"What do you wish?" she asked, angrily. Her head was reared, and in the dim light her eyes glowed as they caught reflections from the fire. She showed no fear.
"Just wants to talk to you about old times," whined Banker. "Old Jim wants to talk to Pete"s gal, ma"am."
"I heard a shot a while ago," said Solange sharply. "Where is Monsieur Dave?"
"I don"t know nothin" about Dave, ma"am. Reckon he"ll be back. Boys like him don"t leave purty gals alone long--less"n he"s got keerless and gone an" hurt hisself. Boys is keerless that a way and they don"t know the mount"ins like old Jim does. They goes and dies in "em, ma"am--but old Jim don"t die. He knows the mount"ins, he does! He, he!"
Solange took a step toward him. "What do you wish?" she repeated, sternly. Still, she did not fear him.
"Just to talk, ma"am. Just to talk about French Pete. Just to talk about gold. Old Jim"s been a-huntin" gold a many years, ma"am. And Pete, he found gold and I reckon he told his gal where the gold was.
He writ a paper before he died, they say, and I reckon he writ on that paper where the gold was, didn"t he?"
"No, he did not," said the girl, shortly and contemptuously.
"So you"d say; so you"d say, of course." He chuckled again. "There wasn"t no one could read that Basco writin". But he done writ it. Now, you tell old Jim what that writin" says, and then you and old Jim will find that gold."
Solange suddenly laughed, bitterly. "Tell you? Why yes, I"ll tell you.
It said----"
"Yes, ma"am! It said----"
He was slaveringly eager as he stepped toward her.
"It said--to my mother--that she should seek out the man who killed him and take vengeance on him!"
Jim reeled back, cringing and mouthing. "Said--said what? You"re lyin". It didn"t say it!"
"I have told you what it said. Now, stand aside and let me get into my tent!"
With supreme contempt, she walked up to him as though she would push him aside. It was a fatal mistake, though she nearly succeeded. The gibbering, cracked old fiend shrank, peering fearfully, away from her blazing eyes and the black halo, rimmed with flashing color, of her hair. For a moment it seemed that he would yield in terror and give her pa.s.sage.
But terror gave place suddenly to crazy rage. With an outburst of bloodcurdling curses, he flung himself upon her. She thought to avoid him, but he was as quick as a cat and as wiry and strong as a terrier.
Before she could leap aside, his claw-like hands were tangled in her coat and he was dragging her to him. She fought.
She struck him, kicked and twisted with all her splendid, lithe strength, but it was in vain. He clung like a leech, dragging her closer in spite of all she could do. She beat at his snarling face and the mouth out of which were whining things she fortunately did not understand. His yellow fangs were bare and saliva dripped from them.
Disgust and horror was overwhelming her. His iron arms were bending her backward. She tried again to tear free, stepped back, stumbled, went down with a crash. He sprang upon her, grunting and whistling, seized her hair and lifted her head, to send it crashing against the ground.
The world went black as she lost consciousness.
The prospector got to his feet, grumbling and cursing. He did not seem to feel the bruises left on his face by her competent hands. He stooped over her, felt her breast and found her heart beating.
"She ain"t goin" to die. She ain"t goin" to die yet. She"ll tell old Jim what"s writ on that paper. She"ll tell him where the gold is."
He left her lying there while he went to get his outfit. The packs were dragged off and flung to the ground, where saddle and rifle followed them. Then he went into the tent.
He pitched the rifle left by Sucatash out into the snow, kicked the girl"s saddle aside, dumped her bedding and her clothes on the floor, tore and fumbled among things that his foul hands should never have touched nor his evil eyes have seen. He made a fearful wreck of the place and, finally, came upon her hand bag, which, womanlike, she had clung to persistently, carrying it in her saddle pockets when she rode.
The small samples of ore he gloated over lovingly, mouthing and gibbering. But finally he abandoned them, reluctantly, and dug out the two notes.
Brandon"s letter he read hastily, chuckling over it as though it contained many a joke. But he was more interested in the other scrawl, whose strange words completely baffled him. He tried in vain to make out its meaning, turning it about, peering at it from all angles, like an evil old buzzard. Then he gave way to a fit of rage, whining curses and making to tear the thing into bits. But his sanity held sufficiently to prevent that.
