"They all die--all but old Jim!"
She was conscious of hasty movements beside her. The two other men, awaking from their stupor and sensing their opportunity as De Launay was. .h.i.t, were drawing their guns.
"Stand still!" thundered De Launay and she stiffened automatically.
His hands had dropped from the doorway and now they seemed to snap upward with incredible speed and in them were two squat and heavy automatics, their grizzly muzzles sweeping like the snap of a whip to a line directly at herself, as it seemed.
Two shots again rocked her with their concussion. They seemed merely echoes of the flaming roars from the big automatics as each of them spoke. A man standing against the wall some feet away from De Launay ducked sharply, with a cry. The shot fired by the Slugger had gone wide, narrowly missing him. A chip flew from the door lintel near De Launay"s head. The man from Arkansas was shooting closer.
Solange was conscious that some one beside her had grunted heavily and that some one else was choking distressingly. She could not look around but she heard a heavy slump to her left. To her right something fell more suddenly and sharply, splashing soggily in the muck. Then, once more the powder burned her cheek and the eardrum was numbed under an explosion.
"I got you, Louisiana!" came Banker"s yell. She saw De Launay stagger again and felt that she was about to faint.
"Stand still!" he shouted again. She knew she was sheltering his murderer and that, from behind her, the finishing shot was already being aimed over her shoulder. Yet, although she felt that she must risk her life in order to get out of line and give him a chance, his voice still dominated her and she stiffened.
One of the big pistols swept into line and belched fire and noise at her. She heard the brittle snapping of bone at her ear and something struck her sharply on the collar bone, a snapping blow, as though some hard and heavy object had struck and glanced upward and away. Then the second pistol crashed at her.
Again she heard the sound of something smashing behind her. There was no other sound except the noise of something slipping. That something then slid, splashing, to the floor.
De Launay"s pistols were lowered and he was taking a step into the room. Solange noted that he staggered again, that the deerskin waistcoat was stained, and she tried to find strength to run to him.
She saw, as she moved, the huddled figures at her side where the dead men lay, and she knew that there was another behind her. She heard the slopping of feet in the mud as men closed in from all about her. She heard awe-struck voices commenting on what had happened.
"Plumb center--and only a chunk of his haid showin" above the gal! If you ask me, that"s sh.o.r.e some shootin"!"
"An each o" the other two with a shot--jest a left an" a right!"
"Gets the gun with one barrel an" the man with the other. Did you-all see it?"
Her feet were refusing to carry her, leaden and weighty as they seemed. Her knees were trembling and her head swimming. Yet she retained consciousness, for, in front of her, De Launay was crumpling forward, and sinking to the muddy shambles in which he stood.
Friendly hands were holding her up and she swept the cobwebs from her brain with her hands, determined that she would conquer her weakness.
Somehow she staggered to De Launay"s side and, heedless of the mud, sank to her knees.
"_Mon ami! Mon ami!_" she moaned over him, her hands folding over his lean cheeks, still brown in spite of the pallor that was sweeping them.
A man dropped to his knees beside De Launay and opposite her. She did not heed his swift gesture in ripping back the buckskin vest. Nor did she feel the hand on her shoulder where Sucatash stood behind her. The crowding bystanders were nonexistent to her consciousness as she raised De Launay"s head.
Then his eyes fluttered open and met hers; were held by them as though they were drawn down to the depths of her and lost in them. Over his mouth, under the small, military mustache crept a smile.
"Morgan _la fee_!" he whispered.
Solange choked back a sob. She leaned nearer and opened her eyes wider. De Launay"s gaze remained lost in the depths of hers. But he saw at last to the bottom of them; saw there unutterable sorrow and love.
"Don"t worry, fair lady!" he gasped. "It"s been something--to live for--once more! And the mine--you"ll not need that--after all!"
His eyes slowly closed but he was not unconscious, for he spoke again.
"It"s nothing much. That rat couldn"t kill--Louisiana!"
The man who was examining De Launay made an impatient gesture and Sucatash drew her gently away. She rose slowly, bending dumbly over the physician, as he seemed to be.
"Reckon he"s right," said this man, grimly, as he bared De Launay"s chest. "Huh! These holes aren"t a circ.u.mstance to what this hombre"s had in him before this. Reckon he"s had a habit of mixing with cougars or something like that! Here"s a knife wound--old."
"A bayonet did that," said Solange.
"Soldier, eh! Well, he"s used to bullet holes and it"s a good thing.
Hand me something to bandage him with, some one. He"s lost a heap of blood but there ain"t anything he won"t get over--that is, if you can get him out of this hole."
The man seemed competent enough, although, abandoning his practice to join the gold rush, he had brought few of the tools of his trade with him. He gathered handkerchiefs and Solange ripped open her flannel shirtwaist and tore the lingerie beneath it to furnish him additional cloth. She had collected herself and, although still shaky, was cool and efficient, her nurse"s experience rendering the doctor invaluable aid. Together they soon stanched the bleeding and directed De Launay"s removal to a near-by tent where he was laid upon ample bedding.
Then the doctor turned to Solange and Sucatash, who hovered around her like a satellite.
"I"ve done what I can," he said. "But he"ll not stand much chance if he"s left up here. You"d better risk it and get him down to the Falls if it can be done."
"But how can we take him?" cried Solange. "Surely it would kill him to ride a horse."
"No, he can"t," agreed the doctor. "But there is the dog team that came in to-night. You ought to get him to Wallace"s with that and he can probably stand it."
Solange turned at once and ran out to seek the driver of the dog team.
The dogs lay about in the road but the man was not visible. She hastily burst into the saloon again in the hope of finding him there.
The signs of conflict had been removed and men were once more lined up before the rude bar, discussing the fight in low voices.
They fell silent when Solange entered and most of them took off their hats, although they had all been puzzled to explain her connection with the event and her actions before it had come off.
She paid no attention to them but swept the crowd looking for the newcomer. He saved her the trouble of identifying him by coming forward.
"Ma"am," he said, with great embarra.s.sment, "I"m Snake Murphy and I was grubstakin" that ornery coyote that Louisiana just beefed. I come in to-night with that dog team and I reckon that, accordin" to law, this here claim of Jim"s belongs to me now that he"s dead. But I wants to say that I ain"t robbin" no women after they come all the way across the ocean to find this here mine and--well--if half of it"ll satisfy you, it"s yours!"
Solange seized him by the arm.
"You are the man with the dogs?" she cried.
"Yes ma"am."
"Then--you keep the mine--all of it, I do not want it. But you will let us have the dogs that we may take Monsieur de Launay to the hospital? We must have the dogs. The mine--that is yours if you agree!"
Snake Murphy broke into a grin. "Why, ma"am, sh.o.r.e you"re welcome to the dogs. This here Louisiana shot me up once--but d.a.m.ned if I stands fer no one shootin" him from behind a woman that a way. Come on, and we"ll fix the sled!"
A few minutes later Solange had resumed her watch beside De Launay while, outside, Sucatash and Murphy were busy unloading the sled and getting it ready for the wounded man.
De Launay slept, apparently. Solange sat patiently as the long hours pa.s.sed. At intervals he muttered in his sleep and she listened.
Fragments of his life formed the subject of the words, incoherent and disconnected. She caught references to the terrible years of existence as a legionnaire and later s.n.a.t.c.hes of as terrible scenes of warfare.
Once he spoke more clearly and his words referred to her.
"Morgan _la fee_!--promised to be something interesting--more than that--worth living, perhaps, after all."