But he was speaking again.
“The wolves dug up the body of Dave MacKay, Banker, and the men outside found it. What you did to Wallace the other day he has recovered sufficiently to tell us. What you tried to do to this young woman I have also told them. Shall I tell her, and the others, who killed French Pete nineteen years ago?”
Again came the whining, shrill snarl from behind Solange.
“You did, you——”
“So you have said before, Jim. But I have the bullet that killed Pete d’Albret. I also have the bullet you shot at me when I came up to save mademoiselle from you a week ago. Those two are of the same caliber, Banker. It’s a caliber that’s 301 common enough nowadays but wasn’t very common in nineteen hundred. Who shot a Savage .303, nineteen years ago, and who shoots that same rifle to-day?”
There was a slow mutter of astonishment rising from the men crowded about the walls and in front of the crude bar. It was a murmur that contained the elements of a threat.
“I give you first shot, Jim,” came the half-mocking voice of De Launay beating, half heard, on Solange’s ears, where the astounding reversal of her notions was causing her brain almost to reel. Then she heard the whistling scream of Banker, quite lunatic by now, as he lost all sense of fear in his rising madness.
“By heaven, but you don’t git me, Louisiana! Nobody gits old Jim. They all die—all but old Jim!”
The shattering concussion of a shot fired within an inch or two of her ear almost stunned her. She felt the powder burning her cheek. Almost against her will her eyes flew open to see the figure in the door jerk and sag a little. Triumphant and horrible came Banker’s scream.
“They all die—all but old Jim!”