"If he did? Whatever makes you say that? If he didn't—who did?" Jim blurted out the question in a gasp, as though fairly forcing utterance of the words. Murphy flicked a sidelong look at him and then bent his absent gaze across the room.

"Oh—I dunno. Never knew Louisiana to use a rifle, though. The dare-devil! I can hear him now, ridin' off a-laughin' and a-chortlin'

"Back to Whisky Chitto; to Beau Regarde bayou; To my Louisiana—Louisiana Lou.

"Remember the feller's singin', Jim?"

The few men in the place had turned startled eyes as Murphy whined the doggerel ballad nasally. It was strange to them, but Banker shivered and shrank from the grinning bartender.

"Stop it, yuh darn fool! yuh gi' me the creeps! W'at's the matter with everything to-day? Everywhere I go some one starts gabblin' about mines and French Pete an' this all-fired—Louisiana! It's a damn good thing there ain't any more like him around here."

"W'at's that about mines—an' French Pete? Yuh was the one that mentioned him."

Banker leaned confidentially nearer. "Snake, d'yuh think old Ike Brandon didn't know where the mine was?"

Snake regarded him contemptuously. "Yuh reckon Ike would have lived and died pore as a heifer after a hard winter if he'd a knowed? You're loco, Jim: plumb, starin', ravin' loco!"

But Jim only leaned closer and dropped his voice until it was almost inaudible.

"Maybe so. But did you or any one else ever know what language them Bascos talks?"

"French, I reckon," said Snake, indifferently.

"French, no, sir! Charlie Grandjean, that used to ride fer Perkins & Company was French and he told me once that they didn't talk no French nor nothin' like it. They talks their own lingo and there ain't nobody but a Basco that knows this Basco talk."

"Well," said Snake, easily. "What's the answer? I'll bite."

"French Pete's gal has lit in here all spraddled out an' lookin' fer French Pete's mine," croaked Banker, impressively. Snake was owlishly dense.

"His gal? Never knew he had a gal."

"He had one, a plenty: sort of a gashly critter like a witch, with teeth all same like a lobo. Kind 'at'd stick a knife in yuh quick as look at yuh."

"I reckon I won't go sparkin' her none, then. Well, how's this here Basco lady with the enchantin' ways allow she's goin' to find Pete's mine?"

"That's what I'm askin' yuh? How's she goin' to find it? Yuh reckon she comes pirootin' out here all the way from Basco regions just on the hunch that she can shut her eyes an' walk to it?"

"Maybe—if she's full o' witchcraft. I reckon she stands as good a chance that a way as any one does. Drink up and ferget it, Jim."

"I been a-thinkin', Snake. Brandon didn't know where it was. But maybe Pete leaves a writin', say, which he tells Ike to send to his folks. It's in Basco, see, and Ike can't read it nor nobody else, so they sends it to this Basco place and the gal gits it. If that ain't right why ever does this Basco lady come a-runnin' out here?"

"If it is right, why does she delay all these years?" asked Snake, pertinently.

"Which yuh ain't seen her, Snake. I makes a guess this gal ain't more'n risin' two or three years when she gets that Basco note. She has to grow up, and when she gets big enough the war done come along and keeps her holed up until now. Yuh can gamble she knows where that mine was."

Snake pondered this theory thoughtfully. "Yuh may be right at that," he admitted, an expression of wonder passing over his features. "But yuh been to see her? What she say about it?"

"Huh! She was askin' me if I knowed where it was. But that was just a blind to put me off'n the track—an' she probably wanted to make sure no one else had found it. She was quizzin' that Pettis girl, too, makin' sure Ike hadn't told her nothin'."

"Yuh may be right," admitted Snake again. "God-dlemighty! Yuh reckon she'll find it?"

Jim leered evilly at him. "No, I don't reckon she will. But she might help me find it."

"Howzzat?" Snake was startled.

"I gotta have a grubstake, Snake. How about it?"

"Jest outline this here project, Jim. Let me git the slant on it."

The two heads, one slick and black, though with streaks of gray, the other shaggy, colorless, and unkempt, came together and a growl of hoarse and carefully guarded whispers murmured at that end of the bar. After ten minutes' talk, Snake went to the safe and returned with a roll of bills and a piece of paper, pen, and ink. He laboriously made out a document, which Banker as laboriously signed. Then Snake surrendered the money and the two rascals shook hands.

Banker at once became all furtive activity. For a few hours he slunk from store to store, buying necessaries for his trip. By nighttime he was ready, and before the moon had risen in the cold November sky he was hazing his burros southward toward the Nevada line.

