HEADS! I WIN!
De Launay turned and called the waiter, ordering cognac for himself
and light wine for mademoiselle.
"You have rendered it necessary, mademoiselle," he explained.
Mademoiselle's astounding revelation and the metallic earnestness of
murder in her voice alike took him aback. He saw that her sweet mouth
was set in a cruel line and her cameo chin was firm as a rock. But her
homicidal intentions had not affected him as sharply as the rest of
it.
Mademoiselle took her wine and sipped it, but her mouth again relaxed
to scornful contempt as she saw him toss off the fiery liquor. She was
somewhat astonished at the effect her words had had on the man, but
she gathered that he was now considering her bizarre proposal with
real interest.
The alcohol temporarily enlivened De Launay.
"So," he said, "Avalon is at Twin Forks and I am to marry you in order
that you may seek out an enemy and kill him. There was also word of a
gold mine. And your father--d'Albret! I do not recall the name."
"My father," explained Solange, "went to America when I was a babe in
arms. He was very poor--few of the Basques are rich--and he was in
danger because of the smuggling. He worked for this Monsieur Brandon
as a herder of sheep. He found a mine of gold--and he was killed when
he was coming to tell about it."
"His Christian name?"
"Pedro--Pierre."
"H'm-m! That must have been French Pete. I remember him. He was more
than a cut above the ordinary Basco." He spoke in English, again
forgetting that mademoiselle spoke the language. She reminded him of
it.
"You knew my father? But that is incredible!"
"The whole affair is incredible. No wonder you have the name of being
a fairy! But I knew your father--slightly. I knew Ike Brandon. I know
Twin Forks. If I had made up my mind to return to America, it is to
that place that I would go."
It was mademoiselle's turn to be astonished.
"To Twin Forks?"
"To Ike Brandon's ranch, where your father worked. It must have been
after my time that he was killed. I left there in nineteen hundred,
and came to France shortly afterward. I was a cow hand--a cowboy--and
we did not hold friendship with sheepmen. But I knew Ike Brandon and
his granddaughter. Now, tell me about this mine and your father's
death."
Mademoiselle d'Albret again had recourse to her hand bag, drawing from
it a small fragment of rock, a crumpled and smashed piece of metal
about the size of one's thumb nail and two pieces of paper. The latter
seemed to be quite old, barely holding together along the lines where
they had been creased. These she spread on the table. De Launay first
picked up the rock and the bit of metal.
He was something of a geologist. France's soldiers are trained in many
sciences. Turning over the tiny bit of mineral between his fingers, he
readily recognized the bits of gold speckling its crumbling crystals.
If there was much ore of that quality where French Pete had found his
mine, that mine would rank with the richest bonanzas of history.
The bit of metal also interested him. It had been washed but there
were still oxydized spots which might have been made by blood. It was
a soft-nosed bullet, probably of thirty caliber, which had mushroomed
after striking something. His mouth was grim as he saw the jagged
edges of metal. It had made a terrible wound in whatever flesh had
stopped it.
He laid the two objects down and took the paper that mademoiselle
handed to him. It seemed to be a piece torn from a paper sack, and on
it was scrawled in painful characters a few words in some language
utterly unknown to him.
"It is Basque," said mademoiselle, and translated: "'My love, I am
assassinated! Farewell, and avenge me! There is much gold. The good
Monsieur Brandon will----'"
It trailed off into a meaningless, trembling line.
The other was a letter written on ruled paper. The cramped,
schoolboyish characters were those of a man unused to much composition
and the words were the vernacular of the ranges.
"Dear madam," it began, "I take my pen in hand to write you something
that I sure regrets a whole lot. Which I hope you all bears up under
the blow like a game woman, which your late respected husband sure was
game that a way. There ain't much I can say to break the news, ma'am,
and I can't do nothing, being so far away, to show my sympathy. Your
husband has done passed over. He was killed by some ornery hound who
bushwhacked him somewheres in the hills, and who must have been a
bloody killer because Pete, your husband, sure didn't have no enemies,
and there wasn't no one that had any reason to kill him. He was coming
home from the Esmeraldas with his sheep which we was allowing to
winter close to the ranch instead of in the desert to see if feeding
them would pay and some murdering gunman done up and shot him with a
thirty-thirty soft nose, which makes it worse. I'm sending the slug
that done it.
