Louisiana Lou.

by William West Winter.

PROLOGUE

The sun was westering over Ike Brandon's ranch at Twin Forks. It was the first year of a new century when the old order was giving place to the new. Yet there was little to show the change that had already begun to take place in the old West. The desert still stretched away drearily to the south where it ended against the faint, dim line of the Esmeralda Mountains. To the north it stretched again, unpopulated and unmarked until it merged into prairie gra.s.s and again into mountains. To west and east it stretched, brown and dusty. To the south was the State of Nevada and to the north the State of Idaho. But it was all alike; bare, brown rolling plain, with naught of greenness except at the ranch where the creek watered the fields and, stretching back to the north, the thread of bushy willows and cottonwoods that lined it from its source in the mountains.

Ike Brandon was, himself, a sign of change and of new conditions, though he did not know it. A sheepman, grazing large herds of woolly pests in a country which, until recently, had been the habitat of cattlemen exclusively, he was a symbol of conquest. He remembered the petty warfare that had marked the coming of his kind, a warfare that he had survived and which had ended in a sort of sullen tolerance of his presence. A few years ago he had gone armed with rifle and pistol, and his herders had been weaponed against attack. Now he strode his acres unafraid and unthreatened, and his employees carried rifle or six-shooter only for protection against prowling coyotes or "loafer"

wolves. Although the cow hands of his erstwhile enemies still belted themselves with death, they no longer made war. The sheep had come to stay.

The worst that he and his had to expect was a certain coldness toward himself on the part of the cattle aristocracy, and a measure of contempt and dislike toward his "Basco" herders on the part of the rough-riding and gentle-speaking cow hands.

These things troubled him little. He had no near neighbors. To the north, across the Idaho border, there was none nearer than Sulphur Falls, where the Serpentine, rushing tumultuously from the mountains, twisted in its canyon bed and squirmed away to westward and northward after making a gigantic loop that took it almost to the Line. To the south, a ranch at Willow Spring, where a stubborn cattleman hung on in spite of growing barrenness due to the hated sheep, was forty miles away. To east and west was no one within calling distance.

At Sulphur Falls were two or three "nesters," irrigating land from the river, a store or two and a road house run by an unsavory holdover of the old days named "Snake" Murphy. For a hundred and twenty-five miles to southward was unbroken land. The cattle were mostly gone--though in days to come they were to return again in some measure. Even the Esmeralda Mountains were no longer roamed by populous herds. They were bare and forbidding, except where the timber was heavy, for the sheep of Brandon and others, rushing in behind the melting snow in the spring, had cropped the tender young gra.s.s before it had a chance to grow strong.

Brandon's ranch was an idyllic spot, however. His dead wife and, after her, her daughter, also dead, had given it the touch of feminine hands. Vines and creepers half hid the dingy house behind a festoon of green and blossoms. Around it the lush fields of clover were brilliant and cool in the expanse of brown sultriness. And here, Ike, now growing old, lived in content with his idolized granddaughter, Marian, who was about six years old.

Brandon, at peace with the world, awaited the return from the summer range of "French Pete," his herder, who was to bring in one of the largest flocks for an experiment in winter feeding at and in the vicinity of the ranch. The other flocks and herders would, as usual, feed down from the mountains out into the desert, where they would winter.

Little Marian hung on the swinging gate which opened onto the apology for a wagon road. She liked quaint French Pete and looked forward to his return with eagerness. Like her grandfather, he always spoiled her, slavishly submitting to her every whim because she reminded him of his own _p't.i.t bebe_, in his far-away, Pyrenean home. Marian was used to being spoiled. She was as beautiful as a flower and, already, a veritable tyrant over men.

But now she saw no sign of French Pete and, being too young for concentration, she let her glance rove to other points of the compa.s.s.

So she was first to become aware that a rider came from the north, the direction of Sulphur Falls, and she called her grandfather to come and see.

The horseman loped easily into sight through the brown dust that rose about him. His horse was slim and clean limbed and ran steadily, but Brandon noted that it was showing signs of a long journey made too fast. It was a good horse, but it would not go much farther at the pace it was keeping.

And then he frowned as he recognized the rider. It was a young man, or rather, boy, about nineteen or twenty years old, rather dandified after the cow-puncher fashion, sporting goatskin chaps and silver-mounted bridle and spurs, silk neckerchief, and flat-brimmed hat of the style now made common by the Boy Scouts. His shirt was flannel, and his heavy roping saddle studded with silver conchas. He was belted with heavy cartridges, and a holster strapped down to his leg showed the b.u.t.t of a six-shooter polished by constant handling.

"It's that d.a.m.ned Louisiana!" said Brandon, with disgust.

The rider trotted through the gate which he swung open and dropped to the ground before the little veranda. Marian had run back behind the vines whence she peered at him half curiously and half afraid. The young fellow, teetering on his high heels, reached for her and, smiling from pleasant eyes, swung her into the air and lifted her high, bringing her down to his face and kissing her.

"Howdy, little Lily Bud!" he said, in a voice which was a soft blend of accents, the slurred Southern, the drawled Southwestern, and something subtly foreign.

