Louisiana Lou Part 33

"You are Monsieur Banker!" she a.s.serted, tonelessly. "You need not be frightened. I have not come to ask you for an accounting--yet. It is for another purpose that I am here."

"Sh.o.r.e! Anything I kin do fer old Pete's gal--all yuh got to do is ask me, honey! Old Jim Banker; that's me! White an' tender an' faithful to a friend, is Jim Banker, ma'am. Set down, now, and have a nip!"

He rose and waved awkwardly to his log. One of the others, with a grin that was almost a leer, also rose and reached for another log at a neighboring table from which a man had risen. All about that end of the shack, the seated or standing men, mostly of the silent and aloof groups, drifted casually aside, leaving the table free.

Solange sat down and Sucatash put out a hand to restrain her.

"Mad'mo'selle!" he remonstrated. "This ain't no place fer yuh! Yuh don't want to hang around here with this old natural! He's plum poisonous, I'm tellin' yuh!"

Solange made an impatient gesture. "Some one quiet him!" she exclaimed. "Am I not my own mistress, then!"

"Yuh better be keerful what yuh call me, young feller," said Banker, belligerently. "Yuh can't rack into this here camp and get insultin'

that a way."

"Aw, shut up!" retorted Sucatash, flaming. "Think yuh can bluff me when I'm a-facin' yuh? Yuh d.a.m.n', cowardly horned toad!"

He half drew back his fist to strike as Banker rose, fumbling at his gun. But one of the other men suddenly struck out, with a fist like a ham, landing beneath the cow-puncher's ear. He went down without a groan, completely knocked out.

The man got up, seized him by the legs, dragged him to the door and threw him into the road outside. Then he came back, laughing loudly, and swaggering as though his feat had been one to be proud of. Solange had shuddered and shrunk for a moment, but almost at once she shook herself as though casting off her repulsion and after that was stonily composed.

On his way to the table the man who had struck Sucatash down, called loudly for another bottle of liquor, and one of the red-shirted men behind the bar left his place to bring it to them.

The burly bruiser sat down beside Solange with every appearance of self-satisfaction. He leered at her as though expecting her to flame at his prowess. But she gave no heed to him.

"Yuh might lift up that hat and let us git a look at yuh," he said, reaching out as though to tilt the brim. She jerked sharply away from him.

"In good time, monsieur," she said. "Have patience."

Then she turned to Banker, who had been eying her with furtive, speculative eyes, cautious and suspicious.

"Monsieur Banker," she said, "it is true that you have known this man who killed my father--this Louisiana?"

"Me! Sh.o.r.e, I knowed him. A murderin' gunman he was, ma'am. A bad hombre!"

"And did you recognize him that time he came--when you played that little--joke--upon me?"

Banker turned sallow once more, as though the recollection frightened him.

"I sh.o.r.e did," he a.s.sented fervently. "He plumb give me a start.

Thought he was a ghost, that a way, you----"

He leaned forward, grinning, his latent lunacy showing for a moment in his red eyes. Confidentially, he unburdened himself to his companions.

"This lady--you'll see--she's a kind o' witch like. This here feller racks in, me thinkin' him dead these many years, an' I misses him clean when I tries to down him. I sh.o.r.e thinks he's a ha'nt, called up by the lady. Haw, haw!"

His laughter was evil, chuckling and cunning. It was followed by cackling boasts:

"But they all dies--all but old Jim. Louisiana, he dies too, even if I misses him that a way with old Betsy that ain't missed nary a one fer nigh twenty year."

Under her hat brim Solange's eyes gleamed with a fierce light as the bloodthirsty old lunatic sputtered and mouthed. But the other two grinned derisively at each other and leered at the girl.

"Talks like that all the time, miss," said one. "Them old-timers likes to git off the Deadwood d.i.c.k stuff. Me, I'm nothin' but a p'fessional pug and all the gun fightin' I ever seen was in little old Chi. But I ain't a d.a.m.n' bit afraid to say I could lick a half dozen of these here hicks that used to have a reputation in these parts. Fairy tales; that's wot they are!"

He swigged his drink and sucked in his breath with vast self-satisfaction. The other man, of a leaner, quieter, but just as villainous a type, grinned at him.

"Oh, I don't know," he said. "I ain't never seen no one could juggle a six-gun like they say these birds could do, but I reckon there's some truth in it. Leastways, there are some that can shoot pretty good."

He, too, leaned back, with an air of self-satisfaction. Banker chuckled again.

"You're both good ones," he said. "This gent can shoot some, ma'am. He comes from Arkansas. But I ain't a-worryin' none about that. Old Jim's luck's still holdin' good. I found this here mine, now, although you wouldn't tell me where it was. Didn't I?"

"I suppose so," said Solange indifferently. "I do not care about the mine, monsieur. It is yours. But there is something that I wish and--I have money----"

The instant light of greed that answered this announcement convinced her that she had struck the right note. If the mine had been as rich as Golconda these men would have coveted additional money.

"You got money, ma'am?" Banker spoke whiningly.

"Money to pay for your service. You are brave men; men who would help a woman, I feel sure. You, Monsieur Banker, knew my father and would help his daughter--if she paid you."

The irony escaped him.

"I sure would," he answered, eagerly. "What's it you want, ma'am, and what you goin' to pay fer it?"

She spoke quite calmly, almost casually.

"I want you to kill a man," she answered.

The three of them stared at her and then the big bruiser laughed.

"Who d'you want scragged?" he said, derisively.

Solange looked steadily at Banker. "Louisiana!" she answered, clearly.

But old Jim turned pale and showed his rat's teeth.

The others merely chuckled and nudged each other.

Solange sensed that two considered her request merely a wild joke while the other was afraid. She slowly drew from her bag the yellow poster that De Launay had sent back to her by Sucatash.

"You would be within the law," she pleaded, spreading it out before them. As they bent over it, reading it slowly: "See. He is a fugitive with a price on his head. Any one may slay him and collect a reward.

It is a good deed to shoot him down."

"Five hundred dollars looks good," said the lean man from Arkansas, "but it ain't hardly enough to set me gunnin' for a feller I don't know. Is this a pretty bad actor?"

"Bad?" screamed Banker, suddenly. "Bad! I've seen him keep a chip in the air fer two or three seconds shootin' under it with a six-shooter!

I've seen him roll a bottle along the ground as if you was a-kickin'

it, shootin' between it and the ground and never chippin' the gla.s.s.

Bad! You ask Snake Murphy if he's bad. Snake was drunk an' starts a fuss with him an' his hand was still on his gun b.u.t.t an' the gun in the holster when Louisiana shoots him in the wrist an' never looks at him while he's a-doin' it! Bad! I'll say he's bad!"