The two of them hauled out and opened two or three boxes before they found one the papers in which seemed to be dated in the years before and after nineteen hundred. This they carried downstairs and soon were busy in pawing over the dusty, faded documents. The search produced only one thing. The sheriff came upon it and held it up just as they were giving up hope. Then, with Wilding eagerly leaning over his shoulder, he read it slowly.
REWARD!
The sheriff of Esmeralda County, State of Nevada, hereby offers a reward of FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS for the capture, dead or alive, and evidence leading to the conviction of Lewis Delaney, alias Louisiana Lou, alias Louisiana, who is wanted for the murder, on October 18, 1900, of Peter Dalbray, commonly known as French Pete, at a point near the entrance of Shoestring Cañon in Township 42 N., Range 5 East. This reward is guaranteed and authorized by Isaac Brandon, of Twin Forks, Nevada.
DESCRIPTION!
Just short of six feet, slim, quick, regular features, age about nineteen or twenty years, smooth face, brown hair, gray eyes. Dressed when last seen in open flap chaps, silver conchas, blue shirt. Boss of the Range Stetson, wearing wide belt with conchas and holster stamped with sunflowers. Carried a black rubber-handled Colt .41-caliber gun with which he is very expert. Has probably picked up a 30-30 rifle, Winchester or Marlin, since last seen, with which he committed the crime. Speaks with slight Southern accent. Police of all cities notified.
“That,” said the sheriff, reluctantly, “seems to dispose of my Indian theory. They wouldn’t have offered any such reward if they hadn’t been pretty sure they had the right man. But it’s equally sure that they never caught him or we’d have some record of it. On my second theory then, he’s either dead, or else he’d have come back to locate that mine, or else he’s been taken up for some other crime and has been serving time somewhere.”
Wilding took the faded, yellow handbill with its crude printing. “It looks that way,” he said. “Evidently they couldn’t get a photograph of him, and the description seems to be vague except as to his weapons and accouterments.”
“That’s the way with them old-timers. They didn’t pay so much attention to a man’s looks as to his saddle and horse and gun. But if it’ll do you any good take it along. It’s outlawed as far as the reward’s concerned, so I don’t reckon I’ll go hunting this fellow. The county wouldn’t pay me, and old Brandon’s been dead a year or more.”
The lawyer had to be satisfied with this, and, indeed, it seemed to settle the matter fairly conclusively. His business having been completed, he got out his automobile and once more headed back for Sulphur Falls.
That evening he drew up at Wallace’s ranch and there found Solange about to start into the mountains. He stayed the night, and delivered to her the handbill after telling her what he had done regarding the divorce and the search for the murderer. Solange listened to the first part of it with slight interest. Her desire to be free of De Launay had lost its force lately and she found herself somewhat indifferent. As Wilding formally laid down the procedure she would have to go through she even found herself vaguely regretting that she had moved so promptly in that matter. Somehow, in this land of strangers, kind and sympathetic as they had been, she felt that her search was hopeless without some more intimate help. The tall soldier, broken and desperate as he seemed to be, was closer to her than any one else and she felt that, if she should lose him, her plight would be forlorn. As she had last seen him standing in his cell, making his quiet promise of service to her, he appeared to be a rock on which she could lean. To her mind came back the stories she had heard of him, the wild and stormy tale of his rise from an outcast of the Légion des Etrangers to a high and honored place in the French army. He had done wonderful things and had overcome tremendous obstacles. Such a man could still do marvels, and it was marvels that one must do to help her in her search.
Some inborn superstition of her native mountains worked upon her. In his absence the things which had prejudiced her against him faded while the smooth efficiency and ease of her journey to this distant land was recalled, with the realization that that comfort and speed must have been due entirely to him whom she had thought spending his time in drunken carouses. He had brought her so far, to the very threshold of what she sought, and, if he should now abandon her, that threshold must remain uncrossed. De Launay had taken on some of the attributes of a guardian angel, a jinni who alone could guide her to the goal she sought. And she was about to divorce him, to cut the slight tie that bound him to her.
