VENGEANCE!
The place, seen from within, was a smoky inferno, lighted precariously
by oil lanterns hung from the poles that supported a canvas roof and
sides. Rows of grommets and snap hasps indicated that pack tarpaulins
had been largely used in the construction. To a height of about five
feet the walls were of hastily hewn slabs, logs in the rough, pieces
of packing cases, joined or laid haphazard, with chinks and gaps
through which the wind blew, making rivulets of chill in a stifling
atmosphere of smoke, reeking alcohol, sweat and oil fumes. The
building was a rough rectangle about twenty feet by fifty. At one end
boards laid across barrels formed a semblance of a counter, behind
which two burly men in red undershirts dispensed liquor.
Pieces of packing cases nailed to lengths of logs made crazy tables
scattered here and there. Shorter logs upended formed the chairs.
There was no floor. Sand had been thrown on the ground after the snow
had been shoveled off, but the scuffling feet had beaten and trampled
it into the sodden surface and had hashed it into mud.
Ankle-deep in the reeking slush stood thirty or forty men, clad
mostly in laced boots, corduroys or overalls, canvas or Mackinaw
jackets; woolen-shirted, slouch-hatted. Rough of face and figure, they
stood before the bar or lounged at the few tables, talking in groups,
or shouting and carousing joyously. There was a faro layout on one of
the tables where a man in a black felt hat, smoking a cigar, dealt
from the box, while a wrinkle-faced man with a mouth like a slit cut
in parchment sat beside him on a high log, as lookout. Half a dozen
men played silently.
Perhaps half of those present milled promiscuously among the groups,
hail-fellow-well-met, drunk, blasphemous, and loud. These shouted,
sang and cursed with vivid impartiality. The other half, keener-eyed,
stern of face, capable, drew together in small groups of two or three
or four, talking more quietly and ignoring all others except as they
kept a general alert watch on what was going on. These were the
old-timers, experienced men, who trusted no strangers and had no mind
to allow indiscreet familiarities from the more reckless and
ignorant.
When the door opened to admit Solange, straight and slim in her plain
leather tunic and breeches, stained dark with melted snow, the drunken
musicians perched on upended logs were the first to see her. They
stopped their playing and stared, and slowly a grin came upon one of
them.
"Oh, mamma! Look who's here!" he shouted.
Half a hundred pairs of eyes swung toward the door and silence fell
upon the place. Stepping heedlessly into the ankle-deep muck, Solange
walked forward. Her flat-brimmed hat was pulled low over her face and
the silk bandanna hid her hair. Behind her Sucatash walked
uncertainly, glaring from side to side at the gaping men.
The groups that kept to themselves cast appraising eyes on the
cow-puncher and then turned them away. They pointedly returned to
their own affairs as though to say that, however strange, the advent
of this girl accompanied by the lean rider, was none of their
business. Again spoke experience and the wariness born of it.
But the tenderfeet, the drunken roisterers, were of different clay. A
chorus of shouts addressed to "Sister" bade her step up and have a
drink. A wit, in a falsetto scream, asked if he might have the next
dance. Jokes, or what passed in that crew for them, flew thickly,
growing more ribald and suggestive as the girl stood, indifferent, and
looked about her.
Then Sucatash strode between her and the group near the bar from which
most of the noise emanated. He hitched his belt a bit and faced them
truculently.
"You-all had better shut up," he announced in a flat voice. His words
brought here and there a derisive echo, but for the most part the
mirth died away. The loudest jibers turned ostentatiously back to the
bar and called for more liquor. The few hardy ones who would have
carried on their ridicule felt that sympathy had fled from them, and
muttered into silence. Yet half of the crew carried weapons hung in
plain sight, and others no doubt were armed, although the tools were
not visible, while Sucatash apparently had no weapon.
Behind the fervid comradeship and affection, the men were strangers
each to the other. None knew whom he could trust; none dared to strike
lest the others turn upon him.
At one of the rude tables not far from the entrance, sat three men.
