CHAPTER IV

HEADS! I WIN!

De Launay turned and called the waiter, ordering cognac for himself and light wine for mademoiselle.

"You have rendered it necessary, mademoiselle," he explained.

Mademoiselle's astounding revelation and the metallic earnestness of murder in her voice alike took him aback. He saw that her sweet mouth was set in a cruel line and her cameo chin was firm as a rock. But her homicidal intentions had not affected him as sharply as the rest of it.

Mademoiselle took her wine and sipped it, but her mouth again relaxed to scornful contempt as she saw him toss off the fiery liquor. She was somewhat astonished at the effect her words had had on the man, but she gathered that he was now considering her bizarre proposal with real interest.

The alcohol temporarily enlivened De Launay.

"So," he said, "Avalon is at Twin Forks and I am to marry you in order that you may seek out an enemy and kill him. There was also word of a gold mine. And your father--d'Albret! I do not recall the name."

"My father," explained Solange, "went to America when I was a babe in arms. He was very poor--few of the Basques are rich--and he was in danger because of the smuggling. He worked for this Monsieur Brandon as a herder of sheep. He found a mine of gold--and he was killed when he was coming to tell about it."

"His Christian name?"

"Pedro--Pierre."

"H'm-m! That must have been French Pete. I remember him. He was more than a cut above the ordinary Basco." He spoke in English, again forgetting that mademoiselle spoke the language. She reminded him of it.

"You knew my father? But that is incredible!"

"The whole affair is incredible. No wonder you have the name of being a fairy! But I knew your father--slightly. I knew Ike Brandon. I know Twin Forks. If I had made up my mind to return to America, it is to that place that I would go."

It was mademoiselle's turn to be astonished.

"To Twin Forks?"

"To Ike Brandon's ranch, where your father worked. It must have been after my time that he was killed. I left there in nineteen hundred, and came to France shortly afterward. I was a cow hand--a cowboy--and we did not hold friendship with sheepmen. But I knew Ike Brandon and his granddaughter. Now, tell me about this mine and your father's death."

Mademoiselle d'Albret again had recourse to her hand bag, drawing from it a small fragment of rock, a crumpled and smashed piece of metal about the size of one's thumb nail and two pieces of paper. The latter seemed to be quite old, barely holding together along the lines where they had been creased. These she spread on the table. De Launay first picked up the rock and the bit of metal.

He was something of a geologist. France's soldiers are trained in many sciences. Turning over the tiny bit of mineral between his fingers, he readily recognized the bits of gold speckling its crumbling crystals.

If there was much ore of that quality where French Pete had found his mine, that mine would rank with the richest bonanzas of history.

The bit of metal also interested him. It had been washed but there were still oxydized spots which might have been made by blood. It was a soft-nosed bullet, probably of thirty caliber, which had mushroomed after striking something. His mouth was grim as he saw the jagged edges of metal. It had made a terrible wound in whatever flesh had stopped it.

He laid the two objects down and took the paper that mademoiselle handed to him. It seemed to be a piece torn from a paper sack, and on it was scrawled in painful characters a few words in some language utterly unknown to him.

"It is Basque," said mademoiselle, and translated: "'My love, I am a.s.sa.s.sinated! Farewell, and avenge me! There is much gold. The good Monsieur Brandon will----'"

It trailed off into a meaningless, trembling line.

The other was a letter written on ruled paper. The cramped, schoolboyish characters were those of a man unused to much composition and the words were the vernacular of the ranges.

"Dear madam," it began, "I take my pen in hand to write you something that I sure regrets a whole lot. Which I hope you all bears up under the blow like a game woman, which your late respected husband sure was game that a way. There ain't much I can say to break the news, ma'am, and I can't do nothing, being so far away, to show my sympathy. Your husband has done pa.s.sed over. He was killed by some ornery hound who bushwhacked him somewheres in the hills, and who must have been a b.l.o.o.d.y killer because Pete, your husband, sure didn't have no enemies, and there wasn't no one that had any reason to kill him. He was coming home from the Esmeraldas with his sheep which we was allowing to winter close to the ranch instead of in the desert to see if feeding them would pay and some murdering gunman done up and shot him with a thirty-thirty soft nose, which makes it worse. I'm sending the slug that done it.