This was her feeling when Wilding showed her the handbill, and the ancient, faded poster carried instant conviction to her that she was at last on the trail of the murderer. When the lawyer repeated the sheriff’s deductions as to Louisiana’s death or detention, she merely shook her head. Although the description carried little meaning to her she seemed to envision a figure, sinister and evil, something to seek and something to find. Or something that De Launay would surely find!
She went out to where the two young men were working with the pack outfit and horses which had been brought in for their journey.
“My friends,” she said soberly, “we must hurry and be gone to-morrow. I have a feeling that we shall find this man. But it will be with Monsieur de Launay’s help. I do not know why but I feel that he will bring us to the man. We must rejoin him as soon as possible.”
“All right,” said Sucatash, shortly. Dave muttered, “Damn De Launay!” But they both turned back to their work and hastened their preparations.
CHAPTER XVI
IN THE SOLITUDES OF THE CANYON
The great wall of the Esmeraldas is split at one point by a ragged chasm opening out into the foothills and the grass plains to the north. This was the outlet of Shoestring Creek, a small stream of water which flowed out into the plain and was finally lost in the sands. It ran back into the range almost to the top of the main divide, forming a sort of natural pathway through the rugged mountains, a pathway much followed by the sheep-herders in driving their flocks from winter to summer range.
There was no road, properly speaking. In fact, when one had penetrated a few miles into the cañon passage was rendered arduous and difficult by a series of rocky terraces down which the stream tumbled. At many points the sheep trails winding along the slopes of the cañon walls formed the only practical thoroughfare.
Farther up, the cañon became more level, but no one had ever built a road through it. A good trail ran along it, generally at the level of the stream. Once past the terraced and rough part, there were no difficulties worthy of mention, at least in other seasons than winter.
It was into this entrance to the Esmeraldas that Solange and her cavaliers rode, pushing on steadily so as to be able to make camp above the obstructions. Sucatash and Dave, finding that the girl was a capable horsewoman and apparently able to bear any reasonable amount of fatigue, had pushed their first day’s travel relentlessly, covering the twenty miles between the ranch and the mountains, and aiming to penetrate another ten miles into the hills on the first day.
There had been little conversation. The two boys had the habit of their kind and kept silence for the most part while on the trail. As for Solange, though interested in the strange and wild country, she was engrossed in her own thoughts, aloof from all about her, wondering ceaselessly what her search would eventually develop.
There had been many times, even after starting on her pilgrimage, when the whole adventure had appealed to her as one that was no better than a weird, senseless obsession, one that she would do well to turn back from and forget. Probably, at first, she had only been kept to the task by a certain spirit of adventure, a youthful and long-repressed urge for romance, fortified by inherited traditions of the sacredness of vengeance. It is even probable that, had it not been for the fortuitous advent of De Launay and the wild impulse which had led her to enlist him in the affair, she would have remained at home and settled down to – what?
It was that memory of what her fate must be at home that had always furnished the final prick to her faltering resolution. Better to wander, lonely and helpless, fighting and struggling to achieve some measure of independence, than remain to what her existence must be in France, whether it was the drab life of a seamstress or shopgirl, the gray existence of a convent, the sluggish grind of a sordid marriage – provided she could find a man to marry – or the feverish degradation of the demi-monde.
But now, as she rode under the frowning, yellow-brown, black-patched rocks of the Esmeraldas, or looked backward over the drab plain behind her, she felt an ever-increasing exaltation and tingling sense of expectation. She could not guess what was going to happen. She had no idea of what awaited her among those mountains, but she had a strong and distinct impression that fate was leading her on to a final accounting.
Why De Launay should be inextricably entangled in that settlement she could not imagine but he was always there. Her recollections of him were those of disgust and contempt. To her he was merely a fallen, weak, dissipated man, criminally neglectful of opportunities, criminally indifferent to his obligations. She recalled him as he had stood in the cell of the jail, unkempt, shattered of nerve, and she shivered to think that he had been a man who was once considered great. The fact that she was bound to him, even though the affair was one purely of form, should have affected her as something degrading.
