am?”
“I am going down to these miners,” she said flatly.
“But, mad’mo’selle, that camp ain’t no place for you. There ain’t no women there, most likely, and the men are sure to be a tough bunch. I wouldn’t like to let you go there.”
“I am going,” she answered. To his further remonstrances she interposed a stony silence.
He gave it up after a while. As though that were a signal, she became more loquacious.
“In a mining camp, one would suppose that the men, as you have said, are violent and fierce?”
“They’re sure likely to be some wolfish, ma’am,” he agreed. In hope that she would be deterred by exaggeration, he dwelt on the subject. “The gunmen and hoss thieves and tinhorn gamblers all come in on the rush. There’s a lot of them hobos and wobblies—reds and anarchists and such—floatin’ round the country, and they’re sure to be in on it, too. I reckon any of them would cut a throat or down a man for two bits in lead money. Then there’s the kind of women that follows a rush—the kind you wouldn’t want to be seen with even—and the men might allow you was the same kind if you come rackin’ in among ’em.”279
Solange listened thoughtfully and even smiled bleakly.
“These men would kill, you say, for money?”
“For money, marbles or chalk,” said Sucatash. He was about to embellish this when she nodded with satisfaction.
“That is good,” she said. “And, if not for money, for a woman—one of that kind of woman—they would shoot a man?”
Sucatash blanched. “What are you drivin’ at, ma’am?”
“They will kill for me, for money—or if that is not enough—for a woman; such a woman as I am. Will they not, Monsieur Sucatash?”
“Kill who?”
He knew the answer, though, before she spoke: “Louisiana!”
Shocked, he ventured a feeble remonstrance.
“He’s your husband, ma’am!”
But this drove her to a wild outburst in startling contrast to her former quiescence.
“My husband! Yes, my husband who has defiled me as no other on earth could have soiled and degraded me! My husband! Oh, he shall be killed if I must sell myself body and soul to the man who shoots him down!”
Then she whirled on him.
“Monsieur Sucatash! You have said to me that you liked me. Maybe indeed, you have loved me a280little! Well, if you will kill that man for me—you may have me!”
Sucatash groaned, staring at her as though fascinated. She threw back her head, turning to him, her face upraised. The sweetly curved lips were half parted, showing little white teeth. On the satin cheeks a spot of pink showed. The lids were drooping over the deep eyes, veiling them, hiding all but a hint of the mystery and beauty behind them.
“Am I not worth a man’s life?” she murmured.
“You’re worth a dozen murders and any number of other crimes,” said Sucatash gruffly. He turned his head away. “But you got me wrong. If he was what you think, I’d smoke him up in a minute and you’d not owe me a thing. But, ma’am, I know better’n you do how you really feel. You think you want him killed—but you don’t.”
Solange abruptly straightened round and rode ahead without another word. Morosely, Sucatash followed.
They came into the cañon at last and turned downward toward the spot where camp had been pitched that day, which seemed so long ago, and yet was not yet a week in the past. Snow was falling, clouding the air with a baffling mist, but they could see, dotted everywhere along the sides of the cañon, the flickering fires where the miners had camped on their claims. Around them came the muffled voices of men, free with profanity. Here281and there the shadow of a tent loomed up, or a more solid bulk spoke of roughly built shacks of logs and canvas. Faint laughter and, once or twice, the sound of loud quarreling was heard. It all seemed weirdly unreal and remote as though they rode through an alien, fourth dimensional world with which they had no connection. The snow crunched softly under the feet of the horses.
But as they progressed, the houses or shacks grew thicker until it appeared that they were traversing the rough semblance of a street. Mud sloshed under the hoofs of the horses instead of snow, and a black ribbon of it stretched ahead of them. Mistily on the sides loomed dimly lighted canvas walls or dark hulks of logs. The sound of voices was more frequent and insistent down here, though most of it seemed to come from some place ahead.
In the hope that she would push on through the camp Sucatash followed the girl. They came at last to a long, dim bulk, glowing with light from a height of about six feet and black below that level. From this place surged a raucous din of voices, cursing, singing and quarreling. A squeaky fiddle and a mandolin uttered dimly heard notes which were tossed about in the greater turmoil. Stamping feet made a continuous sound, curiously muffled.
“What is this?” said Solange, drawing rein before the place.
“Ma’am, you better come along,” replied Sucatash.282“I reckon the bootleggers and gamblers have run in a load of poison and started a honkatonk. If that’s it, this here dive is sure no place for peaceable folks like us at this time o’ night.”
“But it is here that these desperate men who will kill may be found, is it not?” Solange asked.
