Louisiana Lou. A Western Story

“The fairest of all creatures did she seem;
So fresh and delicate you well might deem
That scarce for eighteen summers had she blessed
The happy, longing earth; yet, for the rest
Within her glorious eyes such wisdom dwelt
A child before her had the wise man felt.”

“Is that it?” he murmured to himself. To his surprise, for he had not thought that she spoke English, she answered him.

“It is not. It is my eyes; yes, but they are not to be described so flatteringly.” Yet she was smiling and the blush had spread again to cheeks and chin, flushing them delightfully. “It is a superstition of these ignorant poilus. And of others, also. In fact, there are some who are afraid.”

“Well,” said De Launay, “I have never had the reputation of being either ignorant or afraid. Also – there is Ogier?”

“What?”

“Who plays the rôle of the Danish Paladin?”

Mademoiselle blushed again. “He is not in the story this time,” she said.

“I hardly qualify, you would say. Perhaps not. But there is more. Where is Avalon and what other names have you? You remember

“Know thou, that thou art come to Avalon,
That is both thine and mine; and as for me,
Morgan le Fay men call me commonly
Within the world, but fairer names than this
I have —

“What are they?”

“I am Solange d’Albret, monsieur. I am from the Basses Pyrenees. A Basque, if you please. If my name is distinguished, I am not. On the contrary, I am very poor, having but enough to finance this trip to America and the search that is to follow.”

“And Avalon – where is that? Where is the place that you go to in America?”

She opened a small hand bag and took from it a notebook which she consulted.

“America is a big place. It is not likely that you would know it, or the man that I must look for. Here it is. The place is called ‘Twin Forks,’ and it is near the town of Sulphur Falls, in the State of Idaho. The man is Monsieur Isaac Brandon.”

In the silence, she looked up, alarmed to see De Launay, who was clutching the edge of the table and staring at her as though she had struck him.

“Why, what is the matter?” she cried.

De Launay laughed out loud. “Twin Forks! Ike Brandon! Mademoiselle, what do you seek in Twin Forks and from old Ike Brandon?”

Mademoiselle, puzzled and alarmed, answered slowly.

“I seek a mine that my father found – a gold mine that will make us rich. And I seek also the name of the man that shot my father down like a dog. I wish to kill that man!”

CHAPTER IV

HEADS! I WIN!

De Launay turned and called the waiter, ordering cognac for himself and light wine for mademoiselle.

“You have rendered it necessary, mademoiselle,” he explained. Mademoiselle’s astounding revelation and the metallic earnestness of murder in her voice alike took him aback. He saw that her sweet mouth was set in a cruel line and her cameo chin was firm as a rock. But her homicidal intentions had not affected him as sharply as the rest of it.

Mademoiselle took her wine and sipped it, but her mouth again relaxed to scornful contempt as she saw him toss off the fiery liquor. She was somewhat astonished at the effect her words had had on the man, but she gathered that he was now considering her bizarre proposal with real interest.

The alcohol temporarily enlivened De Launay.

“So,” he said, “Avalon is at Twin Forks and I am to marry you in order that you may seek out an enemy and kill him. There was also word of a gold mine. And your father – d’Albret! I do not recall the name.”

“My father,” explained Solange, “went to America when I was a babe in arms. He was very poor – few of the Basques are rich – and he was in danger because of the smuggling. He worked for this Monsieur Brandon as a herder of sheep. He found a mine of gold – and he was killed when he was coming to tell about it.”

“His Christian name?”

“Pedro – Pierre.”

“H’m-m! That must have been French Pete. I remember him. He was more than a cut above the ordinary Basco.” He spoke in English, again forgetting that mademoiselle spoke the language. She reminded him of it.

“You knew my father? But that is incredible!”

“The whole affair is incredible. No wonder you have the name of being a fairy! But I knew your father – slightly. I knew Ike Brandon. I know Twin Forks. If I had made up my mind to return to America, it is to that place that I would go.”

It was mademoiselle’s turn to be astonished.

“To Twin Forks?”

“To Ike Brandon’s ranch, where your father worked. It must have been after my time that he was killed. I left there in nineteen hundred, and came to France shortly afterward. I was a cow hand – a cowboy – and we did not hold friendship with sheepmen. But I knew Ike Brandon and his granddaughter. Now, tell me about this mine and your father’s death.”

Mademoiselle d’Albret again had recourse to her hand bag, drawing from it a small fragment of rock, a crumpled and smashed piece of metal about the size of one’s thumb nail and two pieces of paper. The latter seemed to be quite old, barely holding together along the lines where they had been creased. These she spread on the table. De Launay first picked up the rock and the bit of metal.

He was something of a geologist. France’s soldiers are trained in many sciences. Turning over the tiny bit of mineral between his fingers, he readily recognized the bits of gold speckling its crumbling crystals. If there was much ore of that quality where French Pete had found his mine, that mine would rank with the richest bonanzas of history.

The bit of metal also interested him. It had been washed but there were still oxydized spots which might have been made by blood. It was a soft-nosed bullet, probably of thirty caliber, which had mushroomed after striking something. His mouth was grim as he saw the jagged edges of metal. It had made a terrible wound in whatever flesh had stopped it.

He laid the two objects down and took the paper that mademoiselle handed to him. It seemed to be a piece torn from a paper sack, and on it was scrawled in painful characters a few words in some language utterly unknown to him.

“It is Basque,” said mademoiselle, and translated: “‘My love, I am assassinated! Farewell, and avenge me! There is much gold. The good Monsieur Brandon will – ’”

It trailed off into a meaningless, trembling line.

The other was a letter written on ruled paper. The cramped, schoolboyish characters were those of a man unused to much composition and the words were the vernacular of the ranges.

“Dear madam,” it began, “I take my pen in hand to write you something that I sure regrets a whole lot. Which I hope you all bears up under the blow like a game woman, which your late respected husband sure was game that a way. There ain’t much I can say to break the news, ma’am, and I can’t do nothing, being so far away, to show my sympathy. Your husband has done passed over. He was killed by some ornery hound who bushwhacked him somewheres in the hills, and who must have been a bloody killer because Pete, your husband, sure didn’t have no enemies, and there wasn’t no one that had any reason to kill him. He was coming home from the Esmeraldas with his sheep which we was allowing to winter close to the ranch instead of in the desert to see if feeding them would pay and some murdering gunman done up and shot him with a thirty-thirty soft nose, which makes it worse. I’m sending the slug that done it.

“Pete was sure a true-hearted gent, ma’am, and we was all fond of him spite of his being a Basco. If we could have found the murderer we would sure have stretched him a plenty but there wasn’t no clew.

“Pete had found a gold mine, ma’am, and the specimens he had in his war bags was plenty rich as per the sample I am sending you herewith. He tried to tell me where it was but he was too weak when we found him. He said he wanted us to give you half of it if we found it and we sure would do that though it don’t look like we got much chance because he couldn’t tell where it was. The boys have been looking but they haven’t found it yet. If they do you can gamble your last chip they will split it with you or else there will be some more funerals around hereaways. But it ain’t likely they will find it, I got to tell you that so’s you won’t put your hopes on it and be disappointed.