Louisiana Lou. A Western Story

Dimly she was aware that Banker had dropped his rifle and scuttled like a scared rabbit into some place of shelter. Her whole attention was concentrated on those rattling, drumming hoofs. She looked up, tried to rise, but fell back with the pain of the effort stabbing her unheeded.

A horse was sliding to a stop, forefeet planted, snow and dirt flying from his hoofs. De Launay was leaping to the ground and the pack horses were galloping clumsily up. Then his arms were around her and she was lifted from the ground.

“What’s the matter, Solange? What’s happened? Where’s the boys? And Banker, what’s he doing shooting at me?”

His questions were pouring out upon her, but she could not answer them. She clung to him and sobbed.

“I thought he had killed you!”

His laugh was music.

“That old natural? He couldn’t kill me. Saw him aim and ducked. Shot right over me. But what’s happened to you?”

He ran a hand over her face and found it hot with fever.

“Why, you’re sick! And your foot’s bare. Here, tell me what has happened?”

She could only sob brokenly, her strength almost gone.

“That terrible old man! He did it. He’s hiding – to shoot you.”

De Launay’s hand had run over her thick mane of hair and he felt her wince. He recognized the great bump on the skull.

“Death of a dog!” he swore in French. “Mon amie, is it this old devil who has injured you?”

She nodded and he began to look about him for Banker. But the prospector was not in sight, although his discarded rifle was on the ground. The lever was down where the prospector had jerked it preparatory to a second shot which he had been afraid to fire. The empty ejected shell lay on the snow near by.

De Launay turned back to Solange. He bent over her and carefully restored her stocking and shoe. Then he fetched water and bathed her head, gently gathering her hair together and binding it up under the bandeau which he found among her scattered belongings. She told him something of what had happened, ascribing the prospector’s actions to insanity. But when De Launay asked about Sucatash and Dave she could do no more than tell him that the first had gone to the ranch to get snowshoes and dogs, and the latter had gone out yesterday and had not come back, though she had heard a single shot late in the afternoon.

De Launay listened with a frown. He was in a cold rage at Banker, but there were other things to do than try to find him. He set to work to gather up the wreckage of the tent and outfit. Then he rounded up the horses, leaving the burros and Banker’s horse to stay where they were. Hastily he threw on the packs, making no pretense at neat packing.

“I’ll have to get you out of this,” he said. “With that lunatic bushwacking round there’ll never be a moment of safety for you. You’re sick and will have to have care. Can you ride?”

Solange tried to rise to her feet but was unable to stand.

“I’ll have to carry you. I’ll saddle your horse and lead him. The others will follow my animals. I’ll get you to safety and then come back and look for Dave.”

With infinite care he lifted her to his saddle, holding her while he mounted and gathered her limp form into his left arm. His horse fortunately was gentle, and stood. He was about to reach for the reins of her horse when something made her turn and look up the slope of the hill toward the overhanging, ledgelike rock above the camp.

“Mon ami!” she screamed. “Gardez-vous!”

What happened she was not able to exactly understand. Only she somehow realized that never had she understood the possibility of rapid motion before. Her own eyes had caught only a momentary glimpse of a head above the edge of the rock and the black muzzle of a six-shooter creeping into line with them.

Yet De Launay’s movement was sure and accurate. His eyes seemed to sense direction, his hand made one sweep from holster to an arc across her body and the roar of the heavy weapon shattered her ears before she had fairly realized that she had cried out. She saw a spurt of dust where the head had appeared.

Then De Launay’s spurs went home and the horse leaped into a run. The pack horses, jumping at the sound of the shot, flung up their heels, lurched to one side, circled and fell into a gallop in the rear. Clattering and creaking, the whole cavalcade went thundering up the valley.

De Launay swore. “Missed, by all the devils! But I sure put dust in his eyes!”

He turned around and there, sure enough, was Banker, standing on the rock, pawing at his eyes. The shot had struck the edge of the rock just below his face and spattered fragments all over him.

De Launay laughed grimly as the groping figure shook a futile fist at him. Then Banker sat down and dug at his face industriously.