“You can sure find ’em as bad as you want ’em, in there. But you can’t go in there, ma’am! My God! That place ishell!”
“Then it is the place for me,” said Solange. She swung down from her horse and walked calmly to the dimly outlined canvas door, swung it back and stepped inside.283
CHAPTER XXIIVENGEANCE!
The place, seen from within, was a smoky inferno, lighted precariously by oil lanterns hung from the poles that supported a canvas roof and sides. Rows ofgrommetsand snap hasps indicated that pack tarpaulins had been largely used in the construction. To a height of about five feet the walls were of hastily hewn slabs, logs in the rough, pieces of packing cases, joined or laid haphazard, with chinks and gaps through which the wind blew, making rivulets of chill in a stifling atmosphere of smoke, reeking alcohol, sweat and oil fumes. The building was a rough rectangle about twenty feet by fifty. At one end boards laid across barrels formed a semblance of a counter, behind which two burly men in red undershirts dispensed liquor.
Pieces of packing cases nailed to lengths of logs made crazy tables scattered here and there. Shorter logs upended formed the chairs. There was no floor. Sand had been thrown on the ground after the snow had been shoveled off, but the scuffling feet had beaten and trampled it into the sodden surface and had hashed it into mud.
Ankle-deep in the reeking slush stood thirty or284forty men, clad mostly in laced boots, corduroys or overalls, canvas or Mackinaw jackets; woolen-shirted, slouch-hatted. Rough of face and figure, they stood before the bar or lounged at the few tables, talking in groups, or shouting and carousing joyously. There was a faro layout on one of the tables where a man in a black felt hat, smoking a cigar, dealt from the box, while a wrinkle-faced man with a mouth like a slit cut in parchment sat beside him on a high log, as lookout. Half a dozen men played silently.
Perhaps half of those present milled promiscuously among the groups, hail-fellow-well-met, drunk, blasphemous, and loud. These shouted, sang and cursed with vivid impartiality. The other half, keener-eyed, stern of face, capable, drew together in small groups of two or three or four, talking more quietly and ignoring all others except as they kept a general alert watch on what was going on. These were the old-timers, experienced men, who trusted no strangers and had no mind to allow indiscreetfamiliaritiesfrom the more reckless and ignorant.
When the door opened to admit Solange, straight and slim in her plain leather tunic and breeches, stained dark with melted snow, the drunken musicians perched on upended logs were the first to see her. They stopped their playing and stared, and slowly a grin came upon one of them.285
“Oh, mamma! Look who’s here!” he shouted.
Half a hundred pairs of eyes swung toward the door and silence fell upon the place. Stepping heedlessly into the ankle-deep muck, Solange walked forward. Her flat-brimmed hat was pulled low over her face and the silk bandanna hid her hair. Behind her Sucatash walked uncertainly, glaring from side to side at the gaping men.
The groups that kept to themselves cast appraising eyes on the cow-puncher and then turned them away. They pointedly returned to their own affairs as though to say that, however strange, the advent of this girl accompanied by the lean rider, was none of their business. Again spoke experience and the wariness born of it.
But the tenderfeet, the drunken roisterers, were of different clay. A chorus of shouts addressed to “Sister” bade her step up and have a drink. A wit, in a falsetto scream, asked if he might have the next dance. Jokes, or what passed in that crew for them, flew thickly, growing more ribald and suggestive as the girl stood, indifferent, and looked about her.
Then Sucatash strode between her and the group near the bar from which most of the noise emanated. He hitched his belt a bit and faced them truculently.
“You-all had better shut up,” he announced in a flat voice. His words brought here and there a derisive echo, but for the most part the mirth died286away. The loudest jibers turned ostentatiously back to the bar and called for more liquor. The few hardy ones who would have carried on their ridicule felt that sympathy had fled from them, and muttered into silence. Yet half of the crew carried weapons hung in plain sight, and others no doubt were armed, although the tools were not visible, while Sucatash apparently had no weapon.
Behind the fervid comradeship and affection, the men were strangers each to the other. None knew whom he could trust; none dared to strike lest the others turn upon him.
At one of the rude tables not far from the entrance, sat three men. They had a bottle of pale and poisonous liquor before them from which they took frequent and deep drinks. They talked loudly, advertising their presence above the quieter groups. One or two men stood at the table, examining a heap of dirty particles of crushed rock spread upon the boards. They would look at it, finger it and then pass on, generally without other comment than a muttered word or two. But the three seated men, one of whom was the gray, weasel-faced Jim Banker, boasted loudly, and profanely calling attention to the “color” and the exceeding richness of the ore. Important, swaggering, and braggart, they assumed the airs of an aristocracy, as of men set apart and elevated by success.