Although he was mounted on a fairly good horse, his progress was necessarily slow, as he had to accommodate his pace to that of the sedate burros. He was in no hurry, however. With true, desert-born patience, he plodded along, making camp that night about ten miles from Sulphur Falls. The following day he resumed his snaillike pace, crawling out of the fertile valley to the grasslands beyond, and so on and on until the night found him in the salt pan and the alkali. He passed the Brandon ranch at Three Creek, long since sold and now occupied by a couple of Basques who had built up from sheep-herding for wages until they now owned and ran a fair flock of sheep. Here he did not stop, hazing his burros past as though he had suddenly acquired a reason for haste. When Twin Forks was a couple of miles to the rear he reverted to his former sluggish pace.

The next day was a repetition. He plodded on stolidly, making without hesitation for some spot which was ahead of him. Finally, that evening, he made camp about three miles north of Wallace's Lazy Y Ranch, near Willow Spring, and not very far from the gap in the wall of the Esmeraldas which marked the entrance to Shoestring Creek and Canyon.

The next morning he did not break camp, but lolled around all day until about three o'clock in the afternoon. At that time his acute ears caught the murmur of a motor long before the car came in sight in the rolling ground.

When it passed he was sitting stolidly by his camp fire, apparently oblivious to his surroundings. He did not seem to look up or notice the car, but, in reality, not a detail of it escaped him. He saw the occupants turn and look at him and heard their comments, though the words escaped him.

He muttered an imprecation, strangely full of hate and, in the manner of lonely desert rats, grumbled in conversation with himself.

"I gotta do it. She never come all this way without he told her somethin'. Fer all I know he might ha' seen more'n I thought. An' she'd do what she said, quicker'n look at yuh. She ain't right, nohow. Why don't she show her face? An' Charlie Grandjean says them Basques is uncanny, that a way. She knows! There ain't no gettin' around it. Even if he never told her, she knows!"

The car had passed and he now openly looked after it, mouthing and muttering. He had observed the driver, a hired chauffeur from the town, and he deduced that the car was going back. Indeed, there was no road by which it could have gone into the mountains at this point. He saw that young Wallace, nicknamed Sucatash from the color of his hair, and Dave MacKay, another of the Lazy Y riders, were in the car with their saddles, and that the veiled Basque girl was seated with them, while her luggage was piled high between the seats.

"Goin' to git hosses and outfit at Wallace's and go in from there. Course, they'll have to go into Shoestring. It's the only way. They'll stop at Wallace's and it'll take a day to git the cavvy up and ready. They'll be movin' day after to-morrow 'nless they want to git caught in the snow. Proves she knows right where to go or she wouldn't head in there this time o' year."

He gloomed some more.

"That girl ain't right. She's one o' these here hypnotis', er a medium, er some kind o' witch. But she ain't goin' to git away with it. She ain't goin' to git the best of old Jim Banker after nineteen years. She ain't goin' to git her knife into Jim. No more'n old Panamint did. I fixed him—an' I'll fix her, too. Old Betsy's still good fer a couple a' hunderd yards, I reckon. I'll let her lead me to it—er maybe I'll git a chance to ketch her alone."

This thought gave him pleasure for a while and he mumbled over it for an hour or two. Then he ate his evening meal and went to sleep. In his sleep he moaned a good deal and tossed about, dreaming of mysterious, ghostlike, veiled figures which threatened him and mocked him.

The next day he remained where he was. About noon he was puzzled at the sight of another motor car northward bound. He recognized in the driver the lawyer who had been present when he had been interviewed by the French girl, but he did not know what brought him there. Manifestly, he was on the way back to Sulphur Falls, and Banker finally concluded that he had been to Maryville, the county seat south of the Esmeraldas, on some legal business. In this he was right, though he could not guess what the business was nor how it favored his own designs.

On the following day he resumed his march. Now he followed the trail of the motor car which had brought Solange until he came opposite Wallace's ranch. From here he took up another trail, that of a considerable train of pack horses and three saddle animals. It led straight to the steep gully in the rim of the Esmeraldas, where Shoestring Creek cut its way to the plain.

He noted, but hardly considered, an older trail that underlay this one. It was of a rider and two pack animals who had passed a day or two before.



CHAPTER XII

A REMINDER OF OLD TIMES

Much cheered and encouraged by his late adventures with the forces of law and order, De Launay fared onward to the south where the dim line of the Esmeraldas lay like a cloud on the horizon. He was half conscious of relief, as though something that had been hanging over his head in threat had been proved nonexistent. He did not know what it was and was content for the time being to bask in a sort of animal comfort and exhilaration arising out of his escape into the far-stretching range lands. Here were no fences, no farms, no gingerbread houses sheltering aliens more acquainted with automobiles than with horses. He had passed the last of them, without interruption even from the justice of the peace who lived along the road. As a matter of fact, De Launay had left the road as soon as the fences permitted and had taken to the trackless sage.

