RIDERS OF THE SILENCES

Max Brand

1919

Prologue

The Great West, prior to the century's turn, abounded in legend. Stories were told of fabled gunmen whose bullets always magicallyfound their mark, of mighty stallions whose tireless gallop rivaledthe speed of the wind, of glorious women whose beauty stunned mind andheart. But nowhere in the vast spread of the mountain-desert countrywas there a greater legend told than the story of Red Pierre and thephantom gunfighter, McGurk. 

These two men of the wilderness, so unalike, of widely-differingbackgrounds, had in common a single trait: each was unbeatable. Fatebrought them clashing together, thunder to thunder, lightning tolightning. They were destined to meet at the crossroads of a long, long trail ... A trail which began in the northern wastes of Canadaand led, finally, to a deadly confrontation in the mountains of theFar West. 

Riders of the Silences

CHAPTER 1

It seemed that Father Anthony gathered all the warmth of the shortnorthern summer and kept it for winter use, for his good nature was anactual physical force. From his ruddy face beamed such a kindlinessthat people reached out toward him as they might extend their handstoward a comfortable fire. 

All the labors of his work as an inspector of Jesuit institutionsacross the length and breadth of Canada could not lessen the goodfather's enthusiasm; his smile was as indefatigable as his criticaleyes. The one looked sharply into every corner of a room and everynook and hidden cranny of thoughts and deeds; the other veiled thecriticism and soothed the wounds of vanity. 

On this day, however, the sharp eyes grew a little less keen andsomewhat wider, while that smile was fixed rather by habit thaninclination. In fact, his expression might be called a frozenkindliness as he looked across the table to Father Victor. 

It required a most indomitable geniality, indeed, to outface the rigidpiety of Jean Paul Victor. His missionary work had carried him farnorth, where the cold burns men thin. The zeal which drove him northand north and north over untracked regions, drove him until his bodyfailed, drove him even now, though his body was crippled. 

A mighty yearning, and a still mightier self-contempt whipped him on, and the school over which he was master groaned and suffered under hisrégime. Father Anthony said gently: "Are there none among all yourlads, dear Father Victor, whom you find something more than imperfectmachines?"

The man of the north drew from a pocket of his robe a letter. His leanfingers touched it almost with a caress. 

"One. Pierre Ryder. He shall carry on my mission in the north. I, whoam silent, have done much; but Pierre will do more. I had to fight myfirst battle to conquer my own stubborn soul, and the battle left meweak for the great work in the snows, but Pierre will not fight thatbattle, for I have trained him. 

"This letter is for him. Shall we not carry it to him? For two days Ihave not seen Pierre. "

Father Anthony winced. 

He said: "Do you deny yourself even the pleasure of the lad's company?Alas, Father Victor, you forge your own spurs and goad yourself withyour own hands. What harm is there in being often with the lad?"

The sneer returned to the lips of Jean Paul Victor. 

"The purpose would be lost--lost to my eyes and lost to his--thepurpose for which I have lived and for which he shall live. When Ifirst saw him he was a child, a baby, but he came to me and took onefinger of my hand in his small fist and looked up to me. Ah, Gabrielle, the smile of an infant goes to the heart swifter than thethrust of a knife! I looked down upon him and I knew that I was chosento teach the child. There was a voice that spoke in me. You willsmile, but even now I think I can hear it. "

"I swear to you that I believe, " said Father Anthony. 

"Another man would have given Pierre a Bible and a Latin grammar and acell. I gave him the testament and the grammar; I gave him also thewild north country to say his prayers in and patter his Latin. Itaught his mind, but I did not forget his body. 

"He is to go out among wild men. He must have strength of the spirit. He must also have a strength of the body that they will understand andrespect. He can ride a horse standing; he can run a hundred miles in aday behind a dog-team. He can wrestle and fight with his hands, forskilled men have taught him. I have made him a thunderbolt to hurlamong the ignorant and the unenlightened; and this is the hand whichshall wield it. Ha!