Outside, in the lull occasioned by Solange’s dramatic287entrance, noises of the camp could be heard through the flimsy walls. Far down the cañon faint shouts could be heard. Some one was calling to animals of some sort, apparently. A faint voice, muffled by snow, raised a yell.
“H’yar comes the fust dog sled in from the No’th,” he cried. “That’s the sour doughs for yuh! He’s comin’right!”
They could hear the faint snarls and barks of dogs yelping far down the cañon.
Then the noise swelled up again and drowned the alien sounds.
Dimly through the murk Solange saw the evil face of the desert rat, now flushed with drink and greed, and, with a sudden resolution, she turned and walked toward him. He saw her coming and stared, his face growing sallow and his yellow teeth showing. He gave the impression of a cornered rat at the moment.
Then his eyes fell on Sucatash, who followed her, and he half rose from his seat, fumbling for a gun. Sucatash paid no heed to him, not noticing his wild stare nor the slight slaver of saliva that sprang to his lips. His companions were busy showing the ore to curious spectators and were too drunk to heed him.
Slowly Banker subsided into his seat as he saw that neither Solange nor Sucatash apparently had hostile intentions. He tried to twist his seamed288features into an ingratiating grin, but the effort was a failure, producing only a grimace.
“W’y, here’s ole French Pete’s gal!” he exclaimed, cordially, though there was a quaver in his voice. “Da’tter of my old friend what diskivered this here mine an’ then lost it. Killed, he was, by a gunman, twenty years gone. Gents, say howdy to the lady!”
His two companions gaped and stared upward at the strange figure. The standing men, awkwardly and with a muttered word or two, backed away from the table, alert and watchful. Women meant danger in such a community. Under the deep shadow of her hat brim, Solange’s eyes smoldered, dim and mysterious.
“You are Monsieur Banker!” she asserted, tonelessly. “You need not be frightened. I have not come to ask you for an accounting—yet. It is for another purpose that I am here.”
“Shore! Anything I kin do fer old Pete’s gal—all yuh got to do is ask me, honey! Old Jim Banker; that’s me! White an’ tender an’ faithful to a friend, is Jim Banker, ma’am. Set down, now, and have a nip!”
He rose and waved awkwardly to his log. One of the others, with a grin that was almost a leer, also rose and reached for another log at a neighboring table from which a man had risen. All about that end of the shack, the seated or standing men, mostly289of the silent and aloof groups, drifted casually aside, leaving the table free.
Solange sat down and Sucatash put out a hand to restrain her.
“Mad’mo’selle!” he remonstrated. “This ain’t no place fer yuh! Yuh don’t want to hang around here with this old natural! He’s plum poisonous, I’m tellin’ yuh!”
Solange made an impatient gesture. “Some one quiet him!” she exclaimed. “Am I not my own mistress, then!”
“Yuh better be keerful what yuh call me, young feller,” said Banker, belligerently. “Yuh can’t rack into this here camp and get insultin’ that a way.”
“Aw, shut up!” retorted Sucatash, flaming. “Think yuh can bluff me when I’m a-facin’ yuh? Yuh damn’, cowardly horned toad!”
He half drew back his fist to strike as Banker rose, fumbling at his gun. But one of the other men suddenly struck out, with a fist like a ham, landing beneath the cow-puncher’s ear. He went down without a groan, completely knocked out.
The man got up, seized him by the legs, dragged him to the door and threw him into the road outside. Then he came back, laughing loudly, and swaggering as though his feat had been one to be proud of. Solange had shuddered and shrunk for a moment, but almost at once she shook herself as though casting290off her repulsion and after that was stonily composed.
On his way to the table the man who had struck Sucatash down, called loudly for another bottle of liquor, and one of the red-shirted men behind the bar left his place to bring it to them.
The burly bruiser sat down beside Solange with every appearance of self-satisfaction. He leered at her as though expecting her to flame at his prowess. But she gave no heed to him.
“Yuh might lift up that hat and let us git a look at yuh,” he said, reaching out as though to tilt the brim. She jerked sharply away from him.
“In good time, monsieur,” she said. “Have patience.”
Then she turned to Banker, who had been eying her with furtive, speculative eyes, cautious and suspicious.
“Monsieur Banker,” she said, “it is true that you have known this man who killed my father—this Louisiana?”
“Me! Shore, I knowed him. A murderin’ gunman he was, ma’am. A bad hombre!”
“And did you recognize him that time he came—when you played that little—joke—upon me?”
Banker turned sallow once more, as though the recollection frightened him.
