Louisiana Lou

  CHAPTER XIII

  AT WALLACE'S RANCH

  The efficient Sucatash reported back to Solange the details of DeLaunay's escape, making them characteristically brief and colorful.Then, with the effective aid of MacKay, he set out to prepare for theexpedition in search of the mine.

  Neither Sucatash nor Dave actually had any real conviction thatSolange would venture into the Esmeraldas at this time of year to lookfor a mine whose very existence they doubted as being legendary. Yetneither tried to dissuade her from the rash adventure--as yet. In thisattitude they were each governed by like feelings. Both of them werecurious and sentimental. Each secretly wondered what the slender,rather silent young woman looked like, and each was beginning toimagine that the veil hid some extreme loveliness. Each felt himselfhandicapped in the unwonted atmosphere of the town and each imaginedthat, once he got on his own preserves, he would show to much betteradvantage in her eyes.

  Sucatash was quite confident that, once they got Solange at hisfather's ranch, they would be able to persuade her to stay there forthe winter. Dave also had about the same idea. Each reasoned that, inan indeterminate stay at the ranch, she would certainly, in time, showher countenance. Neither of them figured De Launay as anything butsome assistant, more or less familiar with the West, whom she hadengaged and who had been automatically eliminated by virtue of hislatest escapade.

  Solange, however, developed a disposition to arrange her own fate. Shesmiled politely when the young men gave awkward advice as to hercostuming and equipment, but paid little heed to it. She allowed themto select the small portion of her camping outfit that they thoughtnecessary at this stage, and to arrange for a car to take it and themto Wallace's ranch. They took their saddles in the car and sent theirhorses out by such chance riders as happened to be going that way.

  The journey to Wallace's ranch was uneventful except for a stop at theformer Brandon ranch at Twin Forks, where Solange met the Bascoproprietors, and gave her cow-puncher henchmen further cause forwonder by conversing fluently with them in a language which bore noresemblance to any they had ever heard before. They noted an unusualdeference which the shy mountaineers extended toward her.

  There was a pause of some time while Solange visited the almostobliterated mound marking the grave of her father. But she did notpray over it or manifest any great emotion. She simply stood therefor some time, lost in thought, or else mentally renewing her vow ofvengeance on his murderer. Then, after discovering that the sheepmenknew nothing of consequence concerning these long-past events, shecame quietly back to the car and they resumed the journey.

  Finally they passed a camp fire set back from the road at somedistance and the cow-punchers pointed out the figure of Bankercrouched above it, apparently oblivious of them.

  "What you all reckon that old horned toad is a-doin' here?" queriedDave, from the front seat. "Dry camp, and him only three mile from thehouse and not more'n five from the Spring."

  "Dunno," replied Sucatash. "Him bein' a prospector, that a way, mostlikely he ain't got the necessary sense to camp where a white mannaturally would bog down."

  "But any one would know enough to camp near water," said Solange,surprised.

  "Yes'm," agreed Sucatash, solemnly. "Any one would! But themprospectors ain't human, that a way. They lives in the deserts so muchthey gets kind of wild and flighty, ma'am. Water is so scarce thatthey gets to regardin' it as somethin' onnatural and dangerous. More'nenough of it to give 'em a drink or two and water the Jennies acts on'em all same like it does on a hydrophoby skunk. They foams at themouth and goes mad."

  "With hydrophobia?" exclaimed the unsophisticated Solange.

  "Yes'm," said Sucatash. "Especially if it's deep enough to cover theirfeet. Yuh see, ma'am, they gets in mortal terror that, if they nearsenough water to wet 'em all over, some one will rack in and justforcibly afflict 'em with a bath--which 'ud sure drive one of 'emplumb loco."

  "I knows one o' them desert rats," said Dave, reminiscently, "whatboasts a plenty about the health he enjoys. Which he sure allows he'slived to a ripe old age--and he _was_ ripe, all right. This herevenerableness, he declares a whole lot, is solely and absolutely dueto the ondisputable fact that he ain't never bathed in forty-twoyears. And we proves him right, at that."

  "What!" cried the horrified Solange. "That his health was due to hisuncleanliness? But that is absurd!"

  "Which it would seem so, ma'am, but there ain't no gettin' round theproof. We all doubts it, just like you do. So we ups and hog ties theold natural, picks him up with a pair of tongs and dips him in thecrick. Which he simply lets out one bloodcurdlin' yell of despair andpasses out immediate."