"It is now hardly a six month since he saved a trapper from a bobcatand killed the animal with a knife. It must have been my prayers whichsaved him from the teeth and the claws. "

Good Father Anthony rose. 

"You have described a young David. I am eager to see him. Let us go. "

Father Victor nodded, and the two went out together. The chill of theopen was hardly more than the bitter cold inside the building, butthere was a wind that drove the cold through the blood and bones ofa man. 

They staggered along against it until they came to a small house, longand low. On the sheltered side they paused to take breath, and FatherVictor explained: "This is his hour in the gymnasium. To make the bodystrong required thought and care. Mere riding and running and swingingof the ax will not develop every muscle. Here Pierre works every day. His teachers of boxing and wrestling have abandoned him. "

There was almost a smile on the lean face. 

"The last man left with a swollen jaw and limping on one leg. "

Here he opened the door, and they slipped inside. The air was warmedby a big stove, and the room--for the afternoon was dark--lighted bytwo swinging lanterns suspended from the low roof. By thatillumination Father Anthony saw two men stripped naked, save for aloincloth, and circling each other slowly in the center of a ringwhich was fenced in with ropes and floored with a padded mat. 

Of the two wrestlers, one was a veritable giant, swarthy of skin, hairy-chested. His great hands were extended to grasp or to parry--hishead lowered with a ferocious scowl--and across his forehead swayed atuft of black, shaggy hair. He might have stood for one of thosenorthern barbarians whom the Romans loved to pit against their nativechampions in the arena. He was the greater because of the opponent hefaced, and it was upon this opponent that the eyes of FatherAnthony centered. 

Like Father Victor, he was caught first by the bright hair. It was adark red, and where the light struck it strongly there were placeslike fire. Down from this hair the light slipped like running waterover a lithe body, slender at the hips, strong-chested, round andsmooth of limb, with long muscles leaping and trembling at every move. 

He, like the big fighter, circled cautiously about, but the impressionhe gave was as different from the other as day is from night. His headwas carried high; in place of a scowl, he smiled with a sort ofeagerness, a light which was partly exultation and partly mischiefsparkled in his eyes. Once or twice the giant caught at the other, butDavid slipped from under the grip of Goliath easily. It seemed as ifhis skin were oiled. The big man snarled with anger, and lunged moreeagerly at Pierre. 

The two, abandoning their feints, suddenly rushed together, and theswarthy arms of the monster slipped around the white body of Pierre. For a moment they whirled, twisting and struggling. 

"Now!" murmured Father Victor; and as if in answer to a command, Pierre slipped down, whipped his hands to a new grip, and the twocrashed to the mat, with Pierre above. 

"Open your eyes, Father Anthony. The lad is safe. How Goliath grunts!" The boy had not cared to follow his advantage, but rose and dancedaway, laughing softly. The Canuck floundered up and rushed like afurious bull. His downfall was only the swifter. The impact of the twobodies sounded like hands clapped together, and then Goliath rose intothe air, struggling mightily, and pitched with a thud to the mat. 

He writhed there, for the wind was knocked from his body by the fall. At length he struggled to a sitting posture and glared up at theconqueror. The boy reached out a hand to his fallen foe. 

"You would have thrown me that way the first time, " he said, "but youlet me change grips on you. In another week you will be too much forme, _bon ami_. "

The other accepted the hand after an instant of hesitation and wasdragged to his feet. He stood looking down into the boy's face with asingular grin. But there was no triumph in the eye of Pierre--only agood-natured interest. 

"In another week, " answered the giant, "there would not be a soundbone in my body. "

CHAPTER 2

"You have seen him, " murmured the tall priest. "Now let us go back andwait for him. I will leave word. "

He touched one of the two or three men who were watching the athletes, and whispered his message in the other's ear. Then he went back withFather Anthony. "You have seen him, " he repeated, when they sat oncemore in the cheerless room. "Now pronounce on him. "

The other answered: "I have seen a wonderful body--but the mind, Father Victor?"