“I shore did,” he assented fervently. “He plumb291give me a start. Thought he was a ghost, that a way, you——”
He leaned forward, grinning, his latent lunacy showing for a moment in his red eyes. Confidentially, he unburdened himself to his companions.
“This lady—you’ll see—she’s a kind o’ witch like. This here feller racks in, me thinkin’ him dead these many years, an’ I misses him clean when I tries to down him. I shore thinks he’s a ha’nt, called up by the lady. Haw, haw!”
His laughter was evil, chuckling and cunning. It was followed by cackling boasts:
“But they all dies—all but old Jim. Louisiana, he dies too, even if I misses him that a way with old Betsy that ain’t missed nary a one fer nigh twenty year.”
Under her hat brim Solange’s eyes gleamed with a fierce light as the bloodthirsty old lunatic sputtered and mouthed. But the other two grinned derisively at each other and leered at the girl.
“Talks like that all the time, miss,” said one. “Them old-timers likes to git off the Deadwood Dick stuff. Me, I’m nothin’ but a p’fessional pug and all the gun fightin’ I ever seen was in little old Chi. But I ain’t a damn’ bit afraid to say I could lick a half dozen of these here hicks that used to have a reputation in these parts. Fairy tales; that’s wot they are!”
He swigged his drink and sucked in his breath292with vast self-satisfaction. The other man, of a leaner, quieter, but just as villainous a type, grinned at him.
“Oh, I don’t know,” he said. “I ain’t never seen no one could juggle a six-gun like they say these birds could do, but I reckon there’s some truth in it. Leastways, there are some that can shoot pretty good.”
He, too, leaned back, with an air of self-satisfaction. Banker chuckled again.
“You’re both good ones,” he said. “This gent can shoot some, ma’am. He comes from Arkansas. But I ain’t a-worryin’ none about that. Old Jim’s luck’s still holdin’ good. I found this here mine, now, although you wouldn’t tell me where it was. Didn’t I?”
“I suppose so,” said Solange indifferently. “I do not care about the mine, monsieur. It is yours. But there is something that I wish and—I have money——”
The instant light of greed that answered this announcement convinced her that she had struck the right note. If the mine had been as rich as Golconda these men would have coveted additional money.
“You got money, ma’am?” Banker spoke whiningly.
“Money to pay for your service. You are brave men; men who would help a woman, I feel sure.293You, Monsieur Banker, knew my father and would help his daughter—if she paid you.”
The irony escaped him.
“I sure would,” he answered, eagerly. “What’s it you want, ma’am, and what you goin’ to pay fer it?”
She spoke quite calmly, almost casually.
“I want you to kill a man,” she answered.
The three of them stared at her and then the big bruiser laughed.
“Who d’you want scragged?” he said, derisively.
Solange looked steadily at Banker. “Louisiana!” she answered, clearly. But old Jim turned pale and showed his rat’s teeth.
The others merely chuckled and nudged each other.
Solange sensed that two considered her request merely a wild joke while the other was afraid. She slowly drew from her bag the yellow poster that De Launay had sent back to her by Sucatash.
“You would be within the law,” she pleaded, spreading it out before them. As they bent over it, reading it slowly: “See. He is a fugitive with a price on his head. Any one may slay him and collect a reward. It is a good deed to shoot him down.”
“Five hundred dollars looks good,” said the lean man from Arkansas, “but it ain’t hardly enough to set me gunnin’ for a feller I don’t know. Is this a pretty bad actor?”
“Bad?” screamed Banker, suddenly. “Bad! I’ve294seen him keep a chip in the air fer two or three seconds shootin’ under it with a six-shooter! I’ve seen him roll a bottle along the ground as if you was a-kickin’ it, shootin’ between it and the ground and never chippin’ the glass. Bad! You ask Snake Murphy if he’s bad. Snake was drunk an’ starts a fuss with him an’ his hand was still on his gun butt an’ the gun in the holster when Louisiana shoots him in the wrist an’ never looks at him while he’s a-doin’ it! Bad! I’ll say he’s bad!”
He was shivering and almost sick in his sudden fright at the idea of facing Louisiana. The others, however, were skeptical and contemptuous.
“Same old Buffalo Bill and Alkali Ike stuff!” said the pugilist sneeringly. “I ain’t afraid of this guy!”
“Well—neither am I,” said the man from Arkansas, complacently. “He ain’t the only one that can shoot, I reckon.”
Banker fairly fawned upon them. “Yes,” he cried. “You-all are good fellers and you ain’t afraid. You’ll down Louisiana if he comes. But he won’t come, I reckon.”
“Heiscoming,” said Solange. “Not many hours ago I heard him say that he was going to ‘jump your claim,’ which he said did not belong to you. And he intimated that there would be a fight and that he would welcome it.”
