"So, if you don"t want to know what drove me from New Orleans you do want to know what brought me here? I think that perhaps you could guess if you had heard as much as other men know about my grandfather, Bellaire _le Beau Diable_, as men called him. It is the quest of gold, his gold, which has brought me, and with me Marc and Captain Sefton."
Drennen frowned, shaking his head slowly.
"You won"t need to seek such things now, Ygerne," he said with quiet conviction in his tone. "Surely you know the type of men these two are? Will you cut loose from them, dear?"
The fine lines of her dark eyebrows curved questioningly.
"Because you have found gold, much gold," she returned, "must I come to you penniless, like a beggar?"
Before he could answer she spoke again, flushed with that quick temper which was a part of her.
"They would be glad enough, both of them, if I drew out now! But I won"t do it! It is mine, all mine, and I am going to find it! They shall have their shares, as I promised them: ten per cent each. And I, Sir Midas, will not be suspected then of falling in love with you as I am doing because you are rich and I have nothing!"
"Then," said Drennen, "if you are not to be turned aside can I help?
Will you tell me about it, Ygerne?"
"Yes and yes," she answered eagerly. "I"ll tell you and you can help.
Here is the story: When Napoleon was overthrown my grandfather, Paul Bellaire, was a boy of eighteen. But already Napoleon"s eye had found him and he was Captain Bellaire. That t.i.tle suited him better than his inherited one of Count. Already men called him _le Beau Diable_. Then Napoleon went down before Wellington and Paul Bellaire had to shift for himself under difficult circ.u.mstances. But he didn"t flee from France as did so many. He twirled his young mustaches and went to Paris.
"Louis, _le Desire_, had at length got his desire and was King Louis XVIII. Now that the lion was in his cage Louis roared. The young Captain Bellaire, going everywhere that entertaining society was to be found, managed to keep out of Louis"s hands. One night, while he was being sought in one end of the kingdom, he danced _en masque_ in the palace of the king. The most celebrated beauty of the court was the Lady Louise de Neville. Perhaps a little because she was the beauty she was, perhaps more because she was the king"s ward, Paul Bellaire paid her his court.
"The king had a husband for her but the Lady Louise had found one more to her liking. Knowing what royal displeasure might mean, and being, despite her hot heart, a cool-headed sort of person, she took precautions to put all of her estates into gold and jewels which one could carry readily in case of flight. Then she slipped away from the court and rode with her lover to the south.
"That was in the year 1820. Bellaire, though penniless after the disaster of 1815, had managed in the five years to have acc.u.mulated much. He was a born gambler and the fates turned the dice for him so that men said that he was in truth the Devil and the son of the Devil.
Like the Lady Louise he had his property converted into such form that a man might carry it in his hands. It became known publicly after the flight that the Nemours diamonds and the pearls of the old prince de Chartres had found their way into Bellaire"s hands across a table with a green top.
"When the honeymoon was six hours old the wrath of the testy king found them. Paul Bellaire put the Lady Louise out of a side door and upon her horse; then he unlocked the front door and bowed to his callers.
They were five men and those of them whom he did not merely cripple he killed. All of France rang with it."
The girl was breathing deeply as though agitated by her own tale, her eyes having the look of one who stares at ghost figures through the dim years. In her voice there was the ringing note of pride, pride of blood, of consanguinity with such a man as her fancy pictured Paul Bellaire to have been.
"He was hurt, badly hurt," she went on. "But he found another horse and left the village, following the Lady Louise to the coast and carrying with him both her moneys and his. A ship brought them to America and they made a home in New Orleans. There they sought and found exiles of their own station, making about them a circle as brilliant as Louis"s court. And here Bellaire prospered until after my father was born. Then there came other trouble, a game in Paul Bellaire"s own home over which there were hot dispute and pistol shots.
And once more, because he had killed a man who was not without fame, wealth and a wide reaching influence, Paul Bellaire became an exile.
"After that night the Countess Louise saw my grandfather only four times. An exile from two countries, two prices upon his head, he played daily with death. Driven from France he had come to America; now driven from America he went back to France. Louis was dead; a new government held sway; and yet he was not forgotten there. Once, even the authorities got their hands upon him. But again he slipped away, and again he came to New Orleans. He spent one night in his own home with the Countess Louise and their little son; then word of his return leaked out and once more he was a fugitive.
"In spite of all this he lived to be a man of seventy. In 1850, drawn with the tide of adventurers surging to California, he took ship to Panama, crossed the isthmus, and at last came to the Golden Gate. He lived in California for seven years, added to his wealth, and went back for the second time to New Orleans. Again he made the long trip to the West, but this time he fared further and came on into the Dominion of Canada. He was wealthy, more wealthy than most men suspected then. He brought servants with him and plunging into the wilds devoted his time to the lure of exploration and the sport of hunting big game. A third trip to New Orleans and he confided in his countess that he had found a home for both of them and their son in their old age; he would make of himself a power in a new world; his son should some day be a man for the world to reckon with.
"Coming back to Canada he brought with him the bulk of his own and the Countess Louise"s wealth, converting landed property into coined gold and jewels. In 1868 he came back to New Orleans, a hale, stalwart old man, who thought to have a score of years still before him. But the law had never forgotten him and this time found him. In his own home, fighting as the young Captain Bellaire in Napoleon"s cavalry had fought, he went down to an a.s.sa.s.sin"s bullet."