"Pete was sure a true-hearted gent, ma'am, and we was all fond of him
spite of his being a Basco. If we could have found the murderer we
would sure have stretched him a plenty but there wasn't no clew.
"Pete had found a gold mine, ma'am, and the specimens he had in his
war bags was plenty rich as per the sample I am sending you herewith.
He tried to tell me where it was but he was too weak when we found
him. He said he wanted us to give you half of it if we found it and we
sure would do that though it don't look like we got much chance
because he couldn't tell where it was. The boys have been looking but
they haven't found it yet. If they do you can gamble your last chip
they will split it with you or else there will be some more funerals
around hereaways. But it ain't likely they will find it, I got to tell
you that so's you won't put your hopes on it and be disappointed.
"I am all broke up about Pete, and if there is anything I can do to
help don't you hesitate to let me know. I was fond of Pete, ma'am, and
so was my granddaughter, which he made things for her and she sure
doted on him. He was a good hombre."
The letter was signed "I. Brandon."
De Launay mused a moment. "Is that all?" he asked finally.
"It is all," said mademoiselle. "But there is a mine, and, especially,
there is the man who killed him."
De Launay looked at the date on the letter. It was October, 1900.
"After nineteen years," he reminded her, "the chances of finding
either the mine or the man are very remote. Perhaps the mine has been
found long ago."
"Monsieur," replied the girl, and her voice was again metallic and
hard, "my mother received that letter. She put it away and treasured
it. She hoped that I would grow up and marry a Basque, who would
avenge her husband. She sent me to a convent so that I might be a good
mate for a man. When she died she left me money for a _dot_. She had
saved and she had inherited, and all was put aside for the man who
should avenge her husband.
"But the war came before I was married, and afterward there was little
chance that any Basque would take the quarrel on himself. It is too
easy for the men to marry now that they are so scarce, and it is very
difficult for one like me to find a husband. Besides, I have lived in
the world, monsieur, and, like many others, I do not like to marry as
though that were all that a woman might do. I do not see why I cannot
go to America, find this mine and kill this man. The money that was to
be my portion will serve to take me there and pay those who will
assist me."
"You desire to find the mine--or to kill the man?"
"Both. I do not like to be poor. It is an evil thing, these days, to
be a poor woman in France. Therefore I wish to find the mine and be
rich, for, if I cannot marry, wealth will at least make life pleasant
for me. But I wish to find that man, more than the mine."
"And if I marry you, I will be deputized to do the butchery?"
"Monsieur mistakes me," Solange spoke scornfully. "I can do my own
avenging. Monsieur need not alarm himself."
De Launay smiled. "I don't think I'm alarmed. In fact, I am not sure I
wouldn't be willing to do it. Still, this vendetta seems to be rather
old for any great amount of feeling on your part. How old were you
when your father was killed?"
"Two years."
De Launay laughed again, but choked it off when he noted the angry
stiffening of mademoiselle's figure. Somehow, her veiled countenance
was impressive of lingering, bitter emotions. She was a Basque, and
that was a primitive race. She was probably bold enough and hardy
enough to fulfill her mission. She had plenty of courage and
self-reliance, as he knew.
"The adventure appeals," he told her, soberly enough, though the fumes
of cognac were mounting again in his brain. "I am impelled to consider
it, though the element of chance seems remote. It is rather a
certainty that you will fail. But what is my exact part in the
adventure?"
"That rests with you. For my part, all I require is that you secure
for me the right to go to America. I can take care of myself after
that."
"And leave me still married?"
"The marriage can be annulled as soon as you please after we arrive."
"I am afraid it will hardly be as easy as that. To be sure, in the
State of Nevada, where you are going, it should be easy enough, but
even there it cannot be accomplished all at once. In New York it will
be difficult. And how would I know that you had freed me if you left
me behind?"
"If it pleases you you may go with me." He caught the note of scorn
again. In fact, the girl was evidently feeling a strain at having to
negotiate with him at all. She was proud, as he guessed, and the only
reason she had even considered such an unusual bargain was her
contempt for him. He was one who, when he might have remained
respected and useful, had deliberately thrown away his chances to
become a sot and vagabond.