Even after nineteen years or more his knowledge and instinct held good. Unerringly he seized upon landmarks and pushed his way over unmarked trails that he recalled from his youth. Before the sun set that evening he had ridden up to the long-remembered ranch at Twin Forks and swung from his saddle, heedless of two or three fierce mongrel sheep dogs that leaped and howled about him.

The door that opened on the little porch, once hung with vines, but now bare and gray, opened and a stolid, dark foreigner appeared. He answered De Launay's hail in broken English, but the lgionnaire's quick ear recognized the accent and he dropped into French. The man at once beamed a welcome, although the French he answered in was almost as bad as his English.

He and his brother, he told De Launay, while assisting him to put up his horse, were two Basques who had come out here fifteen years ago and had worked as herders until they had been able to save enough to go into business for themselves. They had gradually built up until, when Ike Brandon had died, they were in a position to buy his ranch. All of this was interesting to the soldier.

The first flush of his plunge into old scenes had faded out, and he was feeling a little lonely and depressed, missing, queerly enough, his occasional contact with mademoiselle. It came over him, suddenly, as he chattered with the Basque, in the kindly French tongue that was more familiar to him than his native English, that the vague dread that had been lifted had had to do with what he might expect at Brandon's ranch. That dread had vanished when he had encountered Miss Pettis. That was queer, too, for his recent debauch had been the product of sharp disappointment at finding her, as well as the country, so changed from what he had expected. Then why should he now feel as though a load were lifted from his mind since he had seen her and found her utterly wanting in any trait that he regarded as admirable? He did not know, and for the time being he did not pause to inquire. With the directness born of long training in arms, he had a mission to pursue and he gave his thought to that.

The obvious thing was to question the Basque as to long-ago events. But here he drew blank. Neither this man nor his brother knew anything but vague hearsay, half forgotten. They had, it is true, known the story of Pierre d'Albret and his murder, and had looked for his mine as others had, but they had never found it and were inclined to doubt that it had ever existed.

"Monsieur," said the hospitable Basque, as he set an incomprehensible stew of vegetables and mutton on the table before the hungry De Launay, "these stories have many endings after so many years. It was long after D'Albret was killed that we came into this country. It was spoken of at the time as a great mystery by some, and by others it was regarded as a settled affair. One side would have it that a man who was a desperado and a murderer had done it, while others said that it would never be known who had shot him. There is only this that I know. A man named Banker, who spends all his time searching for gold, has spent year after year in searching the Esmeraldas for D'Albret's mine and, although he has never found it, he still wanders in the hills as though he believed that it would be found at last. Now, why should this Banker be so persistent when others have abandoned the search long ago?"

"I suppose because it is his business, as much as he has any, to search for gold wherever there is prospect of finding it," said De Launay, carelessly.

"That may be so," said the Basque, doubtfully, "As for me, I do not believe that the mine was in the Esmeraldas at all. I have looked, as others have, and have never seen any place where D'Albret might have dug. I have been through Shoestring Canyon many times and have seen every foot of its surface. If D'Albret came through the canyon, as he must have done, he must have left some sign of his digging. Yet who has ever found such indications?"

"Perhaps he covered it up?"

"Perhaps! I do not know. The man, Banker, searches, not only in the canyon but also throughout the range. And as he searches, he mutters to himself. He is a very strange man."

"Most prospectors, especially the old ones, are strange. The loneliness goes to their heads."

"That is true, monsieur, and it is the case with herders, as we have known. But Banker is more than queer. Once, when we were with our flocks in the Esmeraldas, we observed, one evening, a fire at some distance. My brother went over to see who it was and to invite him to share our camp if he were friendly. He came upon the man, Banker, crouched over his fire and talking to himself. He seemed to be listening to something, and he muttered strange words which my brother could not understand. Yet my brother understood one phrase which the man repeated many times. It was, as he told me, something like 'I will find it. I will find it. I will find the gold.' But he also spoke of everybody dying, and my brother was uneasy, seeing his rifle lying close at hand. He endeavored to move away, but made some noise and the man heard him. He sprang to his feet with a cry of fear and shot with his rifle in the direction of my brother. Fortunately he did not hit him and my brother fled away. In the morning we found that Banker had departed in great haste during the night as though he feared some attack."

"H'm," said De Launay, "that's rather strange. But these old desert rats get strange attacks of nerves. They become very distrustful of all human beings. He was frightened."

"He may have been—indeed—he was. Nevertheless, the man Banker is a violent man and very evil. When he is about, we go carefully, my brother and I. If Pierre d'Albret was shot for no reason, what is to prevent us, who are also Basques, from being treated in the same way?"

"By Banker? Nonsense!"

"Nonsense it may be, monsieur. Yet I do not know why it may not have been some one like Banker who shot D'Albret. But I talk too much to you because you are French."