The three men were startled, looking at one another keenly. Banker licked his lips and was unmistakably295frightened more than ever. But in his red eyes the flame of lunacy was slowly mounting.
“If I had old Betsy here——” he muttered.
“He ain’t goin’ to jump this mine,” said the man from Arkansas, grimly. “Me and Slugger, here, has an interest in that mine. We works it on shares with Jim. If this shootin’ sport comes round, we’ll know what to do with him.”
“Slugger,” however, was more practical. “We’ll take care of him,” he agreed, slapping his side where a pistol hung. “But if there’s money in gettin’ him, I want to know how much. What’ll you pay, ma’am?”
“A—a thousand dollars is all I have,” said Solange. “You shall have that, messieurs.”
But, somehow, her voice had faltered as though she, now, were frightened at what she had done and regretted it. Some insistent doubt, hitherto buried under her despair and rage, was struggling to the surface. As she watched these sinister scoundrels muttering together and concerting the downfall of the man who was her husband—and perhaps something more, to her—she felt a panic growing in her, an impulse to spring up and rush out, back on the trail to warn De Launay. But she suppressed it, cruelly scourging herself to remembrance of her dead father and her vow of vengeance. She tried to whip the flagging sense of outrage at the trick that296the brutal Louisiana had played upon her in allowing her to marry him.
“If he lights around here,” she heard Banker cackling, “we’ll down him, we will! I’ll add a thousand more to what the lady gives. We’ll keep a lookout, boys, an’ when he shows up, he dies!”
Then his shrill, evil cry arose again and men turned from their pursuits to look at him. The foam stood on his lips, writhen into a snarl over yellow fangs and his red eyes flamed with insanity.
“He’ll die! They all dies! Only old Jim don’t die. French Pete dies; Panamint dies; that there young Dave dies! But old Jim don’t die!”
Solange turned pale as he half rose, leaning on the table with one hand while the other rested on the butt of his six-shooter. A great terror surged over her as she saw what she had let loose on her lover.
Her lover! For the first time she realized that he was her lover and that, despite crime and insult and deadly injury, he could be nothing else. She staggered to her feet, shoving back the brim of her hat, her wonderful eyes showing for the first time as she turned them on these grim wolves who faced her.
“My God!” said the bruiser, in a sudden burst of awe as he was caught by the fathomless depths. The man from Arkansas could not see them so clearly, but he sensed something disturbing and unusual.297Banker faced her and tried to tear his own eyes from her.
Then, as they stood and sat in tableau, the flimsy door to the shack flew open and Louisiana stood on the threshold, holsters sagging on each hip and tied down around his thighs.298
CHAPTER XXIIITO THE VALE OF AVALON
Slowly the sense of something terrible and menacing was borne in on those who grouped themselves at the table. First there came a diminishing of the sounds that filled the place. They died away like a fading wind. Then the chill sweep of air from the door surged across the room, like a great fear congealing the blood. In the sloppy mess underfoot could be heard the sucking, splashing sound of feet moving, as men all about drew back instinctively and rapidly to be out of the way.
Solange felt what had happened rather than saw it. The fearful convulsion of fright, followed by maniac rage that leaped to Banker’s face told her as though he had shouted the news. His companions and allies were merely stupefied and startled.
With an impulse to cry out a warning or to rush to him and throw her body between De Launay and these enemies, she suddenly whirled about to face him. She saw him standing in the doorway, the night black behind him except where the light fell on untrodden snow. Dim and shadowy in the open air of the roadway were groups of figures. The yelping and snarling of dogs floated into the place299and she could see their wolfish figures between the legs of men and horses.
De Launay stood upright, hands outstretched at the level of his shoulders and resting against the sides of the doorway. He was open to and scornful of attack. His clean features were set sternly and his eyes looked levelly into the reeking interior, straight at Solange and the three men grouped behind her.
“Monsieur de Launay!” she cried. His eyes flickered over her and focused again on the men.
“Louisiana—at your service,” he answered, quietly.
In some wild desire to urge him back she choked out words.
“Why—why did you come?”
He did not answer her direct but raised his voice a little, though still without emotion.
“Jim Banker,” he said, “I came for you. There are others out here who have also come for you—but I am holding them back. I want you myself.”
Out of Banker’s foaming lips came a snarling cry.
“Wh-what fer?”
Again the answer was not direct, and this time it was Solange he spoke to, though he did not alter the direction of his gaze.
“Mademoiselle, you are directly in line with these—men. You had better move aside.”
But Solange felt the pressure of a gun muzzle at her back and the snarl was in her ear.300
“You don’t move none! Stand where you be, or I’ll take you fust and git him next!”