They had a bottle of pale and poisonous liquor before them from which
they took frequent and deep drinks. They talked loudly, advertising
their presence above the quieter groups. One or two men stood at the
table, examining a heap of dirty particles of crushed rock spread upon
the boards. They would look at it, finger it and then pass on,
generally without other comment than a muttered word or two. But the
three seated men, one of whom was the gray, weasel-faced Jim Banker,
boasted loudly, and profanely calling attention to the "color" and the
exceeding richness of the ore. Important, swaggering, and braggart,
they assumed the airs of an aristocracy, as of men set apart and
elevated by success.
Outside, in the lull occasioned by Solange's dramatic entrance,
noises of the camp could be heard through the flimsy walls. Far down
the canyon faint shouts could be heard. Some one was calling to animals
of some sort, apparently. A faint voice, muffled by snow, raised a
yell.
"H'yar comes the fust dog sled in from the No'th," he cried. "That's
the sour doughs for yuh! He's comin' _right_!"
They could hear the faint snarls and barks of dogs yelping far down
the canyon.
Then the noise swelled up again and drowned the alien sounds.
Dimly through the murk Solange saw the evil face of the desert rat,
now flushed with drink and greed, and, with a sudden resolution, she
turned and walked toward him. He saw her coming and stared, his face
growing sallow and his yellow teeth showing. He gave the impression of
a cornered rat at the moment.
Then his eyes fell on Sucatash, who followed her, and he half rose
from his seat, fumbling for a gun. Sucatash paid no heed to him, not
noticing his wild stare nor the slight slaver of saliva that sprang to
his lips. His companions were busy showing the ore to curious
spectators and were too drunk to heed him.
Slowly Banker subsided into his seat as he saw that neither Solange
nor Sucatash apparently had hostile intentions. He tried to twist his
seamed features into an ingratiating grin, but the effort was a
failure, producing only a grimace.
"W'y, here's ole French Pete's gal!" he exclaimed, cordially, though
there was a quaver in his voice. "Da'tter of my old friend what
diskivered this here mine an' then lost it. Killed, he was, by a
gunman, twenty years gone. Gents, say howdy to the lady!"
His two companions gaped and stared upward at the strange figure. The
standing men, awkwardly and with a muttered word or two, backed away
from the table, alert and watchful. Women meant danger in such a
community. Under the deep shadow of her hat brim, Solange's eyes
smoldered, dim and mysterious.
"You are Monsieur Banker!" she asserted, tonelessly. "You need not be
frightened. I have not come to ask you for an accounting--yet. It is
for another purpose that I am here."
"Shore! Anything I kin do fer old Pete's gal--all yuh got to do is ask
me, honey! Old Jim Banker; that's me! White an' tender an' faithful to
a friend, is Jim Banker, ma'am. Set down, now, and have a nip!"
He rose and waved awkwardly to his log. One of the others, with a grin
that was almost a leer, also rose and reached for another log at a
neighboring table from which a man had risen. All about that end of
the shack, the seated or standing men, mostly of the silent and aloof
groups, drifted casually aside, leaving the table free.
Solange sat down and Sucatash put out a hand to restrain her.
"Mad'mo'selle!" he remonstrated. "This ain't no place fer yuh! Yuh
don't want to hang around here with this old natural! He's plum
poisonous, I'm tellin' yuh!"
Solange made an impatient gesture. "Some one quiet him!" she
exclaimed. "Am I not my own mistress, then!"
"Yuh better be keerful what yuh call me, young feller," said Banker,
belligerently. "Yuh can't rack into this here camp and get insultin'
that a way."
"Aw, shut up!" retorted Sucatash, flaming. "Think yuh can bluff me
when I'm a-facin' yuh? Yuh damn', cowardly horned toad!"
He half drew back his fist to strike as Banker rose, fumbling at his
gun. But one of the other men suddenly struck out, with a fist like a
ham, landing beneath the cow-puncher's ear. He went down without a
groan, completely knocked out.
The man got up, seized him by the legs, dragged him to the door and
threw him into the road outside. Then he came back, laughing loudly,
and swaggering as though his feat had been one to be proud of. Solange
had shuddered and shrunk for a moment, but almost at once she shook
herself as though casting off her repulsion and after that was
stonily composed.