There were tears in her eyes, tears of anger as she thought of the old man dying with his wife weeping over him and his son going sick at the sight of the spurting blood. Drennen, watching her, marvelled at the girl. He remembered her words of the other day: "We of the blood of Paul Bellaire are not shop girls!"
In a moment she went on swiftly, the eyes turned upon Drennen very bright, a flush of excitement in her cheeks.
"My grandmother died soon after Paul Bellaire. They had just the one child, my father. He was no coward; no man ever dared say that of him; but he seemed to have none of the adventuresome blood of his parents.
And yet that blood has come down to me! My father inherited the New Orleans home and a position of influence. He became a merchant and prospered. When he married my mother he was a man of considerable property. It was only when both my father and mother were dead that I came to know the story which I have told you. In one breath I learned this and that during the last years of his life my father"s means had been dissipated through expensive, even luxurious, living, and a series of unwise speculations. But one heritage did come down to me . . . the memorandum book of my grandfather, Paul Bellaire! And it is because of that that I am here!"
"Lemarc and Sefton?" prompted Drennen.
"Marc learned the story with me. We looked over the papers together.
There was a rude cryptic sort of map; I have it. It meant nothing without a key. We searched everywhere for that key. Marc pretending to aid me, had it all of the time in his hand. When he had had time to carry it away and place it where I could not find it he came back and told me that he had it. Without it the map is useless. So I compromised with Marc, since there was no other way, and he came with me. And Captain Sefton?" She frowned and her voice was hard as she concluded: "Marc has, I think, all of the vices of our blood without its virtues. Through gambling debts and other obligations he was in a bad way. Captain s.e.xton has him pretty well at his mercy. So, just as I let Marc in, Marc was forced to allow Sefton to become the third member of our party."
A wild enough tale, certainly, and yet Drennen doubted no word of it.
Wilder things have been true. And, perhaps, no words issuing from that red mouth of Ygerne"s would have failed to ring true in her lover"s ears.
"You said that I could help?"
"Yes." Again there was that glint of eagerness in her eyes; no doubt the old Bellaire fortune of minted gold and jewels in their rich settings shone in dazzling fashion before her stimulated fancy. "We have found the spot; it is in a canon not twenty miles from here. But, at some time during the last ten winters, there have been heavy landslides. The whole side of a mountain has slipped down, covering the place where, on the map, there is the little cross which spells treasure. It will take money, much money, for the excavation. And Marc and Captain Sefton and I have no money. We may dig for months, but at last . . ."
"I"ll finance it," said Drennen steadily. "If you will allow me, Ygerne? I"d do so much more than just that for you! I am afraid it will have to wait until I can have sold my claim. Then you can have what you want, five thousand, ten thousand . . ."
She had sprung to her feet, her arms flung out about his neck.
"I believe you do love me, David," she said triumphantly.
Before Drennen left her it was arranged that Lemarc was to come with him to Lebarge, that Drennen was to raise the money as soon as he could, that it was to be placed in Lemarc"s hands so that the work could begin. And the next morning David Drennen, bearing a heart which sang in his bosom, left the Settlement for Lebarge.
"In a week at most I"ll be back, Ygerne," he had whispered to her. "On the seventh day, in the morning early, will you meet me here, Ygerne?"
And Ygerne promised.
CHAPTER XVI
THE LOST GOLDEN GIRL PAYS AN OLD DEBT
Drennen, presenting himself early upon the second morning in the offices of the Northwestern Mining Company, found that he was expected.
A clerk, arranging papers of the day"s work upon his desk, came forward quickly, a look of interest in his eyes.
"Mr. Drennen?" he asked.
"Yes."
"This way, sir. You come early but they are looking for you."
Drennen followed him through a second office, unoccupied, and to a glazed door upon which was the inscription, "Local Manager." The sound of voices coming through the door fell off abruptly at the clerk"s discreet knock.
Drennen entered and the clerk, closing the door, went back to his own office. Fronting Drennen, at his flat-topped desk, sat old Marshall Sothern, the muscles of his face tense, his eyes grim with the purpose in them. A second man, small, square, strong-faced, a little reckless-eyed, sat close to Sothern. The third man of the group, standing fronting the two, was a young looking fellow, tall and with the carriage of a soldier, wearing the uniform of an officer of the mounted police.
Sothern rose, putting out his hand across the table.
"Good morning, Mr. Drennen," he said evenly. "I am glad that you have come so soon. This is Mr. McCall," nodding toward the strong-faced, middle-aged man with the young eyes. "You"ve heard of him, no doubt?
Our chief over the Western Division. And this is Lieutenant Max of the Northwest Mounted, one of "my boys." Be seated, Mr. Drennen. And if you will pardon us a second?"
He turned toward Lieutenant Max. Drennen, having gripped Sothern"s hand, having bestowed upon him a sharp look which seemed to seek to pierce through the hard sh.e.l.l which is the outer man and into the soul of him where the real self is hidden, acknowledged the two introductions and sat down.
"I think that that is all, isn"t it, Lieutenant?" Sothern was saying as he picked up the thread of conversation which Drennen"s entrance had snapped. "Those are the people you want?"