"It is as simple as that of a child--his thoughts run as clear asspring water. "

"But suppose a strange thought came in the mind of your Pierre. Itwould be like the pebbles in swift-running spring water. He wouldcarry it on, rushing. It would tear away the old boundaries of hismind--it might wipe out the banks you have set down for him--it mighttear away the choicest teachings. "

Father Victor sat straight and stiff with stern, set lips. He saiddryly: "Father Anthony has been much in the world. "

"I speak from the best intention, good father. Look you, now, I haveseen that same red hair and those same lighted blue eyes before, andwherever I have seen them has been war and trouble and unrest. I haveseen that same smile which stirs the heart of a woman and makes a manreach for his revolver. This boy whose mind is so clear--arm him witha single wrong thought, with a single doubt of the eternal goodness ofGod's plans, and he will be a thunderbolt indeed, dear Father, but onewhich even your strong hand could not control. "

"I have heard you, " said the priest; "but you will see. He is comingnow. "

There was a knock at the door; then it opened and showed a modestnovice in a simple gown of black serge girt at the waist with the flatencircling band. His head was downward; it was not till the blue eyesflashed inquisitively up that Father Anthony recognized Pierre. 

The hard voice of Jean Paul Victor pronounced: "This is that FatherAnthony of whom I have spoken. "

The novice slipped to his knees and folded his hands, while the plumpfingers of Father Anthony poised over that dark red hair, pressedsmooth on top where the skullcap rested. The blessing which he spokewas Latin, and Father Victor looked somewhat anxiously toward hisprotege till the latter answered in a diction so pure that Cicerohimself would have smiled to hear it. 

"Stand up!" cried Father Anthony. "By heavens, Jean Paul, it is thepurest Latin I have heard this twelvemonth. "

And the lad answered: "It must be pure Latin; Father Victor has taughtme. "

Gabrielle Anthony stared, and to save him from too obvious confusionthe other priest interrupted: "I have a letter for you, my son. "

And he passed the envelope to Pierre. The latter examined it withinterest. "This comes from the south. It is marked from theUnited States. "

"So far!" exclaimed the tall priest. "Give me the letter, lad. "

But here he caught the whimsical eyes of Father Anthony, and heallowed his outstretched hand to fall. Yet he scowled as he said: "No;keep it and read it, Pierre. "

"I have no great wish to keep it, " answered Pierre, studying anxiouslythe dark brow of the priest. 

"It is yours. Open it and read. "

The lad obeyed instantly. He shook out the folded paper and moved alittle nearer the light. Then he read aloud, as if it had neverentered his mind that what was addressed to him might be meant for hiseyes alone. 

"Morgantown, "R. F. D. No. 4. 

"SON PIERRE:

"Here I lie with a chunk of lead from the gun of Bob McGurk restingsomewheres in the insides of me, and there ain't no way of doubtingthat I'm about to go out. Now, I ain't complaining none. I've had myfling. I've eat my meat to order, well done and rare--mostly rare. Maybe some folks will be saying that I've got what I've been askingfor, and I know that Bob McGurk got me fair and square, shooting fromthe hip. That don't help me none, lying here with a through ticket tosome place that's farther south than Texas. 

"Hell ain't none too bad for me, I know. I ain't whining none. I justlie here and watch the world getting dimmer until I begin to be seeingthings out of my past. That shows the devil ain't losing no time withme. But the thing that comes back oftenest and hits me the hardest isthe sight of your mother, lying with you in the hollow of her arm andlooking up at me and whispering, 'Dad, ' just before she went out. "

The hand of the boy fell, and his eyes sought the face of FatherVictor. The latter was standing. 

"You told me I had no father--"

An imperious arm stretched toward him. 

"Give me the letter. "

He moved to obey, and then checked himself. 

"This is my father's writing, is it not?"

"No, no! It's a lie, Pierre!"

But Pierre stood with the letter held behind his back, and the firstdoubt in his life stood up darkly in his eyes. Father Victor sankslowly back into his chair, his gaunt frame trembling. 