On his way to the table the man who had struck Sucatash down, called
loudly for another bottle of liquor, and one of the red-shirted men
behind the bar left his place to bring it to them.
The burly bruiser sat down beside Solange with every appearance of
self-satisfaction. He leered at her as though expecting her to flame
at his prowess. But she gave no heed to him.
"Yuh might lift up that hat and let us git a look at yuh," he said,
reaching out as though to tilt the brim. She jerked sharply away from
him.
"In good time, monsieur," she said. "Have patience."
Then she turned to Banker, who had been eying her with furtive,
speculative eyes, cautious and suspicious.
"Monsieur Banker," she said, "it is true that you have known this man
who killed my father--this Louisiana?"
"Me! Shore, I knowed him. A murderin' gunman he was, ma'am. A bad
hombre!"
"And did you recognize him that time he came--when you played that
little--joke--upon me?"
Banker turned sallow once more, as though the recollection frightened
him.
"I shore did," he assented fervently. "He plumb give me a start.
Thought he was a ghost, that a way, you----"
He leaned forward, grinning, his latent lunacy showing for a moment in
his red eyes. Confidentially, he unburdened himself to his
companions.
"This lady--you'll see--she's a kind o' witch like. This here feller
racks in, me thinkin' him dead these many years, an' I misses him
clean when I tries to down him. I shore thinks he's a ha'nt, called up
by the lady. Haw, haw!"
His laughter was evil, chuckling and cunning. It was followed by
cackling boasts:
"But they all dies--all but old Jim. Louisiana, he dies too, even if I
misses him that a way with old Betsy that ain't missed nary a one fer
nigh twenty year."
Under her hat brim Solange's eyes gleamed with a fierce light as the
bloodthirsty old lunatic sputtered and mouthed. But the other two
grinned derisively at each other and leered at the girl.
"Talks like that all the time, miss," said one. "Them old-timers likes
to git off the Deadwood Dick stuff. Me, I'm nothin' but a p'fessional
pug and all the gun fightin' I ever seen was in little old Chi. But I
ain't a damn' bit afraid to say I could lick a half dozen of these
here hicks that used to have a reputation in these parts. Fairy tales;
that's wot they are!"
He swigged his drink and sucked in his breath with vast
self-satisfaction. The other man, of a leaner, quieter, but just as
villainous a type, grinned at him.
"Oh, I don't know," he said. "I ain't never seen no one could juggle a
six-gun like they say these birds could do, but I reckon there's some
truth in it. Leastways, there are some that can shoot pretty good."
He, too, leaned back, with an air of self-satisfaction. Banker
chuckled again.
"You're both good ones," he said. "This gent can shoot some, ma'am. He
comes from Arkansas. But I ain't a-worryin' none about that. Old Jim's
luck's still holdin' good. I found this here mine, now, although you
wouldn't tell me where it was. Didn't I?"
"I suppose so," said Solange indifferently. "I do not care about the
mine, monsieur. It is yours. But there is something that I wish and--I
have money----"
The instant light of greed that answered this announcement convinced
her that she had struck the right note. If the mine had been as rich
as Golconda these men would have coveted additional money.
"You got money, ma'am?" Banker spoke whiningly.
"Money to pay for your service. You are brave men; men who would help
a woman, I feel sure. You, Monsieur Banker, knew my father and would
help his daughter--if she paid you."
The irony escaped him.
"I sure would," he answered, eagerly. "What's it you want, ma'am, and
what you goin' to pay fer it?"
She spoke quite calmly, almost casually.
"I want you to kill a man," she answered.
The three of them stared at her and then the big bruiser laughed.
"Who d'you want scragged?" he said, derisively.
Solange looked steadily at Banker. "Louisiana!" she answered, clearly.
But old Jim turned pale and showed his rat's teeth.
The others merely chuckled and nudged each other.
Solange sensed that two considered her request merely a wild joke
while the other was afraid. She slowly drew from her bag the yellow
poster that De Launay had sent back to her by Sucatash.
"You would be within the law," she pleaded, spreading it out before
them. As they bent over it, reading it slowly: "See. He is a fugitive
with a price on his head. Any one may slay him and collect a reward.
