Louisiana Lou / A Western Story

by William West Winter

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 229 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.

The prospector laughed and seized her foot. But, as he held it and picked up a sliver, a thought occurred to him. He got up and went to the fire, where he stooped to get a flaming brand.

At this moment, clear and joyous, although distant and faint, came a rollicking measure of song:

“My Louisiana! Louisiana Lou!”

The girl’s brain failed to react to it. She gathered nothing from the sound except that there was some one coming. But Banker reared as though shot and whirled about to stare down the cañon. She could not see him and she was unable to turn.

Shaking as though stricken with an ague, the prospector stood. His face had gone chalk white under its dirty stubble of beard. He looked sick and even more unwholesome than usual. From his slack jaws poured a constant whining of words, unintelligible.

Down the cañon, slouching carelessly with the motion of his horse, appeared a man, riding toward them at a jog trot. Behind him jingled two pack horses, the first of which was half buried under the high bundle on his back, the second more lightly laden. 230

Banker stood, incapable of motion for a moment. Then, as though galvanized into action, he began to gabble his inevitable oaths, while he leaped hurriedly for his rifle. He grabbed it from under the tarpaulin, jerked the lever, flung it to his shoulder and fired.

With the shot, Solange, by a terrific effort, rolled over and raised her head. She caught a glimpse of a familiar figure and shrieked out with new-found strength.