"Read on, " he commanded. 

And Pierre, white of face, read on:

"So I got a idea that I had to write to you, Pierre. There ain'tnothing I can make up to you, but knowing the truth may help some. Poor kid, you ain't got no father in the eyes of the law, and neitherdid you have no mother, and there ain't no name that belongs to youby rights. 

"I was a man in them days, and your mother was a woman that broughtyour heart into your throat and set it singing. She and me, we weretoo busy being just plain happy to care much about what was right orwrong; so you just sort of happened along, Pierre. Me being so closeto hell, I remember her eyes that was bluer than heaven looking upto me, and her hair, that was copper with gold lights in it. 

"I buried Irene on the side of the mountain under a big, rough rock, and I didn't carve nothing on the rock. Then I took you, Pierre, and Iknew I wasn't no sort of a man to raise up the son of Irene; so Ibrought you to Father Victor on a winter night and left you in hisarms. That was after I'd done my best to raise you and you was justabout old enough to chatter a bit. There wasn't nothing else to do. Mywife, she went pretty near crazy when I brought you home. And she'd ofkilled you, Pierre, if I hadn't took you away. 

"You see, I was married before I met Irene. So there ain't no alibifor me. But me being so close to hell now, I look back to that time, and somehow I see no wrong in it still. 

"And if I done wrong then, I've got my share of hell-fire for it. HereI lie, with my boys, Bill and Bert, sitting around in the corner ofthe room waiting for me to go out. They ain't men, Pierre. They'rewolves in the skins of men. They're the right sons of their mother. When I go out they'll grab the coin I've saved up, and leave me to liehere and rot, maybe. 

"Lad, it's a fearful thing to die without having no one around thatcares, and to know that even after I've gone out I'm going to lie hereand have my dead eyes looking up at the ceiling. So I'm writing toyou, Pierre, part to tell you what you ought to know; part because Igot a sort of crazy idea that maybe you could get down here to mebefore I go out. 

"You don't owe me nothing but hard words, Pierre; but if you don't tryto come to me, the ghost of your mother will follow you all your life, lad, and you'll be seeing her blue eyes and the red-gold of her hairin the dark of the night as I see it now. Me, I'm a hard man, but itbreaks my heart, that ghost of Irene. So here I'll lie, waiting foryou, Pierre, and lingering out the days with whisky, and fighting thewolf eyes of them there sons of mine. If I weaken--If they find theycan look me square in the eye--they'll finish me quick and make offwith the coin. Pierre, come quick. 

"MARTIN RYDER. "

The hand of Pierre dropped slowly to his side, and the letterfluttered with a crisp rustling to the floor. 

CHAPTER 3

Then came a voice that startled the two priests, for it seemed that afourth man had entered the room, so changed was it from the musicalvoice of Pierre. 

"Father Victor, the roan is a strong horse. May I take him?"

"Pierre!" and the priest reached out his bony hands. 

But the boy did not seem to notice or to understand. 

"It is a long journey, and I will need a strong horse. It must beeight hundred miles to that town. "

"Pierre, what claim has he upon you? What debt have you to repay?"

And Pierre le Rouge answered: "He loved my mother. "

"You are going?"

The boy asked in astonishment: "Would you not have me go, Father?"

And Jean Paul Victor could not meet the sorrowful blue eyes. 

He bowed his head and answered: "My child, I would have you go. Butpromise with your hand in mine that you will come back to me when yourfather is buried. "

The lean fingers caught the extended hand of Pierre and froze aboutit. 

"But first I have a second duty in the southland. "

"A second?"

"You taught me to shoot and to use a knife. Once you said: 'An eye foran eye, and a tooth for a tooth. ' Father Victor, my father was killedby another man. "

"Pierre, dear lad, swear to me here on this cross that you will notraise your hands against the murderer. 'Vengeance is mine, saiththe Lord. '"

"He must have an instrument for his wrath. He shall work through me inthis. "

"Pierre, you blaspheme. "

"'An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. '"

"It was a demon in me that quoted that in your hearing, and notmyself. "

"The horse, Father Victor--may I have the roan?"

