Instead of a fairy maiden, sweet and demure, a grown-up child as he had vaguely pictured her, he had found a brazen, painted, slangy, gum-chewing flapper, a modern of moderns such as would have broken old Ike Brandon's heart--as it doubtless had. The last of the old-timers were a bootlegging bartender and a half-crazy and wholly vicious prospector.

Writhing under the sting of futility and disappointment, even the rotten poison served by Johnny the Greek appealed to him. His old neurosis, almost forgotten in the half-tolerant, half-amused interest in Mademoiselle d'Albret's adventure which had occupied his activities during the past weeks, revived with redoubled force. Sick, shaken, and disgusted, he strode through the pool room and, with deliberation masking his avid desire for forgetfulness, climbed the stairs to the hidden oasis presided over by his old enemy, Snake Murphy.

CHAPTER VIII

GETTING DOWN TO BUSINESS

Mademoiselle was having a series of enlivening shocks. First came Wilding, with Miss Pettis. He was received by Solange in the mezzanine gallery of the hotel and she learned, for the first time, that De Launay was sending her a lawyer to transact her business for her. This made her angry, his a.s.suming that she needed a lawyer, or, even if she did, that he could provide her with one. However, as she needed a divorce from her incubus, and Wilding practiced also in the Nevada courts, she thought better of her first impulse to haughtily dismiss him. As for Wilding, he began to conclude that he had gone crazy or else had encountered a set of escaped lunatics when he beheld Solange, slender and straightly tailored, but with hair hidden under a close-fitting little turban and face masked by a fold of netting.

Marian Pettis was another shock. The extraordinary De Launay, whom she had supposed lost in some gutter, and without whose aid she had been puzzled how to proceed on her quest, was evidently very much on the job. Here was a starting point, at least.

Although, behind her mask, her face registered disapproval of the girl, she welcomed her as cordially as possible. In her sweet, bell voice, she murmured an expression of concern for her grandfather and, when Marian bluntly said, "He's dead," she endeavored to convey her sorrow. To which Miss Pettis, staring at her with hard, bold eyes, as at some puzzling freak, made no reply, being engaged in uneasily wondering what "graft" the Frenchwoman was "on." Marian disliked being reminded of her grandfather's demise, having been largely responsible for it when she had run away with a plausible stranger who had a.s.sured her that she had only to present herself at Hollywood to become instantly famous as a moving-picture star, a promise that had sadly miscarried.

"But it was not so much of your grandfather as of my father that I wished to see you," mademoiselle explained, ignoring Marian's lack of response. "As for Monsieur Wilding, it is later I will require his services, though it may be that he can aid me not only in procuring a divorce from this husband, but in another matter also, Miss Pettis, and perhaps, Monsieur Wilding, you know how my father was murdered?"

Wilding shook his head but Marian nodded at once.

"Gee, yes!" she said. "I was a kid when he was croaked, but I remember it all right. There was a guy they called Louisiana, and he was one of those old-time gunmen, but at that he was some kid believe me! He took a shot at a fellow here in Sulphur Falls--that was before there was any town here at all--and they was givin' him the gate outa the neighborhood. Going to lynch him if they caught him, I guess. I don't remember much of it except how this guy looks, but I've heard the old man tell about it.

"He come ridin' out to our place all dressed up like a movie cow-puncher and you'd never have dreamed there was a mob about three jumps behind him. He sets in with us and takes a great shine to me. I was quite a doll in those days they tell me." She tossed her head as much as to say that she was still able to qualify for the description.

"Believe me, he was a regular swell, and you'd never in the world a thought he was what he turned out to be. Delaney, his name was, or something like that. Well, he plays with me and when he goes away I cried and wanted him to stay. I remember it just as vivid! He had on these chaps--leather pants, you know--and a Stetson slanting on his head, and a fancy silk neckerchief which he made into comical dolls and things. Oh! he sure made a hit with Marian!

"He swore he was comin' back, like young Lochinvar, and marry me some day, and I was all tickled to think he would do it.

"Then, would you believe it, the murdering villain rides away about half an hour before the mob comes and goes south toward the mountains.

Next day or so, we pick up your father, shot something terrible, and this awful 'Louisiana' Delaney had done it, in cold blood and just to be killing something."

"Ah!" Mademoiselle stiffened and quivered. Her voice was like bra.s.s.

"In cold blood, you say? Then he had no provocation? He was not an enemy of my father?"

"Naw. Your father didn't have no enemies. So far as I know, this Louisiana didn't even know him. He was a cattleman and they hated the sheepmen, you know, and used to fight them. Then, he was one of these gunmen, always shooting some one, and they used to be terrible. They'd kill some one just for the fun of it--to sort of keep in practice."

