"An she expects me to tell her?" cried Banker, in a falsetto whine. "Yuh reckon if I knowed where it was I wouldn't have staked it long ago? I don't know nothin' about it." "Well, you know the Esmeraldas, old Stingin' Lizard," growled Sucatash. "You can tell her what to do about gettin' there." "I can't tell her nothin' no more than you can," said Banker. "She's got Ike Brandon's letters, ain't she? He told her where it was, didn't he? What's she comin' to me fer? I don't know nothin'." "Were you here when my father was killed?" Solange asked, kindly. She felt sorry for the old fellow. "Hey! What's that? Was I here? No'm, I wasn't here! I was--I reckon I was over south of the range, out on the desert. I don't know nothin' about the killin'." He was looking furtively at her veil, his eyes shifting away and back to it, awed by the mystery of the hidden eyes. He was like a wild, shy animal, uneasy in this place and among these people so foreign to his natural environment. Solange sighed. "I am sorry, monsieur," she said. "I had hoped you could tell me more." He broke in again with his whining voice. "It was this here Louisiana, every one says." "Louisiana! Yes----" Solange's tones became fierce and she leaned closer to the dry desert rat, who shrank from her. "And when I find him--when I find this man who shot my father like a dog----" Her voice was tense and almost shrill, cutting like steel. "I shall kill him!" The dim, veiled face was close to Banker's. He raised his corded, lean hand to the corded, lean throat as though he was choking. He stared at her fixedly, his shifty eyes for once held steady. There was horror and fear in the back of them. He put one foot back, shifted his weight to it, put the other back, then the first again, slowly retreating backward, with his stricken eyes still on her. Then he suddenly whirled about and scuttled down the stairs as though the devil were after him. Solange remained standing, puzzled. "That is queer," she said. "Why is he frightened? I did not mean to startle him. I suppose he is shy." "No. Just locoed, like all them prospectors," said Sucatash. "Furthermore, he's ornery, ma'am. Probably don't like this talk of killin'. They say he beefed Panamint Charlie, his partner, some years ago and I reckon he's a mite sensitive that a way." "He doesn't seem to know where the mine is," said Solange. "Nor do you, mademoiselle?" "Me?" said Marian, airily. "If I knew where that mine was, believe me, you'd be late looking for it. I'd have been settled on it long ago." "I wish," said Solange, "that I knew what to do. Perhaps, if this unspeakable De Launay were here----" "I can telephone the Greek's and see if he's there," suggested MacKay. Solange assented and he hurried to a telephone.