Nevertheless she would have moved, had not De Launay caught the knowledge of her peril. He spoke again, still calm but with a new, steely note in his voice.
“Stand fast, mademoiselle, then, if they must have you for a shield. But don’t move. Shut your eyes!”
Hardly knowing why, she obeyed, oblivious of the peril to herself but in an agony lest her presence and position increase his danger. De Launay dominated her, and she stood as rigid as a statue, awaiting the cataclysm.
But he was speaking again.
“The wolves dug up the body of Dave MacKay, Banker, and the men outside found it. What you did to Wallace the other day he has recovered sufficiently to tell us. What you tried to do to this young woman I have also told them. Shall I tell her, and the others, who killed French Pete nineteen years ago?”
Again came the whining, shrill snarl from behind Solange.
“You did, you——”
“So you have said before, Jim. But I have the bullet that killed Pete d’Albret. I also have the bullet you shot at me when I came up to save mademoiselle from you a week ago. Those two are of the same caliber, Banker. It’s a caliber that’s301common enough nowadays but wasn’t very common in nineteen hundred. Who shot a Savage .303, nineteen years ago, and who shoots that same rifle to-day?”
There was a slow mutter of astonishment rising from the men crowded about the walls and in front of the crude bar. It was a murmur that contained the elements of a threat.
“I give you first shot, Jim,” came the half-mocking voice of De Launay beating, half heard, on Solange’s ears, where the astounding reversal of her notions was causing her brain almost to reel. Then she heard the whistling scream of Banker, quite lunatic by now, as he lost all sense of fear in his rising madness.
“By heaven, but you don’t git me, Louisiana! Nobody gits old Jim. They all die—all but old Jim!”
The shattering concussion of a shot fired within an inch or two of her ear almost stunned her. She felt the powder burning her cheek. Almost against her will her eyes flew open to see the figure in the door jerk and sag a little. Triumphant and horrible came Banker’s scream.
“They all die—all but old Jim!”
She was conscious of hasty movements beside her. The two other men, awaking from their stupor and sensing their opportunity as De Launay was hit, were drawing their guns.
“Stand still!” thundered De Launay and she stiffened302automatically. His hands had dropped from the doorway and now they seemed to snap upward with incredible speed and in them were two squat and heavy automatics, their grizzly muzzles sweeping like the snap of a whip to a line directly at herself, as it seemed.
Two shots again rocked her with their concussion. They seemed merely echoes of the flaming roars from the big automatics as each of them spoke. A man standing against the wall some feet away from De Launay ducked sharply, with a cry. The shot fired by the Slugger had gone wide, narrowly missing him. A chip flew from the door lintel near De Launay’s head. The man from Arkansas was shooting closer.
Solange was conscious that some one beside her had grunted heavily and that some one else was choking distressingly. She could not look around but she heard a heavy slump to her left. To her right something fell more suddenly and sharply, splashing soggily in the muck. Then, once more the powder burned her cheek and the eardrum was numbed under an explosion.
“I got you, Louisiana!” came Banker’s yell. She saw De Launay stagger again and felt that she was about to faint.
“Stand still!” he shouted again. She knew she was sheltering his murderer and that, from behind her, the finishing shot was already being aimed over303her shoulder. Yet, although she felt that she must risk her life in order to get out of line and give him a chance, his voice still dominated her and she stiffened.
One of the big pistols swept into line and belched fire and noise at her. She heard the brittle snapping of bone at her ear and something struck her sharply on the collar bone, a snapping blow, as though some hard and heavy object had struck and glanced upward and away. Then the second pistol crashed at her.
Again she heard the sound of something smashing behind her. There was no other sound except the noise of something slipping. That something then slid, splashing, to the floor.
De Launay’s pistols were lowered and he was taking a step into the room. Solange noted that he staggered again, that the deerskin waistcoat was stained, and she tried to find strength to run to him.
She saw, as she moved, the huddled figures at her side where the dead men lay, and she knew that there was another behind her. She heard the slopping of feet in the mud as men closed in from all about her. She heard awe-struck voices commenting on what had happened.
“Plumb center—and only a chunk of his haid showin’ above the gal! If you ask me, that’s shore some shootin’!”
“An each o’ the other two with a shot—jest a left an’ a right!”304
“Gets the gun with one barrel an’ the man with the other. Did you-all see it?”
Her feet were refusing to carry her, leaden and weighty as they seemed. Her knees were trembling and her head swimming. Yet she retained consciousness, for, in front of her, De Launay was crumpling forward, and sinking to the muddy shambles in which he stood.
