Louisiana Lou. A Western Story

Finally he came to the site of the camp where he had rescued Solange from the mad prospector. Here he was surprised to find no trace of the man although the burros were scraping forlornly in the snow on the slopes trying to uncover forage. Camp equipment was scattered around, and a piece of tarpaulin covered a bundle of stuff. This was tucked away by a rock, but De Launay ran on it after some search.

He devoted his efforts to finding the shell from Banker’s rifle which he had seen on the snow when he left the place. It was finally uncovered and he put it in his pocket. Then he left the place and headed down the cañon, searching for signs of the cow-puncher.

He found none, since Dave had not been in this direction. But De Launay pushed on until almost noon. He rode high on the slopes where the snow was shallower and where he could get an unrestricted view of the cañon.

He was about to give it up, however, and turn back when his horse stopped and pricked his ears forward, raising its head. De Launay followed this indication and saw what he took to be a clump of sagebrush on the snow about half a mile away. He watched it and thought it moved.

Intent observation confirmed this impression and it was made a certainty when he saw the black patch waver upward, stagger forward and then fall again.

With an exclamation, De Launay spurred his horse recklessly down the slope toward the figure on the snow. He galloped up to it and flung himself to the ground beside it. The figure raised itself on arms from which the sleeves hung in tatters and turned a pale and ghastly face toward him.

It was Sucatash.

Battered and bruised, with an arm almost helpless and a leg as bad, the cow-puncher was dragging himself indomitably along while his failing strength held out. But he was almost at the end of his resources. Hunger and weakness, wounds and bruises, had done their work and he could have gone little farther.

De Launay raised his head and chafed his blue and frozen hands. The cow-puncher tried to grin.

“Glad to see you, old-timer,” he croaked. “You’re just about in time.”

“What happened to you, man?”

“Don’t know. Heard a horse nicker and then mine stumbled and pinned me. Got a bad fall and when I come to I was lying down the hill against some greasewood. Leg a’most busted and an arm as bad. Horse nowhere around. Got anything to drink? Snow ain’t much for thirst.”

De Launay had food and water and gave it to him. After eating ravenously for a moment he was stronger.

“Funny thing, that horse nickerin’. It was snowin’ and I didn’t see him. But, after I come to I tried to climb up where I was throwed. It was some job but I made it. There was my horse, half covered with snow. Some one had shot him.”

“Shot him? And then left you to lie there?”

“Just about that. There wasn’t no tracks. Snow had filled ’em. But I reckon that horse wasn’t just shot by accident.”

“It was not. And Dave’s gone.”

“Dave? What’s that?”

“He’s gone. Left the camp day before yesterday and never came back. I wasn’t there.”

“And madame? She all right?”

“She is – now. I found her yesterday morning with Banker, the prospector. He was trying to torture her into telling him where that mine is located. Hurt her pretty bad.”

Sucatash lay silent for a moment. Then:

“Jumpin’ snakes!” he said. “That fellow has got a lot comin’ to him, ain’t he?”

“He has,” said De Launay, shortly. “More than you know.”

Again the cow-puncher was silent for a space.

“Reckon he beefed Dave?” he said at last.

“Shouldn’t be surprised,” said De Launay. “I searched for him but couldn’t find him. He wouldn’t get lost or hurt. But Jim Banker’s done enough, in any case.”

“He sure has,” said Sucatash.

De Launay helped the cow-puncher up in front of him and turned back to the crater. He rode past Banker’s camp without stopping, but keeping along the slope to avoid the deeper snow he came upon a stake set in a pile of small rocks. This was evidently newly placed. He showed it to Sucatash.

“The fellow’s staked ground here. What could he have found?”

“Maybe the old lunatic thinks he’s run onto French Pete’s strike,” grinned Sucatash. “This don’t look very likely to me.”

“Gone to Maryville to register it, I suppose. That accounts for his leaving the burros and part of his stuff. He’d travel light.”

“He better come back heavy though. If he aims to winter in here he’ll need bookoo rations. It’d take some mine to make me do it.”

Sucatash was in bad shape, and De Launay was not particularly interested in old Jim’s vagaries at the present time, so he made all speed back to the crater. Sucatash, who knew of the windfall, would not believe that the soldier had found an entrance into the place until he had actually treaded the game trail.

He looked backward from the heights above the tangle after they had come through it.

“Some stronghold,” he commented. “It’d take an army to dig you outa here.”

They found Solange as De Launay had left her. She was overjoyed to see Sucatash and at the same time distressed to observe his condition. She heard with indignation his account of his mishap and, like De Launay, suspected Banker of being responsible for it. Indeed, unless they assumed that some mysterious presence was abroad at this unseasonable time in the mountains, there was no one else to suspect.

She would have risen and assumed the duties of nursing the cow-puncher, but De Launay forbade it. She was still very weak and her head was painful. The soldier therefore took upon himself the task of caring for both of them.

He made a bed for Sucatash in the kitchen of the cabin and went about the work of getting them both on their feet with quiet efficiency. This bade fair to be a task of some days’ duration though both were strong and healthy and yielded readily to rest and treatment.

It was night again before he had them comfortably settled and sleeping. Once more, with camp lantern lit, he sat before the slab table and examined his bullets and the shell he had picked up at Banker’s camp.

He found that both bullets fitted it tightly. Then he turned the rim to the light and looked at it.

Stamped in the brass were the cabalistic figures:

U. M. C. SAV.303.

For some time he sat there, his mouth set in straight, hard lines, his memory playing backward over nineteen years. He recalled the men he had known on the range, a scattered company, every one of whom could be numbered, every one of whom had possessions, weapons, accouterment, known to nearly all the others. In that primitive community of few individuals the tools of their trades were as a part of them. Men were marked by their saddles, their chaparajos, their weapons. A pair of silver-mounted spurs owned by one was remarked by all the others.

Louisiana had known the weapons of the range riders even as they knew his. The six-shooter with which he had often performed his feats would have been as readily recognized as he, himself. When a new rifle appeared in the West its advent was a matter of note.

In Maryville, then a small cow town and outfitting place for the men of the range, there had been one store in which weapons could be bought. In that store, the proprietor had stocked just one rifle of the new make. The Savage, shooting an odd caliber cartridge, had been distrusted because of that fact, the men of the country fearing that they would have difficulty in procuring shells of such an unusual caliber. Unable to sell it, he had finally parted with it for a mere fraction of its value to one who would chance its inconvenience. The man who possessed it had been known far and wide and, at that time, he was the sole owner of such a rifle in all that region.

Yet, with this infallible clew to the identity of French Pete’s murderer at hand, it had been assumed that the bullet was 30-30.

De Launay envisioned that worn and battered rifle butt projecting from the scabbard slung to the burro in Sulphur Falls. Nineteen years, and the man still carried and used the weapon which was to prove his guilt.

Once more he got up and went in to look at the sleeping girl. Should he tell her that the murderer of her father was discovered? What good would it do? He doubted that, if confronted with the knowledge, she could find the fortitude to exact the vengeance which she had vowed. And if, faced with the facts, she drew back, what reproach would she always visit upon herself for her weakness? Torn between a barbaric code and her own gentle instincts, she would be unhappy whatever eventuated.

But he was free from gentleness – at least toward every one but her. He had killed. He was callous. Five years in the Légion des Etrangers and fourteen more of war and preparation for war had rendered him proof against squeamishness. The man was a loathly thing who had slain in cold blood, cowardly, evil, and unclean. Possibly he had murdered within the past few days, and, at any rate he had attempted murder and torture.