Peculiarly, however, it did not. Most of the time she never considered the marriage at all. When she did it was with a feeling of mingled security and comfort. It was convenient and, somehow, she felt that, in De Launay, she had the one husband who would not have been a nuisance or have endeavored to take advantage of the circumstances. The marriage being a matter of form, a divorce was inevitable and simple, yet, when she considered that matter of divorce, she felt a queer sort of reluctance and distaste, as though it were best to shove consideration of that point into the future as far as possible.
The gaunt, bare cañon thrilled her. She felt as though she were breaking into some mysterious, Bluebeard region where danger, adventure and intrigue awaited her. The mine, indeed, remained a mere vague possibility, hoped for but hardly expected. But her father’s slayer and the vengeance that she had nursed so long became realities. The rocks that blocked the way might hide him and, somewhere in those hills, rode De Launay, who would lead her to that evil beast who had blighted her life.
Again, why De Launay? She did not know, except that she felt that the drunken soldier held the key to the search. Probably he was to be the instrument of vengeance; the slayer of the criminal; the settler of the blood feud. He was hers by marriage, and in marrying her had wedded the vendetta. Besides, he was the type. A légionnaire, probably a criminal, and certainly one who had killed without compunction in his time. The instrument of Providence, in fact!
Ahead of her rode Sucatash, ahead of him the long string of laden pack horses and ahead of them the silent Dave. The two cow-punchers had jogged throughout the day with silent indifference to their surroundings, but after they had entered the foothills and were creeping into the shadow of the cañon they evinced more animation. Every now and then Solange observed that one or the other cast a glance up into the air and ahead of them, toward the interior of the range. She was riding closer to Sucatash who motioned toward the distant crest of the range which showed through the gap of the cañon.
She nodded. She was mountain born and bred and recognized the signs.
“There will be a storm, monsieur.”
Sucatash rewarded her with an admiring glance. “Afraid we’re headed into it,” he said. “Better turn back?”
“It will take more than storms to turn me back,” she answered.
Sucatash nodded and turned again to look at the sky turning gray and gradually blackening above the dim line of the ridge. Even as they watched it, the sky seemed to descend upon the crest and to melt it. The outlines became vague, broken up, changed.
“Snowing up there,” he said. “By’n by, it’ll be snowin’ down here. Snow ain’t so bad – but – ”
“But what?”
“She drifts into this here cañon pretty bad. There ain’t no road and down hereaways where these rocks make the goin’ hard at the best of times, the drifts sure stack up bad.”
“What is it that you mean, Monsieur Sucatash?”
“I mean that we ain’t goin’ to have no trouble gettin’ in, mad’mo’selle, but we may have a fierce time gettin’ out. In two days the drifts will be pilin’ up on the divide and the trail on the other side, and in a coupla days more they’ll be blockin’ the cañon down this a way.”
Solange shrugged her shoulders. “We have food,” she answered. “At any rate, I am going on. I have promised that I would meet Monsieur de Launay in this cañon. I cannot keep him waiting.”
Sucatash accepted her ultimatum without protest. But, after a momentary silence, he turned once more in his saddle.
“Say, mad’mo’selle,” he said, “this here De Launay, now; he’s sure enough your husband?”
“Of course.”
“But he ain’t noways a regular, honest-to-God husband, is he?”
“We are married,” said Solange. “Is that not enough?”
“I reckon so. Still, there’s Dave and me – we would sure admire to know how this feller stands with you.”
Solange looked at him, and he found difficulty, as usual, in concentrating on what she said or on anything but the fathomless eyes. Yet he comprehended that she was speaking, that she was smiling kindly, and yet that speech and smile were both destructive of his immature romance.
“He stands – not at all, monsieur, except as an instrument. But – that way – he and I are bound together forever.”
It was in her eyes that Sucatash read meaning. Somewhere in their depths he found a knowledge denied even to her, perhaps. He heaved a profound sigh and turned to yell at Dave.
“Get a wiggle on, old-timer! You an’ me are just hired hands on this pasear. Madame de Launay will be gettin’ hungry before we make camp.”