It is a good deed to shoot him down."
"Five hundred dollars looks good," said the lean man from Arkansas,
"but it ain't hardly enough to set me gunnin' for a feller I don't
know. Is this a pretty bad actor?"
"Bad?" screamed Banker, suddenly. "Bad! I've seen him keep a chip in
the air fer two or three seconds shootin' under it with a six-shooter!
I've seen him roll a bottle along the ground as if you was a-kickin'
it, shootin' between it and the ground and never chippin' the glass.
Bad! You ask Snake Murphy if he's bad. Snake was drunk an' starts a
fuss with him an' his hand was still on his gun butt an' the gun in
the holster when Louisiana shoots him in the wrist an' never looks at
him while he's a-doin' it! Bad! I'll say he's bad!"
He was shivering and almost sick in his sudden fright at the idea of
facing Louisiana. The others, however, were skeptical and
contemptuous.
"Same old Buffalo Bill and Alkali Ike stuff!" said the pugilist
sneeringly. "I ain't afraid of this guy!"
"Well--neither am I," said the man from Arkansas, complacently. "He
ain't the only one that can shoot, I reckon."
Banker fairly fawned upon them. "Yes," he cried. "You-all are good
fellers and you ain't afraid. You'll down Louisiana if he comes. But
he won't come, I reckon."
"He _is_ coming," said Solange. "Not many hours ago I heard him say
that he was going to 'jump your claim,' which he said did not belong
to you. And he intimated that there would be a fight and that he would
welcome it."
The three men were startled, looking at one another keenly. Banker
licked his lips and was unmistakably frightened more than ever. But
in his red eyes the flame of lunacy was slowly mounting.
"If I had old Betsy here----" he muttered.
"He ain't goin' to jump this mine," said the man from Arkansas,
grimly. "Me and Slugger, here, has an interest in that mine. We works
it on shares with Jim. If this shootin' sport comes round, we'll know
what to do with him."
"Slugger," however, was more practical. "We'll take care of him," he
agreed, slapping his side where a pistol hung. "But if there's money
in gettin' him, I want to know how much. What'll you pay, ma'am?"
"A--a thousand dollars is all I have," said Solange. "You shall have
that, messieurs."
But, somehow, her voice had faltered as though she, now, were
frightened at what she had done and regretted it. Some insistent
doubt, hitherto buried under her despair and rage, was struggling to
the surface. As she watched these sinister scoundrels muttering
together and concerting the downfall of the man who was her
husband--and perhaps something more, to her--she felt a panic growing
in her, an impulse to spring up and rush out, back on the trail to
warn De Launay. But she suppressed it, cruelly scourging herself to
remembrance of her dead father and her vow of vengeance. She tried to
whip the flagging sense of outrage at the trick that the brutal
Louisiana had played upon her in allowing her to marry him.
"If he lights around here," she heard Banker cackling, "we'll down
him, we will! I'll add a thousand more to what the lady gives. We'll
keep a lookout, boys, an' when he shows up, he dies!"
Then his shrill, evil cry arose again and men turned from their
pursuits to look at him. The foam stood on his lips, writhen into a
snarl over yellow fangs and his red eyes flamed with insanity.
"He'll die! They all dies! Only old Jim don't die. French Pete dies;
Panamint dies; that there young Dave dies! But old Jim don't die!"
Solange turned pale as he half rose, leaning on the table with one
hand while the other rested on the butt of his six-shooter. A great
terror surged over her as she saw what she had let loose on her
lover.
Her lover! For the first time she realized that he was her lover and
that, despite crime and insult and deadly injury, he could be nothing
else. She staggered to her feet, shoving back the brim of her hat, her
wonderful eyes showing for the first time as she turned them on these
grim wolves who faced her.
"My God!" said the bruiser, in a sudden burst of awe as he was caught
by the fathomless depths. The man from Arkansas could not see them so
clearly, but he sensed something disturbing and unusual. Banker faced
her and tried to tear his own eyes from her.
Then, as they stood and sat in tableau, the flimsy door to the shack
flew open and Louisiana stood on the threshold, holsters sagging on
each hip and tied down around his thighs.