He became reticent after that, and De Launay, who, whatever he may have thought of the man's opinions, did not intend to make a confidant of him, allowed the subject to drop. He slept there that night, feeling reasonably safe from pursuit, and in the morning went on his way.

But again, as he rode steadily across the alkali and sage, the lightness of heart that had long been unfamiliar, came back to him. He found himself looking back at his vague sentiment for the little girl of the years gone by and the strange notion that he must come back to her as he had so lightly promised. He had had that notion in the full belief that she must have developed as she had bade fair to do. It had been a shock to find her as she was, but, after the shock, here was that incomprehensible feeling of relief. He had not wanted to find her, after all!

But why had he not? At this point he found his mind shifting to mademoiselle's vivid and contrasting beauty and uttered a curse. He was getting as incorrigibly sentimental as a girl in her teens! This recurring interest in women was a symptom of the disease he had not yet shaken off. The cure lay in the fresh air and the long trail.

He pushed on steadily and rapidly, shutting his mind to everything but the exigencies of the trail. In the course of time he rode into Willow Spring, and, cautiously pushing his way into the cottonwoods and willows that marked the place, found everything there as he had arranged with Sucatash Wallace. There were few tracks of visitors among the signs left by cattle and an antelope, except the prints of one mounted man who had led two horses. The two horses he found hobbled beside the spring, and with them were a tarpaulin-covered pile of provisions, bedding, and utensils, together with packsaddles. A paper impaled on a willow twig near by he pulled down, to find a message written on it.

"Two pack outfits according to inventory. Compliments of J. B. Wallace. Return or send the price to Lazy Y Ranch when convenient. Asking no questions but wishing you luck."

He chuckled over this, with its pungent reminder of ancient days when unhesitating trust had been a factor in the life of the range. Old man Wallace, at the behest of his son, turning over to an unknown stranger property of value, seeking not to know why, and calmly confident of either getting it back or receiving payment for it, was a refreshing draft from his youth. De Launay inspected his new property, found it all that he could wish and then set about his preparations for the night.

On the next day he saddled up early, after a meal at daybreak, but he did not start at once. Instead, while smoking more than one thoughtful cigarette, he turned over and over in his mind the problem that confronted him. He had pledged himself to help Solange in her search, but, rack his brains as he would, he could come to no conclusion about it except that it was simply a hopeless task. There was no point from which to start. People who remembered the affair were few and far between. Even those who did could have no very trustworthy recollections. There would have been an inquest, probably, and that would have been conducted in Maryville, east and south of the mountains. But would there be any record of it in that town? Recalling the exceedingly casual and informal habits of minor-elected officials of those days, he greatly doubted it. Still, Maryville offered him his only chance, as he saw it.

It took him all of that day and a part of the next to head around the Esmeraldas, across the high plateau into which it ran on the east and down to the valley in which Maryville lay. Here he found things changed almost as much as they had at Sulphur Falls, although the town had not grown in any such degree. The atmosphere, however, was strange and staidly conventional. Most of the stores were brick instead of wood with false fronts. The sidewalks were cement instead of boards. The main street was even paved. A sort of New England respectability and quietness hung over it. There was not a single saloon, and the drone of the little marble in the roulette wheel was gone from the land. Even the horses, hitched by drooping heads to racks, were scarce, and their place was taken by numerous tin automobiles of popular make and rusty appearance.

An inquiry at the coroner's office developed the fact that there were no records reaching back beyond nineteen hundred and eight and the official could not even tell who had had the office in nineteen hundred.

De Launay, who had expected little success, made a few more inquiries but developed nothing. There were few in the town who had lived there that long, and while nearly all had heard something or other of the murdered Basque and his lost mine, they set it down to legend and shrugged their shoulders skeptically. The affairs of those who lived north of the Esmeraldas were not of great concern to the inhabitants of Maryville at any time and especially since the Falls had grown and outshadowed the place. All business of the country now went that way and none came over the barrier to this sleepy little place. In actual population it had fallen off.

Seeking for signs of the old general store that he recalled he found on its site a new and neat hardware establishment, well stocked with agricultural implements, automobile parts, weapons, and household goods. He wandered in, but his inquiry met the response that the original proprietor had long retired and was now living on a ranch south of the railroad. De Launay looked over the stock of weapons and asked to see an automatic pistol. The clerk laid an army model forty-five on the counter and beside it another of somewhat similar appearance but some distinct differences.

"A Mauser," he explained. "Lot of them come in since the war and it's a good gun."

"Eight millimeter!" said De Launay, idly picking up the familiar pistol. "It's a good gun but the ball's too light to stop a man right. And the shells are an odd size. Might have some difficulty getting ammunition for it out here."

