“Same old Buffalo Bill and Alkali Ike stuff!” said the pugilist sneeringly. “I ain’t afraid of this guy!”
“Well—neither am I,” said the man from Arkansas, complacently. “He ain’t the only one that can shoot, I reckon.”
Banker fairly fawned upon them. “Yes,” he cried. “You-all are good fellers and you ain’t afraid. You’ll down Louisiana if he comes. But he won’t come, I reckon.”
“He is coming,” said Solange. “Not many hours ago I heard him say that he was going to ‘jump your claim,’ which he said did not belong to you. And he intimated that there would be a fight and that he would welcome it.”
The three men were startled, looking at one another keenly. Banker licked his lips and was unmistakably 295 frightened more than ever. But in his red eyes the flame of lunacy was slowly mounting.
“If I had old Betsy here——” he muttered.
“He ain’t goin’ to jump this mine,” said the man from Arkansas, grimly. “Me and Slugger, here, has an interest in that mine. We works it on shares with Jim. If this shootin’ sport comes round, we’ll know what to do with him.”
“Slugger,” however, was more practical. “We’ll take care of him,” he agreed, slapping his side where a pistol hung. “But if there’s money in gettin’ him, I want to know how much. What’ll you pay, ma’am?”
“A—a thousand dollars is all I have,” said Solange. “You shall have that, messieurs.”
But, somehow, her voice had faltered as though she, now, were frightened at what she had done and regretted it. Some insistent doubt, hitherto buried under her despair and rage, was struggling to the surface. As she watched these sinister scoundrels muttering together and concerting the downfall of the man who was her husband—and perhaps something more, to her—she felt a panic growing in her, an impulse to spring up and rush out, back on the trail to warn De Launay. But she suppressed it, cruelly scourging herself to remembrance of her dead father and her vow of vengeance. She tried to whip the flagging sense of outrage at the trick that 296 the brutal Louisiana had played upon her in allowing her to marry him.