Friendly hands were holding her up and she swept the cobwebs from her brain with her hands, determined that she would conquer her weakness. Somehow she staggered to De Launay’s side and, heedless of the mud, sank to her knees.
“Mon ami! Mon ami!” she moaned over him, her hands folding over his lean cheeks, still brown in spite of the pallor that was sweeping them.
A man dropped to his knees beside De Launay and opposite her. She did not heed his swift gesture in ripping back the buckskin vest. Nor did she feel the hand on her shoulder where Sucatash stood behind her. The crowding bystanders were nonexistent to her consciousness as she raised De Launay’s head.
Then his eyes fluttered open and met hers; were held by them as though they were drawn down to the depths of her and lost in them. Over his mouth, under the small, military mustache crept a smile.
“Morganla fée!” he whispered.
Solange choked back a sob. She leaned nearer and305opened her eyes wider. De Launay’s gaze remained lost in the depths of hers. But he saw at last to the bottom of them; saw there unutterable sorrow and love.
“Don’t worry, fair lady!” he gasped. “It’s been something—to live for—once more! And the mine—you’ll not need that—after all!”
His eyes slowly closed but he was not unconscious, for he spoke again.
“It’s nothing much. That rat couldn’t kill—Louisiana!”
The man who was examining De Launay made an impatient gesture and Sucatash drew her gently away. She rose slowly, bending dumbly over the physician, as he seemed to be.
“Reckon he’s right,” said this man, grimly, as he bared De Launay’s chest. “Huh! These holes aren’t a circumstance to what this hombre’s had in him before this. Reckon he’s had a habit of mixing with cougars or something like that! Here’s a knife wound—old.”
“A bayonet did that,” said Solange.
“Soldier, eh! Well, he’s used to bullet holes and it’s a good thing. Hand me something to bandage him with, some one. He’s lost a heap of blood but there ain’t anything he won’t get over—that is, if you can get him out of this hole.”
The man seemed competent enough, although, abandoning his practice to join the gold rush, he had306brought few of the tools of his trade with him. He gathered handkerchiefs and Solange ripped open her flannel shirtwaist and tore the lingerie beneath it to furnish him additional cloth. She had collected herself and, although still shaky, was cool and efficient, her nurse’s experience rendering the doctor invaluable aid. Together they soon stanched the bleeding and directed De Launay’s removal to a near-by tent where he was laid upon ample bedding.
Then the doctor turned to Solange and Sucatash, who hovered around her like a satellite.
“I’ve done what I can,” he said. “But he’ll not stand much chance if he’s left up here. You’d better risk it and get him down to the Falls if it can be done.”
“But how can we take him?” cried Solange. “Surely it would kill him to ride a horse.”
“No, he can’t,” agreed the doctor. “But there is the dog team that came in to-night. You ought to get him to Wallace’s with that and he can probably stand it.”
Solange turned at once and ran out to seek the driver of the dog team. The dogs lay about in the road but the man was not visible. She hastily burst into the saloon again in the hope of finding him there.
The signs of conflict had been removed and men were once more lined up before the rude bar, discussing the fight in low voices.307
They fell silent when Solange entered and most of them took off their hats, although they had all been puzzled to explain her connection with the event and her actions before it had come off.
She paid no attention to them but swept the crowd looking for the newcomer. He saved her the trouble of identifying him by coming forward.
“Ma’am,” he said, with great embarrassment, “I’m Snake Murphy and I was grubstakin’ that ornery coyote that Louisiana just beefed. I come in to-night with that dog team and I reckon that, accordin’ to law, this here claim of Jim’s belongs to me now that he’s dead. But I wants to say that I ain’t robbin’ no women after they come all the way across the ocean to find this here mine and—well—if half of it’ll satisfy you, it’s yours!”
Solange seized him by the arm.
“You are the man with the dogs?” she cried.
“Yes ma’am.”
“Then—you keep the mine—all of it, I do not want it. But you will let us have the dogs that we may take Monsieur de Launay to the hospital? We must have the dogs. The mine—that is yours if you agree!”
Snake Murphy broke into a grin. “Why, ma’am, shore you’re welcome to the dogs. This here Louisiana shot me up once—but damned if I stands fer no one shootin’ him from behind a woman that a way. Come on, and we’ll fix the sled!”308
A few minutes later Solange had resumed her watch beside De Launay while, outside, Sucatash and Murphy were busy unloading the sled and getting it ready for the wounded man.
De Launay slept, apparently. Solange sat patiently as the long hours passed. At intervals he muttered in his sleep and she listened. Fragments of his life formed the subject of the words, incoherent and disconnected. She caught references to the terrible years of existence as a légionnaire and later snatches of as terrible scenes of warfare.