He was a handsome, slender, dashing figure, and Marian's gleeful echo to his laughter claimed him as her own. Even Ike Brandon relaxed and grinned. If the little lady of his heart adopted the stranger, Ike would put aside his prejudice. True, the man was that vanishing rarity, a reputed gunman, uncannily skilled with six-shooter and frowned on by a Western sentiment, new grown, for law and order, which had determined to have peace if it had to wage war to accomplish it.

After all, reflected Ike, the boy, though noted for skill and a certain arrogance which accompanied it, was not yet a killer. The younger element among the cowmen, reckless enough though it was, boasted no such skill as had been common with its fathers. They carried weapons, but they recognized their limitations and there were few of them who would care to test the skill that this young man was supposed to possess. He might, and probably would, go through life peaceably enough, though he was, potentially, as dangerous as a rattlesnake.

"I reckon you could eat," he remarked, and Louisiana agreed.

"I reckon I can," he said. "And my old hoss can wrastle a bag of oats, too. He's got a ride in front of him and he'd appreciate a chance to rest and limber up."

"You'll stay the night?"

"No, thanks, seh! An hour or two's all I can spare. Got business somewhere else."

Brandon did not urge nor show curiosity. That was not etiquette. But little Marian, taken with the new acquaintance, broke into a wail.

"I want you should stay while I show you my dolly that Pete made me!"

she cried, imperiously. Louisiana laughed and ruffled her curls.

"You show me while I eat," he said. Then he followed Ike into the cabin, debonair and apparently unconcerned. The little girl came too, and, as the Mexican servant set the table, the stranger talked and laughed with her, telling her stories which he made up as he went along, tying his neckerchief into strange shapes of dolls and animals for her, fascinating her with a ready charm that won, not only her, but Ike himself.

He had seen that his horse was fed, and, after he had eaten, he sat unconcerned on the veranda and played with the little girl who, by now, was fairly doting on him. But at last he rose to go and she voiced her sorrow by wails and commands to stay, which he sorrowfully defied.

"I've got to ramble, little Lily Bud," he told her as he led his resaddled and refreshed horse from the stable. "But don't you fret.

I'll come roamin' back hereaways some o' these days when you've done married you a prince."

"Don't want to marry a prince!" screamed Marian. "Don't want to marry no one but you-ou! You got to stay!"

"When I come back I sure will stay a whole lot, sweetheart. See here, now, you-all don't cry no more and when I come back I'll sure come a-ridin' like this Lochinvar sport and marry you-all a whole lot.

That's whatever! How'd you like that!"

"When will you come?" demanded Marian.

"Oh, right soon, honey! And you'll sure have a tame and dotin'

husband, I can tell you. But now, good-by!"

"You'll come back?"

"You're shoutin', I will! With a preacher and a license and all the trimmin's. We'll certainly have one all-whoopin' weddin' when I come rackin' in, Petty! Kiss me good-by, like a nice sweetheart and just dream once in a while of Louisiana, won't you?"

"I'll say your name in my prayers," she a.s.sured him, watching him doubtfully and hopefully as he wheeled his horse, striving to keep back the tears.

And then he was gone, riding at a mile-eating pace toward the south and the Esmeralda Mountains.

Two hours later a tired group of men and horses loped in and wanted to know where he had gone. They were on his trail for, it seemed, he had shot "Snake" Murphy in his own road house in a quarrel over some drab of the place who was known as Lizzie Lewis.

Ike was cautious. It was not a regularly deputized posse and the members were rather tough friends of Murphy. Between the two, he preferred Louisiana. He remembered how unconcernedly that young man had waited until he and his horse were fed and rested, though he must have known that Death was on his trail. And how he had laughed and petted Marian. There was good in the boy, he decided, though, now he had started on his career as a killer, his end would probably be tragic. Ike had no desire at any rate to hasten it.

Nor, as a matter of fact, had the posse. Their courage had cooled during the long ride from Sulphur Falls as the whisky had evaporated from their systems. They were by no means exceedingly anxious to catch up with and encounter what was reputed to be the fastest gun in southern Idaho.

"Whatever starts this hostile play?" asked Ike of the leader of the posse.

"This here Louisiana, I gather, gets in a mix-up with Snake," the officer explained rather languidly. "I ain't there and I don't know the rights of it myself. As near as I can figure it Lizzie takes a shine to him which he don't reciprocate none. There is some words between them and Liz sets up a holler to Snake about this hombre insultin' of her."

"Insultin' Lizzie Lewis?" said Ike, mildly surprised. "I'd sure admire to hear how he done it."

"Well, Liz is a female, nohow, and in any case Snake allows it's his play to horn in. Which he does with a derringer. He's just givin' it a preliminary wave or two and preparin' his war song according to Hoyle when Louisiana smokes him up a plenty."

"I reckon Snake starts it, then," remarked Ike.

"You might say so. But rightfully speakin' he don't never actually _get_ started, Snake don't. He is just informin' the a.s.sembly what his war plans are when Louisiana cracks down on him and busts his shootin'

arm. But this Louisiana has done frightened a lady a whole lot and that's as good an excuse to get him as any."

"Well," said Ike, dryly, "the gent went by here maybe two hours gone headin' south. He was goin' steady but he don't seem worried none as I noticed. If you want him right bad I reckon you can run him down. As for me I'm plumb neutral in this combat. I ain't lost no Louisiana."