Louisiana Lou: A Western StoryWinter, William West
General
Louisiana Lou: A Western Story
Winter, William West
Western stories
After that flowed in another caravan. His glasses showed these were
better equipped than the first comers though he was too far away to
get any accurate idea of what they carried. Still a dim suspicion was
filling his mind, and as each of the newcomers rushed down the trail
and over the canyon rim his suspicion took more vivid form until it
became conviction and knowledge.
"By heavens! It's a mining rush!"
His mind worked swiftly. He jumped at the evidence he had seen where
Banker had staked a claim. The prospector had ridden to Maryville to
record the claims. He had been followed, and in an incredibly short
time here were veritable hordes rushing into Shoestring Canyon. If this
was the vanguard what would be the main body? It must have been a
strike of fabulous proportions that had caused this excitement. And
that strike must be----
"French Pete's Bonanza!" he almost yelled.
The thing was astounding and it was true. In naming a rendezvous he,
himself, had directed these men to the very spot--because there was no
other spot. The obvious, as usual, had been passed by for years while
the seekers had sought in the out-of-the-way places. But where would
Pete find a mine when he was returning to the ranch with his flock?
Surely not in the out-of-the-way places, for he would not be leading
his sheep by such ways. He would be coming through the range by the
shortest and most direct route, the very route that was the most
frequented--and that was the trail over the range and down Shoestring
Canyon.
De Launay wanted to shout with laughter as he thought of the search of
years ending in this fashion: the discovery of the Bonanza, under the
very nose of the dead man's daughter, by the very man who had murdered
him!
But his impulse was stifled as his keen mind cast back over the past
days. He recalled the rescue of Solange and the ambush from the top of
the great, flat outcrop. Vague descriptions of Pete's location, heard
in casual talks with Solange, came to him. The old sheep-herder had
been able to describe his find as having been made where he had eaten
his noonday meal "on a rock." That rock--the Lunch Rock, as it had
been called, had even given the mine a name in future legend, as the
Peg Leg had been named.
But there had been no rock that could answer the description near the
camp. At least there had been only one, and that one had been the flat
outcrop on which Banker had lain at length and from which he had
attempted to shoot De Launay.
Then swiftly he recalled Solange's cry of warning and his own swift
reaction. He had fired at the eyes and forehead appearing above the
edge of the rock and he had hit the edge of the rock itself. He had
laughed to see the mad prospector clawing at his eyes, filled with the
powdered rock, and had laughed again to see his later antics as he
stood upright, while De Launay rode away, waving his arms in the air
and yelling.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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