Dave swung quickly around, catching the slight emphasis on the strange name. Over the backs of the pack horses his and his companion’s eyes met. Then he turned back and jogged up the pace a trifle.
By five o’clock in the evening they had passed the worst stages of the journey and were well up into the cañon. But the storm was worse than they had thought. Already occasional snowflakes were drifting down, and the chill was beginning to bite even through the warm fleece that lined mademoiselle’s coat. The men decided to make camp.
They pitched Solange’s tent in a sheltered spot not far above the stream. They themselves slept in the open under heavy tarps. Sucatash sighed again when, during that evening, Solange showed that she was no helpless creature of civilization but could fully perform her part of any tasks that were to be done. She cooked over a camp fire as though she had been born to it, and the food was better in consequence.
But Sucatash was uneasy. In the morning he consulted Dave and that young man shared his fears.
“It ain’t goin’ to be bad for several days,” he said. “But when she drifts in earnest we all are liable to be stuck in here until spring. I ain’t aimin’ to get anxious, Dave, but we ain’t fixed to buck snow.”
“She ain’t goin’ to turn back, so what can we do?” asked the other.
“This here De Launay will probably be up near the crater. Once we get her up there we ain’t responsible. But there ain’t no telling how soon the snow’ll drift. I’m thinkin’ one of us ought to mosey back to the ranch and bring in webs and dogs.”
“He’d better get a-going, then,” said Dave.
“You’d better stay with the lady and take her on. I hate to leave her alone with a feller like you, but I reckon she’ll meet up with her husband by night and he can settle you if necessary. I’ll pull my freight out o’ here and git the snowshoes and a dog sled and team. We’ll maybe need a heap more grub than we’ve got if we hole up here too long.”
“You’re shoutin’,” agreed Dave.
Mademoiselle, when the plan was broached to her, made no objection. She was constitutionally fearless where men were concerned, and the departure of Sucatash did not in the least alarm her. She also recognized the wisdom of taking precautions against their being snowed in.
Thus the party broke up in the morning. Sucatash, before departing, took his rifle and a full belt of ammunition and fastened it to the girl’s saddle.
“If Dave gets gay,” he said, with a grin, “just bust him where he looks biggest with this here 30-30.”
After assisting in packing the horses, he mounted and rode down the cañon while Solange and Dave resumed their journey in the opposite direction.
Sucatash, as soon as he had passed out of sight, quartered up the side of the cañon where sheep trails promised somewhat easier going than the irregular floor of the gulch. Thus he was enabled to get an occasional glimpse of them by looking backward whenever favorable ground exposed the valley. But he was soon past all hope of further vision, and when the distraction was removed settled down to make the best speed on his journey.
He gave no heed to anything but the route ahead of him and that was soon a task that engrossed him. It had been snowing some all night, and it was now slithering down in great flakes which made the air a gray mystery and the ground a vague and shadowy puzzle. Sucatash did not care to linger. Without the girl to care for he was one who would take chances, and he rushed his horse rapidly, slogging steadily along the trails, without attention to anything but the ribbon of beaten path immediately ahead of him.
There was every reason to believe that the hills were empty of all humankind except for their own party and De Launay, who was ahead and not behind them. Sucatash was entirely ignorant of the fact that, among the rocky terraces of the cañon, Jim Banker camped, after having followed their trail as long as the light would allow him to do so.
The prospector was up and on the move as soon as Sucatash. He and his burros were trudging along among the rocks, the old man muttering and talking to himself and shaking his head from side to side as one whose brain has been affected by years of solitude and unending search for gold. His eyes were never still, but swept the trail ahead of him or the slopes on either hand, back and forth, back and forth, restlessly and uneasily as though there were something here that he looked for and yet feared to see.
Far ahead of him and high on the slope he finally beheld Sucatash, riding alone and at a rapid trot along a sheep trail, his long, lean figure leaning forward, raised in his stirrups, and his hands on saddle horn. He was evidently riding in haste, for that gait and attitude on the part of a cow hand means that he is in a hurry and has a long way to go.