"None around here," said the clerk. "Plenty of those guns in the country. Most every store stocks all sizes nowadays. It ain't like it used to be when every one shot a thirty, a thirty-eight, a forty-five-seventy, or a forty-five-ninety. Nowadays they use 'em all, Ross & Saugge, Remingtons, Springfields, Colts; and the shells run all the way from seven millimeter up through twenty-fives, eight millimeter, thirty, .303, thirty-two, thirty-five, thirty-eight and so on. You can get shells to fit that gun anywhere you go."

"Times have changed then," said De Launay, idly. "I can remember when you couldn't introduce a new gun with an odd caliber because a man couldn't afford to take a chance on being unable to get the shells to fit it. Still, I'll stick to the Colt. Let me have this and a couple of boxes of shells. And a left-hand holster," he added.

There was nothing to keep him longer in the town since he saw no further prospect of getting any news, and his agreement to meet Solange necessitated his heading into the mountains if he were to be there on time. So, at the earliest moment, he got his packs on and started out of town, intending to cross the range from the south and come down into the canyon. The weather was showing signs of breaking, and if the snow should set in there might be difficulty in finding the girl.

That evening he camped in the southern foothills of the range just off the trail that mounted to the divide and plunged again down into Shoestring Canyon. Next day he resumed his ride and climbed steadily into the gloomy forests that covered the slopes, sensing the snow that hovered behind the mists on the peaks and wondering if Solange would plunge into it or turn back. He rather judged of her that a little thing like snow would not keep her from her objective.

But while the snow held off on this side of the mountains he knew that it might well have been falling for a day or two on the other side. When he came higher he found that he had plunged into it, lying thick on the ground, swirling in gusts and falling steadily. He did not stop for this but urged his horses steadily on until he had come to the windswept and comparatively clear divide and headed downward toward the canyon.



CHAPTER XIII

AT WALLACE'S RANCH

The efficient Sucatash reported back to Solange the details of De Launay's escape, making them characteristically brief and colorful. Then, with the effective aid of MacKay, he set out to prepare for the expedition in search of the mine.

Neither Sucatash nor Dave actually had any real conviction that Solange would venture into the Esmeraldas at this time of year to look for a mine whose very existence they doubted as being legendary. Yet neither tried to dissuade her from the rash adventure—as yet. In this attitude they were each governed by like feelings. Both of them were curious and sentimental. Each secretly wondered what the slender, rather silent young woman looked like, and each was beginning to imagine that the veil hid some extreme loveliness. Each felt himself handicapped in the unwonted atmosphere of the town and each imagined that, once he got on his own preserves, he would show to much better advantage in her eyes.

Sucatash was quite confident that, once they got Solange at his father's ranch, they would be able to persuade her to stay there for the winter. Dave also had about the same idea. Each reasoned that, in an indeterminate stay at the ranch, she would certainly, in time, show her countenance. Neither of them figured De Launay as anything but some assistant, more or less familiar with the West, whom she had engaged and who had been automatically eliminated by virtue of his latest escapade.

Solange, however, developed a disposition to arrange her own fate. She smiled politely when the young men gave awkward advice as to her costuming and equipment, but paid little heed to it. She allowed them to select the small portion of her camping outfit that they thought necessary at this stage, and to arrange for a car to take it and them to Wallace's ranch. They took their saddles in the car and sent their horses out by such chance riders as happened to be going that way.

The journey to Wallace's ranch was uneventful except for a stop at the former Brandon ranch at Twin Forks, where Solange met the Basco proprietors, and gave her cow-puncher henchmen further cause for wonder by conversing fluently with them in a language which bore no resemblance to any they had ever heard before. They noted an unusual deference which the shy mountaineers extended toward her.

There was a pause of some time while Solange visited the almost obliterated mound marking the grave of her father. But she did not pray over it or manifest any great emotion. She simply stood there for some time, lost in thought, or else mentally renewing her vow of vengeance on his murderer. Then, after discovering that the sheepmen knew nothing of consequence concerning these long-past events, she came quietly back to the car and they resumed the journey.

Finally they passed a camp fire set back from the road at some distance and the cow-punchers pointed out the figure of Banker crouched above it, apparently oblivious of them.

"What you all reckon that old horned toad is a-doin' here?" queried Dave, from the front seat. "Dry camp, and him only three mile from the house and not more'n five from the Spring."

"Dunno," replied Sucatash. "Him bein' a prospector, that a way, most likely he ain't got the necessary sense to camp where a white man naturally would bog down."

"But any one would know enough to camp near water," said Solange, surprised.

"Yes'm," agreed Sucatash, solemnly. "Any one would! But them prospectors ain't human, that a way. They lives in the deserts so much they gets kind of wild and flighty, ma'am. Water is so scarce that they gets to regardin' it as somethin' onnatural and dangerous. More'n enough of it to give 'em a drink or two and water the Jennies acts on 'em all same like it does on a hydrophoby skunk. They foams at the mouth and goes mad."