"Pierre, I command you--"

The light in the blue eyes was as cold and steady as that in thestarved eyes of Jean Paul Victor. 

"Hush!" he said calmly. "For the sake of the love that I bear for you, do not command me. "

The stern priest dropped his head. He said at last: "I have nothingsaving one great and terrible treasure which I see was predestined toyou. It is the cross of Father Meilan. You have worn it before. Youshall wear it hereafter as your own. "

He took from his own neck a silver cross suspended by a slender silverchain, and the boy, with startled eyes, dropped to his knees andreceived the gift. 

"It has brought good to all who possessed it, but for every good thingthat it works for you it will work evil on some other. Great is itsblessing and great is its burden. I, alas, know; but you also haveheard of its history. Do you accept it, Pierre?"

"Dear Father, with all my heart. "

The colorless hands touched the dark-red hair. 

"God pardon the sins you shall commit. "

Pierre crushed the hand of Jean Paul Victor against his lips andrushed from the room, while the tall priest, staring down at thefingers which had been kissed, pronounced: "I have forged athunderbolt, Father Gabrielle. It is too great for my hand. Listen!"And they heard clearly the sharp clang of a horse's hoofs on thehard-packed snow, loud at first, but fading rapidly away. The wind, increasing suddenly, shook the house furiously about them. 

It was a north wind, and traveled south before the rider of the strongroan. Over a thousand miles of plain and hills it passed, and downinto the cattle country of the mountain-desert which the Rockies hemon one side and the tall Sierras on the other. 

It was a trail to try even the endurance of Pierre and the strongroan, but the boy clung to it doggedly. On a trail that led down fromthe edges of the northern mountain the roan crashed to the ground in aplunging fall, hitting heavily on his knees. He was dead before theboy had freed his feet from the stirrups. 

Pierre threw the saddle over his shoulder and walked eight miles tothe nearest ranch house, where he spent practically the last cent ofhis money on another horse, and drove on south once more. 

There was little hope in him as day after day slipped past. Only theghost of a chance remained that Martin Ryder could fight away deathfor another fortnight; yet Pierre had seen many a man from themountain-desert stave off the end through weeks and weeks of thebitterest suffering. His father must be a man of the same hard durablemetal, and upon that Pierre staked all his hopes. 

And always he carried the picture of the dying man alone with his twowolf-eyed sons who waited for his eyes to weaken. Whenever he thoughtof that he touched his horse with the spurs and rode fiercely for atime. They were his flesh and blood, the man, and even the twowolf-eyed sons. 

So he came at last to a gap in the hills and looked down on Morgantownin the hollow, twoscore unpainted houses sprawling along a singlestreet. The snow was everywhere white and pure, and the town waslike a stain on the landscape with wisps of smoke rising and trailingacross the hilltops. 

Down to the edge of the town he rode, left his cow-pony standing withhanging head outside a saloon, strode through the swinging doors, andasked of the bartender the way to the house of Martin Ryder. 

The bartender stopped in his labor of rubbing down the surface of hisbar and stared at the black-serge robe of the stranger, with curiosityrather than criticism, for women, madmen, and clergymen have theright-of-way in the mountain-desert. 

He said: "Well, I'll be damned!--askin' your pardon. So old Mart Ryderhas come down to this, eh? Partner, you're sure going to have a roughride getting Mart to heaven. Better send a posse along with him, because some first-class angels are going to get considerable riledwhen they sight him coming. Ha, ha, ha! Sure I'll show you the way. Take the northwest road out of town and go five miles till you see abroken-backed shack lyin' over to the right. That's MartRyder's place. "

Out to the broken-backed shack rode Pierre le Rouge, Pierre the Red, as everyone in the north country knew him. His second horse, staunchcow-pony that it was, stumbled on with sagging knees and hanging head, but Pierre rode upright, at ease, for his mind was untired. 

