“Gone to Maryville to register it, I suppose. That accounts for his leaving the burros and part of his stuff. He’d travel light.”
“He better come back heavy though. If he aims to winter in here he’ll need bookoo rations. It’d take some mine to make me do it.”
Sucatash was in bad shape, and De Launay was not particularly interested in old Jim’s vagaries at the present time, so he made all speed back to the crater. Sucatash, who knew of the windfall, would not believe that the soldier had found an entrance into the place until he had actually treaded the game trail.
He looked backward from the heights above the tangle after they had come through it.
“Some stronghold,” he commented. “It’d take an army to dig you outa here.”
They found Solange as De Launay had left her. She was overjoyed to see Sucatash and at the same time distressed to observe his condition. She heard with indignation his account of his mishap and, like De Launay, suspected Banker of being responsible for it. Indeed, unless they assumed that some mysterious presence was abroad at this unseasonable time in the mountains, there was no one else to suspect. 254
She would have risen and assumed the duties of nursing the cow-puncher, but De Launay forbade it. She was still very weak and her head was painful. The soldier therefore took upon himself the task of caring for both of them.
He made a bed for Sucatash in the kitchen of the cabin and went about the work of getting them both on their feet with quiet efficiency. This bade fair to be a task of some days’ duration though both were strong and healthy and yielded readily to rest and treatment.
It was night again before he had them comfortably settled and sleeping. Once more, with camp lantern lit, he sat before the slab table and examined his bullets and the shell he had picked up at Banker’s camp.
He found that both bullets fitted it tightly. Then he turned the rim to the light and looked at it.