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!" CHAPTER XI JIM BANKER HITS THE TRAIL When Jim Banker, the prospector, hurried from the hotel, he was singularly agitated for a man merely suffering from the shyness of the desert wanderer in the presence of a pretty woman. His furtive looks and the uneasy glances he cast behind him, no less than the panicky character of his flight, might have aroused further question on the part of those he left, had they been in a position to observe the man. He made no pause until he had gained the comparative seclusion of Johnny the Greek's place, which he found almost deserted after the riot of which De Launay had been the center. Johnny had succeeded in getting rid of the officers without the discovery of his illicit operations, and Snake Murphy was once more in his place ready to dispense hospitality. Few remained to accept it, however, the imminent memory of the police having frightened all others away. A liberal dispensation of money and the discovery that De Launay's coat and shoes were of excellent make and more valuable than those he had lost, had secured the silence of the man whom De Launay had robbed, and he had departed some time since. Banker sidled into the upstairs room and made his way to the end of the bar, where he called huskily for whisky. Having gulped a couple of fiery drinks, he shivered and straightened up, his evil eyes losing their look of fright. "Say, Murph," he whispered, hoarsely. "They's the devil to pay!" "How come?" asked Murphy, yawning. "You remember French Pete, who was killed back in nineteen hundred?" "The Basco? Sure I do. I got a reminder, hain't I? Louisiana done shot me up before he went out an' beefed Pete--if he did beef him." "_If_ he did? Whatever makes you say that? If he _didn't_--who did?" Jim blurted out the question in a gasp, as though fairly forcing utterance of the words. Murphy flicked a sidelong look at him and then bent his absent gaze across the room. "Oh--I dunno. Never knew Louisiana to use a rifle, though. The dare-devil! I can hear him now, ridin' off a-laughin' and a-chortlin' "Back to Whisky Chitto; to Beau Regarde bayou; To my Louisiana--Louisiana Lou. "Remember the feller's singin', Jim?" The few men in the place had turned startled eyes as Murphy whined the doggerel ballad nasally. It was strange to them, but Banker shivered and shrank from the grinning bartender. "Stop it, yuh darn fool! yuh gi' me the creeps! W'at's the matter with everything to-day? Everywhere I go some one starts gabblin' about mines and French Pete an' this all-fired--Louisiana! It's a damn good thing there ain't any more like him around here."