"With hydrophobia?" exclaimed the unsophisticated Solange.

"Yes'm," said Sucatash. "Especially if it's deep enough to cover their feet. Yuh see, ma'am, they gets in mortal terror that, if they nears enough water to wet 'em all over, some one will rack in and just forcibly afflict 'em with a bath—which 'ud sure drive one of 'em plumb loco."

"I knows one o' them desert rats," said Dave, reminiscently, "what boasts a plenty about the health he enjoys. Which he sure allows he's lived to a ripe old age—and he was ripe, all right. This here venerableness, he declares a whole lot, is solely and absolutely due to the ondisputable fact that he ain't never bathed in forty-two years. And we proves him right, at that."

"What!" cried the horrified Solange. "That his health was due to his uncleanliness? But that is absurd!"

"Which it would seem so, ma'am, but there ain't no gettin' round the proof. We all doubts it, just like you do. So we ups and hog ties the old natural, picks him up with a pair of tongs and dips him in the crick. Which he simply lets out one bloodcurdlin' yell of despair and passes out immediate."

"Mon Dieu!" said Solange, fervently. "Quels farceurs!"

"Yes'm," they agreed, politely.

Then Solange laughed and they broke into sympathetic grins, even the solemn Sucatash showing his teeth in enjoyment as he heard her tinkling mirth with its bell-like note.

Then they forgot the squatting figure by its camp fire and drove on to the ranch.

This turned out to be a straggling adobe house, shaded by cottonwoods and built around three sides of a square. It was roomy, cool, and comfortable, with a picturesqueness all its own. To Solange, it was inviting and homelike, much more so than the rather cold luxury of hotels and Pullman staterooms. And this feeling of homeliness was enhanced when she was smilingly and cordially welcomed by a big, gray-bearded, bronzed man and a white-haired, motherly woman, the parents of young Sucatash.

The self-contained, self-reliant young woman almost broke down when Mrs. Wallace took her in charge and hurried her to her room. They seemed to know all about her and to take her arrival as an ordinary occurrence and a very welcome one. Sucatash, of course, was responsible for their knowledge, having telephoned them before they had started.

Before Solange reappeared ready for supper, Sucatash and Dave had explained all that they knew of the affair to Wallace. He was much interested but very dubious about it all.

"Of course, she'll not be going into the mountains at this time o' year," he declared. "It ain't more than a week before the snow's bound to fly, and the Esmeraldas ain't no place for girls in the winter time. I reckon that feller you-all helped get out o' jail and that I planted hosses for won't more than make it across the range before the road's closed. I hope it wasn't nothin' serious he was in for, son."

"Nothin' but too much hooch an' rumplin' up a couple of cops," said his son, casually. "Not that I wouldn't have helped so long as he was in fer anything less than murder. The mad'mo'selle wanted him out, yuh see."

"S'pose she naturally felt responsible fer him, that a way," agreed Wallace. "Reckon she's well rid o' him, though. Don't sound like the sort o' man yuh'd want a young girl travelin round with. What was he like?"

"Tall, good-lookin', foreign-appearin' hombre. Talked pretty good range language though, and he sure could fork a hoss. Seemed to have a gnawin' ambition to coil around all the bootleg liquor there is, though. Outside o' that, he was all right."

"De Launay? French name, I reckon."

"Yeah, I reckon he'd been a soldier in the French army. Got the idea, somehow."

"Well, he's gone—and I reckon it's as well. He won't be botherin' the little lady no more. What does she wear a veil for? Been marked any?"

Sucatash was troubled. "Don't know, pop. Never seen her face. Ought to be a sure-enough chiquita, if it's up to the rest of her. D'jever hear a purtier voice?"

The old man caught the note of enthusiasm. "Yuh better go slow, son," he said, dryly. "I reckon she's all right—but yuh don't really know nothin'."

"Shucks!" retorted his son, calmly. "I don't have to know nothin'. She can run an iron on me any time she wants to. I'm lassoed, thrown an' tied, a'ready."

"Which yuh finds me hornin' in before she makes any selection, yuh mottled-topped son of a gun!" Dave warmly put in. "I let's that lady from France conceal her face, her past and any crimes she may have committed, is committin' or be goin' to commit, and I hereby declares myself for her forty ways from the Jack, fer anything from matrimony to murder."

"Shucks," said the old man, "you-all are mighty young."

"Pop," declared the Wallace heir, solemnly, "this here French lady is clean strain and grades high. Me and Dave may be young, but we ain't making no mistake about her. She has hired herself a couple of hands, I'm telling you."

