"He come ridin' out to our place all dressed up like a movie cow-puncher and you'd never have dreamed there was a mob about three jumps behind him. He sets in with us and takes a great shine to me. I was quite a doll in those days they tell me." She tossed her head as much as to say that she was still able to qualify for the description. "Believe me, he was a regular swell, and you'd never in the world a thought he was what he turned out to be. Delaney, his name was, or something like that. Well, he plays with me and when he goes away I cried and wanted him to stay. I remember it just as vivid! He had on these chaps--leather pants, you know--and a Stetson slanting on his head, and a fancy silk neckerchief which he made into comical dolls and things. Oh! he sure made a hit with Marian! "He swore he was comin' back, like young Lochinvar, and marry me some day, and I was all tickled to think he would do it. "Then, would you believe it, the murdering villain rides away about half an hour before the mob comes and goes south toward the mountains. Next day or so, we pick up your father, shot something terrible, and this awful 'Louisiana' Delaney had done it, in cold blood and just to be killing something." "Ah!" Mademoiselle stiffened and quivered. Her voice was like brass. "In cold blood, you say? Then he had no provocation? He was not an enemy of my father?" "Naw. Your father didn't have no enemies. So far as I know, this Louisiana didn't even know him. He was a cattleman and they hated the sheepmen, you know, and used to fight them. Then, he was one of these gunmen, always shooting some one, and they used to be terrible. They'd kill some one just for the fun of it--to sort of keep in practice." Mademoiselle shuddered, envisioning some bloodthirsty, evil thing, unspeakably depraved. But it was momentary. She spoke again in her metallic voice. "That is well to know. I will look for this Louisiana." "You ain't likely to find him. He never was seen or heard of around here no more. I've heard granddad call him 'the last of the gunmen,' because the country was settling up and getting civilized then. One thing sure, he never made good on that Lochinvar sketch, I can promise you." "It is no matter. He will come back--or I will follow him. It is of another matter I would talk. There was something of a mine that my father had found." "I've heard of that," said Wilding. "It's quite a legend around here. The Lunch Rock mine, they call it, and Jim Banker, the prospector, looks for it every year." "But he ain't found it----" A bell boy passed, singing out: "Call for Mad'mo'selle Dalbray! Call fer Mad'mo'selle Dalbray!" Mademoiselle rose and beckoned to him. "Three men in the lobby wish to see yuh, miss!" the boy told her. "Said Mr. Delonny sent 'em." "Monsieur de Launay! What next? Well, show them up here."