Finally he folded the paper up and tucked it into a pocket. Then he gathered up the bedding, took it outside and roughly bundled the girl in it. She lay unconscious and dreadfully white, with the snow sifting steadily over her. Her condition had no effect on the old ruffian who callously let her lie, covering her only to prevent her freezing to death before he could extract the information he desired.
He finished her culinary tasks and glutted himself on the food, grunting and tearing at it like a wild animal. Then he dragged out his filthy bedding and rolled himself up in it, scorning the shelter of the tent, which stood wanly in the white, misty night.
It was morning when Solange recovered her senses. She awoke to a gray, chill world in which she alternately shivered and burned as fever clutched her. For many minutes she lay, swathed in blankets, dull to sensation, staring up at a leaden sky. The snow had ceased to fall.
Still unable to comprehend where she was or what had happened, she made a tentative attempt to move, only to wince as the pains, borne of her struggle and of lying on the bare ground, seized her. Stiff and sore, weakened, with head throbbing and stabbing, the whole horrible adventure came back to her. She tried to rise, but she was totally helpless and her least movement gave her excruciating pain. Her head covering had been laid aside before she had begun preparation of supper the night before, and her colorless and strangely brilliant hair, all tumbled and loose, lay around her head and over her shoulders in great waves and billows, tinged with blue and red lights against the snow. Her face, delicately flushed with fever, was wildly beautiful, and her eyes were burning with somber, terrible light deep in their depths.
It was this face that Jim Banker looked down upon as he came back from the creek, unkempt, dirty. It was these eyes he met as he stooped over her with his lunatic chuckle.
He winced backward as though she had struck him, and his face contorted with sudden panic. He cowered away from her and covered his own eyes.
"Don"t you look at me like that! I never done nothing!" he whined.
"Canaille!" said Solange. Her voice was a mere whisper but it fairly singed with scorn. Fearless, she stared at him and he could not meet her gaze.
His gusty mood changed and he began to curse her. She heard more foulness from him in the next five minutes than all the delirium of wounded soldiers during five years of war had produced for her. She saw a soul laid bare before her in all its unutterable vileness. Yet she did not flinch, nor did a single symptom of panic or fear cross her face.
Once, for a second, he ceased his mouthing, abruptly. His head went up and he bent an ear to the wind as though listening to something infinitely far away.
"Singin"!" he muttered, as though in awe. "Hear that! "Louisiana!
Louisiana Lou!""
Then he cackled. "Louisiana singin". I hear him. Louisiana--who killed French Pete. He, he!"
After a while he tired, subsiding into mutterings. He got breakfast, bringing to her some of the mess he cooked. She ate it, though it nauseated her, determining that she would endeavor to keep her strength for future struggles.
While she choked down the food the prospector sat near her, but not looking at her, and talked.
"You an" me"ll talk pretty, honey. Old Jim ain"t goin" to hurt you if you"re reasonable. Just tell old Jim what the writin" says and old Jim"ll be right nice to you. We"ll go an" find the gold, you and me.
You"ll tell old Jim, won"t you?"
His horrible pleading fell on stony ears, and he changed his tune.
"You ain"t a-goin" tell old Jim? Well, that"s too bad. Old Jim hates to do it, pretty, but old Jim"s got to know. If you won"t tell him, he"ll have to find out anyhow. Know how he"ll do it?"
She remained silent.
"It"s a trick the Injuns done taught old Jim. They uses it to make people holler when they don"t want to. They takes a little sliver of pine, jest a little tiny sliver, ma"am, and they sticks it in under the toe nails where it hurts. Then they lights it. They sticks more of "em under the finger nails and through the skin here an" there. Then they lights "em.
"Most generally it makes the fellers holler--and I reckon it"ll make you tell, ma"am. Old Jim has to know. You better tell old Jim."
She remained stubbornly and scornfully silent.
The prospector shook his head as though sorrowful over her pertinacity. Then he got up and got a piece of wood, a stick of pitch pine, which he began to whittle carefully into fine slivers. These he collected carefully into a bundle while the helpless girl watched him.
Finally he came to her and pulled the blankets from her. He stooped and unlaced her boots, pulling them off. One woolen stocking was jerked roughly from a foot as delicate as a babe"s. She tried to kick, feebly and ineffectively. Her feet, half frozen from sleeping in the boots, were like lead.