Solange appeared at this moment, coming in with Mrs. Wallace, who was smiling in an evident agreement with her son. Mr. Wallace, while inclined to reserve judgment, had all the chivalry of his kind and stepped forward to greet her. But he paused a little uncertainly as he noticed that she had removed her veil. For a moment he looked at her in some astonishment, her unusual coloring affecting him as it did all those who observed it for the first time. The first glance resulted in startlement and the feeling that there was something uncanny about her, but as the deep eyes met his own and the pretty mouth smiled at him from beneath the glinting pale halo of her hair, he drew his breath in a long sigh of appreciation and admiration. His wife, looking at him with some deprecation, as though fearing an adverse judgment, smiled as his evident conquest became apparent. Standing near him the two boys stared and stared, something like awe in their ingenuous faces.

"Ma'am," said Wallace, in his courtly manner, "we're sure proud to welcome you. Which there ain't many flowers out hereaways, and if there was there wouldn't be none to touch you. It sure beats me why you ever wear a veil at all."

Solange laughed and blushed. "Merci, monsieur! But that is exquisite! Still, it is not all that flatter me in that way. There are many who stare and point and even some who make the sign of the evil eye when they see this impossible ensemble. And the women! Mon Dieu! They ask me continually what chemist I patronize for the purpose of bleaching my hair."

"Cats!" said Mrs. Wallace, with a sniff.



CHAPTER XIV

READY FOR ACTION

The fact that Solange ate heartily and naturally perhaps went far to overcome the feeling of diffidence that had settled on the Wallace rancheria. Perhaps it was merely that she showed herself quite human and feminine and charmingly demure. At any rate, before the meal was over, the Wallaces and Dave had recovered much of their poise and the two young men were even making awkward attempts at flirtation, much to the amusement of the girl.

Mr. Wallace, himself, although retaining a slight feeling that there was something uncanny about her, felt it overshadowed by a conviction that it would never do to permit her to go into the hills as she intended to do. He finally expressed himself to that effect.

"This here mine you're hunting for, mad'mo'selle," he said. "I ain't goin' to hold out no hopes to you, but I'll set Dave and my son to lookin' for it and you just stay right here with ma and me and make yourself at home."

Solange smiled and shook her head. She habitually kept her eyes lowered, and perhaps this was the reason that, when she raised them now and then, they caught the observer unawares, with the effect of holding him startled and fascinated.

"It is kind of you, monsieur," she said. "But I cannot stay. I am pledged to make the hunt—not only for the mine but for the man who killed my father. That is not an errand that I can delegate."

"I'm afraid there ain't no chance to find the man that did that," said Wallace, kindly. "There ain't no one knows. It might have been Louisiana, but if it was, he's been gone these nineteen years and you'll never find him."

Solange smiled a little sadly and grimly. "We Basques are queer people," she said. "We are very old. Perhaps that is why we feel things that others do not feel. It is not like the second sight I have heard that some possess. Yet it is in me here." She laid her hand on her breast. "I feel that I will find that man—and the mine, but not so strongly. It is what you call a—a hunch, is it not?"

Wallace shook his head dubiously, but Solange had raised her eyes and as long as he could see them he felt unable to question anything she said.

"And it is said that a murderer always returns, sooner or later, to the scene of his crime, monsieur. I will be there when he comes back."

"But," said Mrs. Wallace, gently, "it is not necessary for you to go yourself. Indeed, you can't do it, my dear!"

"Why not, madame?"

"Why—why—— But, mad'mo'selle, you must realize that a young girl like you can't wander these mountains alone—or with a set of young scamps like these boys. They're good boys, and they wouldn't hurt you, but people would talk."

Solange only shrugged her shoulders. "Talk! Madame, I am not afraid of talk."

"But, my dear, you are too lovely—too—— You must understand that you can't do it."

"It'd sure be dangerous," said Wallace, emphatically. "We couldn't allow it, nohow. Even my son here—I wouldn't let you go with him, and he's a good boy as they go. And there's others you might meet in the hills."

Solange nodded. "I understand, monsieur. But I am not afraid. Besides, am I not to meet my husband on this Shoestring Canyon where we must first go?"

Simultaneously they turned on her. "Your husband!" It was a cry of astonishment from the older people and one of mingled surprise and shock from the boys. Solange smiled and nodded.

"Yes," she said. "Monsieur de Launay, whom you rescued from the jail. He is my husband and it is all quite proper."

"It ain't proper nohow," muttered Sucatash. "That bum is her husband, Dave!"

"I don't get this, quite," said Wallace.

Then Solange explained, telling them of the strange bargain she had made with De Launay and something of his history. The effect of the story was to leave them more doubtful than ever, but when Wallace tried to point out that she would be taking a very long chance to trust herself to a man of De Launay's character and reputation, she only spread her hands and laughed, declaring that she had no fear of him. He had been a soldier and a gentleman, whatever he was now.

Wallace gave it up, but he had a remedy for the situation, at least in part.