They had ridden another hundred yards when a yell echoed in the cañon. He turned again and saw Banker leaping and shrieking on the rock, waving hands to the heavens and carrying on like a maniac.

“Gone plumb loco,” said De Launay, contemptuously.

But, unknown to De Launay or mademoiselle, the high gods must have laughed in irony as old Jim Banker raved and flung his hands toward their Olympian fastness.

De Launay’s shot, which had crushed the edge of the rock to powder, had exposed to the prospector the glittering gold of French Pete’s lost Bonanza!

CHAPTER XVIII

TELLTALE BULLETS

De Launay headed up into the hills, making for the spot he and others familiar with the region knew as The Crater. Back about half a mile from the rim of Shoestring Cañon, which, itself, had originally been cut out of lava from extinct volcanoes of the range, rose a vast basalt peak, smooth and precipitous on the side toward the cañon. Its lower slopes had once been terraced down to the flat bench land which rimmed the cañon, but, unnumbered ages ago, the subterranean forces had burst their way through and formed a crater whose sides fell steeply away to the flats on three sides. The fourth was backed by the basalt cliff.

Although long extinct, the volcano had left reminders in the shape of warm springs which had an appreciable effect on the temperature within the basin of the ancient crater. The atmosphere in the place was, even in winter, quite moderate compared with that of the rest of the range. There was, in the center of the crater, a small pond or lake, of which the somewhat lukewarm water was quite potable.

This spot, once a common enough rendezvous for the riders on rodeo, was his objective and toward it he climbed, with mademoiselle’s warm body in his arms. Behind him straggled the pack horses.

Solange lay quiet, but under his arm he felt her shiver from time to time. His downward glance at her fell only on her hat and a casual wisp of glistening hair which escaped from it. He felt for and found one of her hands. It clutched his with a hot, dry clasp.

Somewhat alarmed, he raised his hand to her face. That she had fever was no longer to be doubted.

She was talking low to herself, but she spoke in Basque which he did not understand. He spoke to her in French.

“I knew you would come; that I should find you,” she answered at once. “That terrible man! He could not frighten me. It is certain that through you I shall find this Louisiana!”

“Yes,” he answered. “You’ll find Louisiana.”

He wondered what she knew of Louisiana and why she wished to find him, concluding, casually, that she had heard of him as one who might know something of her father’s death. Well, if she sought Louisiana, she had not far to look: merely to raise her head.

“I thought I heard him singing,” said Solange.

“I reckon you did,” he answered. “Are you riding easy?”

“Yes – but I am cold, and then hot again. The man hurt me.”

De Launay swore under his breath and awkwardly began to twist from his Mackinaw, which, when it was free, he wrapped around her. Then, holding her closer, he urged his horse to greater speed.

But, once upon the bench and free to look about him toward the steep slope of the crater’s outer walls, he was dismayed at the unexpected change in the landscape.

On the rocky slopes there had once stood a dense thicket of lodgepole pine, slender and close, through which a trail had been cut. But, years ago, a fire had swept the forest, leaving the gaunt stems and bare spikes to stand like a plantation of cane or bamboo on the crumbling lava. Then a windstorm had rushed across the mountains, leveling the dead trees to the ground, throwing them in wild, heaping chaos of jagged spikes and tangled branches. The tough cones, opened by the fire, had germinated and seedlings had sprung up amidst the riot of logs, growing as thick as grass. They were now about the height of a tall man’s head, forming, with the tangled abatis of spiky trunks, a seemingly impenetrable jungle.

There might be a practicable way through, but to search for it would take more time than the man had to spare. He must get the girl to rest and shelter before her illness gained much further headway, and he knew that a search for a passage might well take days instead of the hours he had at his command. He wished that he had remained in the cañon where he might have pitched camp in spite of the danger from the prospector. But a return meant a further waste of time and he decided to risk an attempt to force his way through the tangle.

Carefully he headed into it. The going was not very hard at first as the trees lay scattered on the edge of the windfall. But, as he wormed into the labyrinth, the heaped up logs gave more and more resistance to progress, and it soon became apparent that he could never win through to the higher slopes which were free of the tangle.