His laugh was music.
“That old natural? He couldn’t kill me. Saw him aim and ducked. Shot right over me. But what’s happened to you?”
He ran a hand over her face and found it hot with fever.
“Why, you’re sick! And your foot’s bare. Here, tell me what has happened?”
She could only sob brokenly, her strength almost gone.
“That terrible old man! He did it. He’s hiding—to shoot you.”
De Launay’s hand had run over her thick mane 232 of hair and he felt her wince. He recognized the great bump on the skull.
“Death of a dog!” he swore in French. “Mon amie, is it this old devil who has injured you?”
She nodded and he began to look about him for Banker. But the prospector was not in sight, although his discarded rifle was on the ground. The lever was down where the prospector had jerked it preparatory to a second shot which he had been afraid to fire. The empty ejected shell lay on the snow near by.
De Launay turned back to Solange. He bent over her and carefully restored her stocking and shoe. Then he fetched water and bathed her head, gently gathering her hair together and binding it up under the bandeau which he found among her scattered belongings. She told him something of what had happened, ascribing the prospector’s actions to insanity. But when De Launay asked about Sucatash and Dave she could do no more than tell him that the first had gone to the ranch to get snowshoes and dogs, and the latter had gone out yesterday and had not come back, though she had heard a single shot late in the afternoon.