"Son," he said, abruptly, "you and Dave are hired. You-all are goin' to trail along with this lady and see that she comes out all right. If she's with her husband, there ain't no cause for scandal. But if this De Launay feller gets anyways gay, you-all just puts his light out. You hear me!"

"You're shoutin', pop. Which we already signs on with mad'mo'selle. We hunts mines, murderers, or horned toads for her if she says so."

Solange laughed, and there was affection in her mirth.

"That is splendid, messieurs. I cannot thank you."

"You don't need to," growled Dave. "All we asks is a chance to slay this here husband of yours. Which we-all admires to see you a widow."

After that Solange set herself to question Wallace regarding her father's death. But he could tell her little she did not know.

"We never knows who killed him," he said, after telling how Pierre d'Albret had been found, dying in his wagon, with a sack of marvelously rich ore behind him. "There was some says it was Louisiana, and a coroner's jury over to Maryville brings in a verdict that a way. But I don't know. Louisiana was wild and reckless and he could sure fan a gun, but he never struck me as bein' a killer. Likewise, I never knows him to carry a rifle, and Brandon says he didn't have one when he went out past his ranch. Course, he might have got hold of Pete's gun and used that, but if he did how come that Pete don't know who kills him?

"The main evidence against Louisiana lays with old Jim Banker, the prospector. He comes rackin' in about a week later and says he sees Louisiana headin' into Shoestring Canyon about the time Pete was shot. But the trailers didn't find his hoss tracks. There was tracks left by Pete's team and some burro sign, but there wasn't no recent hoss tracks outside o' that."

"You say Jim Banker says he saw him?" demanded Sucatash.

"Yes."

"Huh! That's funny. Jim allows, down in Sulphur Falls, that he don't know nothin' about it. Says he was south of the range, out on the desert at the time."

"Reckon he's forgot," said Wallace. "Anyway, if it was Louisiana, he's gone and I reckon he won't come back."

"I think it could not have been any one else," said Solange, thoughtfully. "What kind of man was this—this Louisiana?"

"Tall, good-lookin' young chap, slim and quick as a rattler. He'd fool you on looks. Came from Louisiana, and gets his name from that and from a sort of coon song he was always singin'. Something about 'My Louisiana—Louisiana Lou!' Don't remember his right name except that it was something like Delaney. Lew Delaney, I think."

"He was a dangerous man, you say?"

"Well—he was sure dangerous. I've seen some could shake the loads out of a six-gun pretty fast and straight, but I never saw the beat of this feller. Them things gets exaggerated after a time, but if half of what they tell of this fellow was true, he was about the boss of the herd with a small gun.

"Still, he never shoots any one until he mixes with Snake Murphy and that was Snake's fault. He was on the run with some of Snake's friends after him when this happens. That's how come he was down here."

In the morning Solange appeared, dressed for the range. The two young men, who had been smitten by her previously, when she had been clad in the sort of garments they had seen on the dainty town girls, were doubly so when they saw her now. Slim and delicate, she wore breeches and coat of fair, soft leather and a Stetson, set over a vivid silk handkerchief arranged around her hair like a bandeau. The costume was eminently practical, as they saw at once, but it was also picturesquely feminine and dainty. It had the effect of raising her even higher above ordinary mortals. If it had been any other who wore it they would have contemptuously set her down as a moving-picture heroine and laughed behind her back. But Solange set off the costume and it set her off. Besides, it was not new, and had evidently been subjected to severe service.



CHAPTER XV

THE 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, comin' 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."

"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 was built, 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. I was the 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," said 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. I found 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' on south 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.

"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 this one, 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 mine ain'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 no such 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 Canyon 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.

"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."

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 Lgion des Etrangers to a high and honored place in the French army. He 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!

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.



CHAPTER XVI

IN 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 canyon 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 canyon walls formed the only practical thoroughfare.

Farther up, the canyon 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.

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 to enlist 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 the demi-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 she shivered 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 canyon 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.

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 lgionnaire, 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 canyon 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 canyon.

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?"

"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 canyon 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 canyon 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 canyon. I cannot keep him waiting."

Sucatash accepted her ultimatum without protest. But, after a momentary silence, he turned once more in his saddle.

"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 Launay will 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. Then 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 canyon. 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 the snow'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 canyon 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 canyon where sheep trails promised somewhat easier going than the irregular floor 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 canyon, 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 one whose brain has been affected by years of solitude and 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.

Above him, about fifty yards up the slope of the canyon 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 canyon 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 thought of 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," he said, 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.



CHAPTER XVII

THE SECRET OF THE LOST MINE

Through most of the day Dave and Solange pushed on up the canyon 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, and asserted 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 canyon 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 canyon 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 canyon. 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 the gray 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.

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 canyon. 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!"

He turned his horse and slowly, still muttering, began to haze his burros back down the canyon.

"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 canyon. 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.

"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."

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 she could 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 to persistently, 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.