“Suit yourselves,” said De Launay, indifferently. “But don’t crowd me too closely. Those things make my horse nervous.”
They started the car, but he galloped easily on ahead, turning in his saddle to watch them. They proceeded slowly, allowing him to gain about forty yards. The officer thought of shooting at him when he was not looking, but desisted when he discovered that De Launay seemed to be always looking.
They had proceeded only a short distance when De Launay, without warning, spurred his horse into a run, swinging him at the same time from side to side of the road. Turned in his saddle, he raised his hand and the staccato rattle of his automatic 152 sounded like the roll of a drum. The startled officers fired and missed his elusive form. They had their aim disarranged by the sudden jolt and stoppage of the car. De Launay had shot the two front tires and a rear one to pieces.
The discomfited policemen saw him disappearing down the road in a cloud of dust from which echoed his mocking laugh and a chanted, jubilant verse that had not been heard in that region for nineteen years:
| “My Louisiana! Louisiana Lou!” |