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 légionnaire'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.