  "_Mon Dieu!_" said Solange, fervently. "_Quels farceurs!_"

  "Yes'm," they agreed, politely.

  Then Solange laughed and they broke into sympathetic grins, even thesolemn Sucatash showing his teeth in enjoyment as he heard hertinkling mirth with its bell-like note.

  Then they forgot the squatting figure by its camp fire and drove on tothe ranch.

  This turned out to be a straggling adobe house, shaded by cottonwoodsand built around three sides of a square. It was roomy, cool, andcomfortable, with a picturesqueness all its own. To Solange, it wasinviting and homelike, much more so than the rather cold luxury ofhotels and Pullman staterooms. And this feeling of homeliness wasenhanced when she was smilingly and cordially welcomed by a big,gray-bearded, bronzed man and a white-haired, motherly woman, theparents of young Sucatash.

  The self-contained, self-reliant young woman almost broke down whenMrs. Wallace took her in charge and hurried her to her room. Theyseemed to know all about her and to take her arrival as an ordinaryoccurrence and a very welcome one. Sucatash, of course, wasresponsible for their knowledge, having telephoned them before theyhad started.

  Before Solange reappeared ready for supper, Sucatash and Dave hadexplained all that they knew of the affair to Wallace. He was muchinterested but very dubious about it all.

  "Of course, she'll not be going into the mountains at this time o'year," he declared. "It ain't more than a week before the snow's boundto fly, and the Esmeraldas ain't no place for girls in the wintertime. I reckon that feller you-all helped get out o' jail and that Iplanted hosses for won't more than make it across the range before theroad's closed. I hope it wasn't nothin' serious he was in for, son."

  "Nothin' but too much hooch an' rumplin' up a couple of cops," saidhis son, casually. "Not that I wouldn't have helped so long as he wasin fer anything less than murder. The mad'mo'selle wanted him out, yuhsee."

  "S'pose she naturally felt responsible fer him, that a way," agreedWallace. "Reckon she's well rid o' him, though. Don't sound like thesort o' man yuh'd want a young girl travelin round with. What was helike?"

  "Tall, good-lookin', foreign-appearin' hombre. Talked pretty goodrange language though, and he sure could fork a hoss. Seemed to have agnawin' ambition to coil around all the bootleg liquor there is,though. Outside o' that, he was all right."

  "De Launay? French name, I reckon."

  "Yeah, I reckon he'd been a soldier in the French army. Got the idea,somehow."

  "Well, he's gone--and I reckon it's as well. He won't be botherin' thelittle lady no more. What does she wear a veil for? Been marked any?"

  Sucatash was troubled. "Don't know, pop. Never seen her face. Oughtto be a sure-enough chiquita, if it's up to the rest of her. D'jeverhear a purtier voice?"

  The old man caught the note of enthusiasm. "Yuh better go slow, son,"he said, dryly. "I reckon she's all right--but yuh don't really knownothin'."

  "Shucks!" retorted his son, calmly. "I don't have to know nothin'. Shecan run an iron on me any time she wants to. I'm lassoed, thrown an'tied, a'ready."

  "Which yuh finds me hornin' in before she makes any selection, yuhmottled-topped son of a gun!" Dave warmly put in. "I let's that ladyfrom France conceal her face, her past and any crimes she may havecommitted, is committin' or be goin' to commit, and I hereby declaresmyself for her forty ways fr
om the Jack, fer anything from matrimonyto murder."

  "Shucks," said the old man, "you-all are mighty young."

  "Pop," declared the Wallace heir, solemnly, "this here French lady isclean strain and grades high. Me and Dave may be young, but we ain'tmaking no mistake about her. She has hired herself a couple of hands,I'm telling you."

  Solange appeared at this moment, coming in with Mrs. Wallace, who wassmiling in an evident agreement with her son. Mr. Wallace, whileinclined to reserve judgment, had all the chivalry of his kind andstepped forward to greet her. But he paused a little uncertainly ashe noticed that she had removed her veil. For a moment he looked ather in some astonishment, her unusual coloring affecting him as it didall those who observed it for the first time. The first glanceresulted in startlement and the feeling that there was somethinguncanny about her, but as the deep eyes met his own and the prettymouth smiled at him from beneath the glinting pale halo of her hair,he drew his breath in a long sigh of appreciation and admiration. Hiswife, looking at him with some deprecation, as though fearing anadverse judgment, smiled as his evident conquest became apparent.Standing near him the two boys stared and stared, something like awein their ingenuous faces.

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

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

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