Once he spoke more clearly and his words referred to her.
“Morganla fée!—promised to be something interesting—more than that—worth living, perhaps, after all.”
She dropped her hand over his and he clutched it, holding fast. After that he was quiet, sleeping as easily as could be expected.
In the morning the doctor examined him again and said that the trip might be taken. De Launay awoke, somewhat dazed and uncertain but contented, evidently, at finding Solange at his side. He had fever but was doing very well.
Solange gave him broth, and as he sipped it he looked now and then at her. Something seemed to be on his mind. Finally he unburdened himself.
“I was planning to save you the divorce,” he said. “But I probably will get well. It is too bad!”309
“Why too bad?” asked Solange, with eyes on broth and spoon.
“After this even a Nevada divorce will mean notoriety for you. And you’ve lost the mine.”
“I have not lost it,” said Solange. “Monsieur Murphy gave me half of it—but I traded it away.”
“Traded it?”
“For a team of dogs to take you out. As for a divorce, Monsieur de Launay, there is a difficulty in the way.”
“A difficulty! What’s that? All you have to do is establish a residence. I’m still an American citizen—at least I never took steps to be naturalized in France. Perhaps that’s why they demoted me. Anyhow, such a marriage of form wouldn’t hold a minute if you want to have it annulled.”
Solange blushed a little.
“But you forget. I cannot blame you for I hardly recalled it myself until recently. I am a Catholic—and divorce is not allowed.”
“But—even a Catholic could get anannulment—under the circumstances, if she wished it.”
“But——” said Solange, and stopped.
“But what?”
“Be quiet, please! If you twist that way you will spill the broth. If I wished—yes, perhaps.”
“Solange!”
“But I—do not wish!”310
De Launay lay still a moment, then:
“Solange!”
“Monsieur?”
“Whydon’t you wish it?”
She stole a glance at him and then turned away. His face was damp and the fever was glittering in his eyes but behind the fever was a great hunger.
“Husbands,” said Solange, “are not plentiful, monsieur.”
He sank back on the bed, sighing a little as though exhausted. Instantly Solange bent over him, frightened.
“Is that all?” she heard him mutter.
Slowly she stooped until her glimmering hair swept around his face and her lips met his.
“Méchant!” she breathed, softly. “That is not all. There is also—this!”
Her lips clung to his.
Finally she straightened up and arranged her hair, smiling down at him, her cheeks flushed delicately and her eyes wonderfully soft.
“Morganla fée!” said De Launay. “My witch—my fairy lady!”
Solange kissed him lightly on the forehead and rose.
“We must be getting ready to go,” she said. “It will be a hard trip, I am afraid. But we shall get you down to the town and there is enough money left to keep you in the hospital until you are well311again. And I shall find work until everything is all right again.”
De Launay stared at her. “Hasn’t Sucatash given you that note?”
“But what note?”
He laughed out loud.
“Call him in.”
When the cow-puncher came in he held the note in his hand and held it out to Solange.
“I done forgot this till this minute, ma’am. The boss told me to give it to you to-day—but I reckon it ain’t needed yet.”
“Open it,” said De Launay.
Solange complied and took out the two inclosures. The first she read was the will and her eyes filled at this proof of De Launay’s care for her, although she had no idea that his estate was of value. Then she unfolded the second paper. This she read with growing amazement.
“But,” she cried, and stopped. She looked at him, troubled. “I did not know!” she said, uncertainly.
His hand groped for hers and as she took it, timidly, he drew her closer.
“Why,” he said, “it makes no difference, does it, dear?”
She nodded. “It makes a difference,” she replied. “I am not one that——”
“You are one that traded a mine worth millions that I might have dogs to take me out,” he interrupted.312“Now I will buy those dogs from you and for them I will pay the value of a dozen gold mines. If you will kiss me again I will endow you with every oil well on my father’s ancestral acres!”
Solange broke into a laugh and her eyes grew deep and mysterious again as she stooped to him while the embarrassed Sucatash sidled out under the tent flap.
“You will make yourself poor,” she said.
“I couldn’t,” he answered, “so long as Morganla féeis with me in Avalon.”
Sucatash called from outside, plaintively:
“I got the dogs fed and ready, mad’mo’selle—I mean, madame! Reckon we better carry the gen’ral out, now!”
Solange threw back the flap to let him enter again.
“We are ready—for Avalon,” she said.
“Wallace’s ranch, you mean, don’t you?” asked Sucatash.
“Yes—and Avalon also.”
Then, as the stalwart Sucatash gathered the wounded man and lifted him, she took De Launay’s hand and walked out beside him.
THE END