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.