"But you will understand that this marriage is--not a real marriage.
It gives you no right over me. If you so much as dare once to
presume----" She was flaming with earnest threat, and he could well
imagine that, if he ventured a familiarity, she would knife him as
quickly as look at him.
"I understand that. You need have no fear. I was a gentleman once and
still retain some of the instincts. Then I am employed to go with you
on this search? And the remuneration?"
"I will pay the expenses. I can do no more than that. And if the mine
is found, you shall have a full share in it. That would be a third."
"If I am to have a full share it would seem only fair that I
contribute at least my own expenses. I should prefer to do so. While
my pay has not been large, it has been more than an unmarried soldier
needs to spend and I have saved some of it."
"Then," said mademoiselle in a tired voice, "you have decided that you
will go?"
De Launay ordered and tossed off another drink and Solange shuddered.
His voice was thickening and his eyes showed the effects of the
liquor, although he retained full possession of his faculties.
"A sporting proposition!" he said with a chuckle. "It's all of that
and more. But still, I'm curious about one thing. This Morgan _la fée_
business. If I am to wed a fairy I'll at least know why they call her
one. I'll take on no witches sight unseen."
Solange shrank a little. "I do not understand," she said, faltering.
Her expectations had been somewhat dashed.
De Launay spun a coin into the air and leaned forward as it clashed on
the marble top of the table.
"Heads I go, tails I don't!" he said, and clapped his hand over it as
he looked at mademoiselle. "And if I go, I'll see why they call you
Morgan _la fée_!"
"Because of my coloring," said mademoiselle, wearily. "I have told
you."
"But I have not seen. Shall I lift my hand, mademoiselle, with that
understanding?"
Solange stared at him through the veil and he looked back at her
mockingly. Angry and depressed at the same time, she nodded slowly,
but her stake was large and she could not refrain from bending forward
with a little intake of the breath as he slowly lifted his hand from
the coin. Then she sighed deeply. It was heads.
"Mademoiselle," he said with a bow, "I win! You will lift your veil?"
Solange nodded. To her it seemed that _she_ had won. Then, with no
sign of anxiety or embarrassment she bent her head slightly, slipped
the coif back from her hair with one hand and lifted the veil with the
other, sweeping them both away from her head with that characteristic
toss that women employ on such occasions. Then she raised her face and
looked full at him.
He stared critically, and remained staring, but not critically. He had
seen a good many women in his time, and many of them had been
handsome. Some had been very beautiful. None of them had ever had much
of an effect upon him. Even now he did not stop to determine in his
mind whether this woman was beautiful as others had been. Her beauty,
in fact, was not what affected him, although she was more than pretty,
and her features were as perfect as an artist's dream.
As she had said, it was her coloring that was extraordinary. He had
seen sharp contrasts in his time, women with black hair and light-blue
or gray eyes, women with blond hair and brown eyes, but he had never
seen one with that mass of almost colorless, almost transparent hair,
scintillant where the light fell upon it, black in shadow where the
rolls of it cut off the light, nor had he seen such hair in such sharp
contrast with eyes that were large and black as night and as deep as
pools. The thing would have been uncanny and disturbing if it had not
been that her skin was as fair as her hair, white and delicate. As it
was, the whole impression was startlingly vivid and yet, after the
first shock, singularly fascinating. The strange mixture of extreme
blondness and deep coloration seemed to fit a nature that was both
fiery and deep.
De Launay reflected that one might well call her a fairy. In many
primitive places that combination would have won her the name of
having the evil eye. In a kinder land it gave her gentler graces.
"Are you satisfied, monsieur?" asked Solange, with a sneer. As he
nodded, soberly, she dropped the veil and restored her cap. The people
in the café had looked on with respectful and yet eager curiosity, a
murmur of affectionate comment running about the tables.
"I'm quite satisfied," he repeated again, as he tossed a note on the
table to satisfy his account. Solange's mouth curled scornfully as she
noted again the stack of saucers indicating his habits. "I'm going to
marry Morgan _la fée_, the Queen of Avalon, and I'm going to enlist in
her service to do her bidding, even to unlicensed butchery where
necessary. Mademoiselle, lead on!"
Solange led on, but her head was high and her face expressed an
extreme disdain for the mercenary who had signed on with her.