“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, mostly of 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 casting off 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 plumb give 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 breath with 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. You, 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’ve seen 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.”
“He is coming,” 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 wou
ld welcome it.”
The three men were startled, looking at one another keenly. Banker licked his lips and was unmistakably frightened 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 that the 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. Banker 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.
* * *
CHAPTER XXIII
TO 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 place and 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.
“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’s common 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 stiffened automatically. His hands had dropped from the doorway and now they seemed to snap upward with incredible speed and in them we
re 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 over her 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.
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