The prospector hurriedly unslung a field glass and focused it on Sucatash. When he was sure of the man and of his route he grinned evilly.
“One of ’em right into my hands,” he chuckled.
He then dismounted and ran to one of the burros. From the pack he dragged a roll of wire which he carried there for some purpose or other, probably for the construction of a short length of fence whenever he stopped long enough to make it desirable. He glanced up at the gray sky, noting the swirl of snowflakes which settled down like a cloud. A few moments ago they had almost ceased, enabling him to glimpse the rider at a distance and now they were providentially falling again. Luck was surely with him.
Above him, about fifty yards up the slope of the cañon wall, was a long bench, rather narrow and beaten flat by the passage of countless sheep. Under it the hill sloped sharply, almost precipitously. It was as though made to order for his purpose.
He mounted his horse and spurred it around and quartering up the hill even as Sucatash wound in and out among the swales and depressions of the cañon wall, now coming into dim view and now vanishing behind a bend. Banker had plenty of time.
He reached the bench and hurriedly dismounted, to run to a scrubby cedar growing almost on the edge of the ledge. Round this, at no more than six inches above the ground, he twisted an end of the wire. Then he ran with the other end across the bench and snubbed it around a scrub oak growing on the slope. The branches of the little tree were thick, and the tough, prickly leaves still hung to it in some quantity.
He dropped the wire and went out and led his horse back among the scrub oaks. He then stood up close to the tree, almost invisible against the tangled branches and dead leaves. In one hand he held the coil of wire snubbed about the roots of the scrub oak while the other was clutching the nose of his horse.
Finally out of the smother of snow Sucatash came driving, head bent and hat brim pulled down to avoid the snow. The road was easy enough and he thought of nothing but getting along with all the speed possible. He did not notice that his horse, when emerging onto the bench, broke its stride and threw up its head as though seeking something. Instead he sank his spurs and urged the beast on.
The horse broke into a lope on the level stretch in answer to the spur. They came sweeping down until opposite where the prospector crouched.
Banker released his hold on his horse’s nose and tightened the pull on the wire at the same time. His horse neighed.
Shrilly and loud, Sucatash’s mount answered. Head thrown high and turned to the side he half checked his stride at the call of his kind. Startled, Sucatash also threw up his head and turned.
Then the wire clutched the forelegs of the horse and, with a crash, he went down. Sucatash went with him, and, catlike, strove to throw himself from the saddle. Unfortunately, he leaped on the outer side where the ledge fell away steeply.
He freed himself from the plunging horse, but his head struck hard against the gnarled trunk of a juniper and, half stunned, his body slid over the edge and dropped.
Chuckling and mouthing, rubbing his hands together, Banker slunk from his ambush. He retrieved his wire and then looked at the horse kicking on the ground.
“No use lettin’ him go back to the ranch,” he said, slyly. Then he drew his six-shooter and shot the animal.
Leading his own horse he climbed carefully down the slope and worked his way to where the body must have fallen. But it took him some time to find it, as Sucatash had rolled far after striking the slope.
He came upon it at last wedged against a clump of greasewood. There was blood on the head and the sightless eyes stared up to the gray sky. Snowflakes fell steadily and melted against the white cheeks. The body lay awkwardly twisted.
“Dead!” chuckled Banker. “All of ’em die! Old Jim don’t die, though! Old Jim’ll find it! He’ll find the gold. French Pete hid it; Panamint hid it; this here Frog lady is hidin’ it. But old Jim’ll find it. Old Jim’ll find it after all of ’em’s dead. Dead! Dead! Dead!”
He burst out into shrill laughter, and his horse snorted and tried to pull away. He instantly broke off laughing to curse foully, mouthing obscenities and oaths as he jerked cruelly at the spade bit. The trembling horse squatted back and then stood with wildly rolling eyes.
Muttering, Jim stamped heavily down the hill, dragging the horse with him and leaving the still form to the mercies of the snow. The falling flakes were already filling up the trail that he left. In an hour or two there would be no sign of his presence.