Louisiana Lou Part 19

Solange appeared at this moment, coming in with Mrs. Wallace, who was smiling in an evident agreement with her son. Mr. Wallace, while inclined to reserve judgment, had all the chivalry of his kind and stepped forward to greet her. But he paused a little uncertainly as he noticed that she had removed her veil. For a moment he looked at her in some astonishment, her unusual coloring affecting him as it did all those who observed it for the first time. The first glance resulted in startlement and the feeling that there was something uncanny about her, but as the deep eyes met his own and the pretty mouth smiled at him from beneath the glinting pale halo of her hair, he drew his breath in a long sigh of appreciation and admiration. His wife, looking at him with some deprecation, as though fearing an adverse judgment, smiled as his evident conquest became apparent.

Standing near him the two boys stared and stared, something like awe in their ingenuous faces.

"Ma'am," said Wallace, in his courtly manner, "we're sure proud to welcome you. Which there ain't many flowers out hereaways, and if there was there wouldn't be none to touch you. It sure beats me why you ever wear a veil at all."

Solange laughed and blushed. "_Merci, monsieur!_ But that is exquisite! Still, it is not all that flatter me in that way. There are many who stare and point and even some who make the sign of the evil eye when they see this impossible ensemble. And the women! _Mon Dieu!_ They ask me continually what chemist I patronize for the purpose of bleaching my hair."

"Cats!" said Mrs. Wallace, with a sniff.

CHAPTER XIV

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 amus.e.m.e.nt 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 b.u.m 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 c.o.o.n 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."