"Pete was sure a true-hearted gent, ma'am, and we was all fond of him spite of his being a Basco. If we could have found the murderer we would sure have stretched him a plenty but there wasn't no clew.

"Pete had found a gold mine, ma'am, and the specimens he had in his war bags was plenty rich as per the sample I am sending you herewith.

He tried to tell me where it was but he was too weak when we found him. He said he wanted us to give you half of it if we found it and we sure would do that though it don't look like we got much chance because he couldn't tell where it was. The boys have been looking but they haven't found it yet. If they do you can gamble your last chip they will split it with you or else there will be some more funerals around hereaways. But it ain't likely they will find it, I got to tell you that so's you won't put your hopes on it and be disappointed.

"I am all broke up about Pete, and if there is anything I can do to help don't you hesitate to let me know. I was fond of Pete, ma'am, and so was my granddaughter, which he made things for her and she sure doted on him. He was a good hombre."

The letter was signed "I. Brandon."

De Launay mused a moment. "Is that all?" he asked finally.

"It is all," said mademoiselle. "But there is a mine, and, especially, there is the man who killed him."

De Launay looked at the date on the letter. It was October, 1900.

"After nineteen years," he reminded her, "the chances of finding either the mine or the man are very remote. Perhaps the mine has been found long ago."

"Monsieur," replied the girl, and her voice was again metallic and hard, "my mother received that letter. She put it away and treasured it. She hoped that I would grow up and marry a Basque, who would avenge her husband. She sent me to a convent so that I might be a good mate for a man. When she died she left me money for a _dot_. She had saved and she had inherited, and all was put aside for the man who should avenge her husband.

"But the war came before I was married, and afterward there was little chance that any Basque would take the quarrel on himself. It is too easy for the men to marry now that they are so scarce, and it is very difficult for one like me to find a husband. Besides, I have lived in the world, monsieur, and, like many others, I do not like to marry as though that were all that a woman might do. I do not see why I cannot go to America, find this mine and kill this man. The money that was to be my portion will serve to take me there and pay those who will a.s.sist me."

"You desire to find the mine--or to kill the man?"

"Both. I do not like to be poor. It is an evil thing, these days, to be a poor woman in France. Therefore I wish to find the mine and be rich, for, if I cannot marry, wealth will at least make life pleasant for me. But I wish to find that man, more than the mine."

"And if I marry you, I will be deputized to do the butchery?"

"Monsieur mistakes me," Solange spoke scornfully. "I can do my own avenging. Monsieur need not alarm himself."

De Launay smiled. "I don't think I'm alarmed. In fact, I am not sure I wouldn't be willing to do it. Still, this vendetta seems to be rather old for any great amount of feeling on your part. How old were you when your father was killed?"

"Two years."

De Launay laughed again, but choked it off when he noted the angry stiffening of mademoiselle's figure. Somehow, her veiled countenance was impressive of lingering, bitter emotions. She was a Basque, and that was a primitive race. She was probably bold enough and hardy enough to fulfill her mission. She had plenty of courage and self-reliance, as he knew.

"The adventure appeals," he told her, soberly enough, though the fumes of cognac were mounting again in his brain. "I am impelled to consider it, though the element of chance seems remote. It is rather a certainty that you will fail. But what is my exact part in the adventure?"

"That rests with you. For my part, all I require is that you secure for me the right to go to America. I can take care of myself after that."

"And leave me still married?"

"The marriage can be annulled as soon as you please after we arrive."

"I am afraid it will hardly be as easy as that. To be sure, in the State of Nevada, where you are going, it should be easy enough, but even there it cannot be accomplished all at once. In New York it will be difficult. And how would I know that you had freed me if you left me behind?"

"If it pleases you you may go with me." He caught the note of scorn again. In fact, the girl was evidently feeling a strain at having to negotiate with him at all. She was proud, as he guessed, and the only reason she had even considered such an unusual bargain was her contempt for him. He was one who, when he might have remained respected and useful, had deliberately thrown away his chances to become a sot and vagabond.

"But you will understand that this marriage is--not a real marriage.

It gives you no right over me. If you so much as dare once to presume----" She was flaming with earnest threat, and he could well imagine that, if he ventured a familiarity, she would knife him as quickly as look at him.