Mademoiselle shuddered, envisioning some bloodthirsty, evil thing, unspeakably depraved. But it was momentary. She spoke again in her metallic voice.

"That is well to know. I will look for this Louisiana."

"You ain't likely to find him. He never was seen or heard of around here no more. I've heard granddad call him 'the last of the gunmen,'

because the country was settling up and getting civilized then. One thing sure, he never made good on that Lochinvar sketch, I can promise you."

"It is no matter. He will come back--or I will follow him. It is of another matter I would talk. There was something of a mine that my father had found."

"I've heard of that," said Wilding. "It's quite a legend around here.

The Lunch Rock mine, they call it, and Jim Banker, the prospector, looks for it every year."

"But he ain't found it----"

A bell boy pa.s.sed, singing out: "Call for Mad'mo'selle Dalbray! Call fer Mad'mo'selle Dalbray!" Mademoiselle rose and beckoned to him.

"Three men in the lobby wish to see yuh, miss!" the boy told her.

"Said Mr. Delonny sent 'em."

"Monsieur de Launay! What next? Well, show them up here."

A few moments later Sucatash and Dave Mackay stalked on their high heels up the stairs and into the alcove of the mezzanine balcony, holding their broad hats in their hands. Sucatash gulped as mademoiselle's slender figure confronted him, and Dave's mouth fell open.

Behind them lurched another man, slinking in the background.

"What is it, messieurs?" asked Solange, her voice once more clear and sweet. The cow-punchers blushed in unison.

"This here Mr. Delonny done sent us here to see you, ma'am. He allows you-all wants a couple of hands for this trip you're takin' into the Esmeraldas. He likewise instigates us to corral this here horned toad, Banker, who's a prospector, because he says you'll want to see him about some mine or other, and, Banker, he don't know nothing about nothing but lookin' for mines: which he ain't never found a whole lot, I reckon, none whatever."

Solange smiled and her smile, even with veiled face, was something to put these bashful range riders at their ease. Both of them felt warmed to their hearts.

"I am very glad to see you," she said. "It is true that I require help, and I shall be glad of yours. It is kind of you to enter my employ."

Dave uttered a protest. "Don't you mention it, mad'moiselle. Sucatash and me was both in France and, while we can't give that there country any rank ahead of the U. S. A., we hands it to her frank, that any time we can do anything fer a mad'moiselle, we does it p.r.o.nto! We're yours, ma'am, hide, hair an' hoofs!"

"Which we sure are," agreed Sucatash, not to be outdone. "That's whatever!"

"And here is this minin' sharp," said Dave, turning about and reaching for the shrinking Banker. "Come here, Jim, and say howdy, if you ain't herded with burros so long you've forgotten human amenities that a way. Mad'mo'selle wants to talk to you."

Banker emerged from behind them. He, too, held his hat in hand, an incredibly stained and battered felt atrocity. His seamed face was nut brown under constant exposure to the sun. His garments were faded nondescripts, and on his feet were thick-soled, high-lacing boots. He gave an impression of dry dinginess, like rawhide, and his eyes were mean and shifty. He might have been fifty or he might have been older; one could not tell.

Mademoiselle was uncertain. She hardly knew enough to question this queer specimen, and so she turned to Marian Pettis.

"Miss Pettis, can you explain to him? I can hardly tell him what we wish to know. And, if the mine is found, half of it will be yours, you know."

"Mine! Lord sakes, I ain't counting on it. You gotta fat chance to find it. This bird, here, has been searchin' for it ever since the year one and he ain't found it. Say, Banker, this is Mad'mo'selle Dalbray. She's the daughter of that French Pete that was killed----"

"Hey?" said Banker, sharply.

"Ah, you know the yarn. You been huntin' his mine since Lord knows when. This lady is lookin' for it and she wants some dope on how to go about findin' it."

"An she expects me to tell her?" cried Banker, in a falsetto whine.

"Yuh reckon if I knowed where it was I wouldn't have staked it long ago? I don't know nothin' about it."

"Well, you know the Esmeraldas, old Stingin' Lizard," growled Sucatash. "You can tell her what to do about gettin' there."

"I can't tell her nothin' no more than you can," said Banker. "She's got Ike Brandon's letters, ain't she? He told her where it was, didn't he? What's she comin' to me fer? I don't know nothin'."

"Were you here when my father was killed?" Solange asked, kindly. She felt sorry for the old fellow.

"Hey! What's that? Was I here? No'm, I wasn't here! I was--I reckon I was over south of the range, out on the desert. I don't know nothin'

about the killin'."