“Me!” said Snake, boastfully. “Why, when I come here there wasn’t anything here but sunshine and jack rabbits. I was the town of Sulphur Falls. I run a ferry and a road house down here when there wasn’t another place within five miles in any direction.”
“You knew the old-timers, then?”
“Nobody knew them any better. They all had to stop at my place whenever they were crossin’ the river. There wasn’t no ford.”
Wilding leaned over and grew confidential.
“Snake,” he said, in a low tone, “I’ve heard that you know something about this old-time gunman, Louisiana, and the killing of French Pete back about the first of the century. Is there anything in that?”
Snake eyed him coolly and appraisingly before he answered.
“There seems to be a lot of interest cropping up in this Louisiana and French Pete all of a sudden,” he remarked. “What’s the big idea?”
“I’m looking for Louisiana,” said Wilding.
“And not fer French Pete’s mine?”
“No interest at all in the mine,” Wilding assured him. “I’ve got an idea that Louisiana could be convicted of that murder if we could lay hands on him.”