Broken-backed indeed was the house before which he dismounted. Theroof sagged from end to end, and the stove pipe chimney leaned at adrunken angle. Nature itself was withered beside that house; beforethe door stood a great cottonwood, gashed and scarred by lightning, with the limbs almost entirely stripped away from one side. Under thisbroken monster Pierre stepped and through the door. Two growls likethe snarls of watch-dogs greeted him, and two tall, unshaven menbarred his way. Behind them, from the bed in the corner, a feeblevoice called: "Who's there?"

"In the name of God, " said the boy gravely, for he saw a hollow-eyedspecter staring toward him from the bed in the corner, "let me pass! Iam his son!"

It was not that which made them give back, but a shrill, faint cry oftriumph from the sick man toward which they turned. Pierre slippedpast them and stood above Martin Ryder. He was wasted beyondbelief--only the monster hand showed what he had been. 

"Son?" he queried with yearning and uncertainty. 

"Pierre, your son. "

And he slipped to his knees beside the bed. The heavy hand fell uponhis hair and stroked it. 

"There ain't no ways of doubting it. It's red silk, like the hair ofIrene. Seein' you, boy, it ain't so hard to die. Look up! So! Pierre, my son! Are you scared of me, boy?"

"I'm not afraid. "

"Not with them eyes you ain't. Now that you're here, pay the coyotesand let 'em go off to gnaw the bones. "

He dragged out a small canvas bag from beneath the blankets andgestured toward the two lurkers in the corner. 

"Take it, and be damned to you!"

A dirty, yellow hand seized the bag; there was a chortle ofexultation, and the two scurried out of the room. 

"Three weeks they've watched an' waited for me to go out, Pierre. Three weeks they've waited an' sneaked up to my bed an' sneaked awayagin, seein' my eyes open. "

Looking into their fierce fever brightness, Pierre understood why theyhad quailed. For the man, though wrecked beyond hope of living, wasterrible still. The thick, gray stubble on his face could not hidealtogether the hard lines of mouth and jaw, and on the wasted arm thehand was grotesquely huge. It was horror that widened the eyes ofPierre as he looked at Martin Ryder; it was a grim happiness that madehis lips almost smile. 

"You've taken holy orders, lad?"

"No. "

"But the black dress?"

"I'm only a novice. I've sworn no vows. "

"And you don't hate me--you hold no grudge against me for the sake ofyour mother?"

Pierre took the heavy hand. 

"Are you not my father? And my mother was happy with you. For her sakeI love you. "

"The good Father Victor. He sent you to me. "

"I came of my own will. He would not have let me go. "

"He--he would have kept my flesh and blood away from me?"

"Do not reproach him. He would have kept me from a sin. "

"Sin? By God, boy, no matter what I've done, is it sin for my son tocome to me? What sin?"

"The sin of murder!"

"Ha!"

"I have come to find McGurk. "

CHAPTER 4

Like some old father-bear watching his cub flash teeth against astalking lynx, half proud and half fearful of such courage, so thedying cattleman looked at his son. Excitement set a high and dangerouscolor in his cheek. "Pierre--brave boy! Look at me. I ain't noimitation man, even now, but I ain't a ghost of what I was. Therewasn't no man I wouldn't of met fair and square with bare hands orwith a gun. Maybe my hands was big, but they were fast on the draw. I've lived all my life with iron on the hip, and my six-gun hasseven notches. 

"But McGurk downed me fair and square. There wasn't no murder. I wasout for his hide, and he knew it. I done the provokin', an' he jestdone the finishin', that was all. It hurts me a lot to say it, buthe's a better man than I was. A kid like you, why, he'd jest eatyou, Pierre. "

Pierre le Rouge smiled again. He felt a stern pride to be the son ofthis man. 

"So that's settled, " went on Martin Ryder, "an' a damned good thing itis. Son, you didn't come none too soon. I'm goin' out fast. Thereain't enough light left in me so's I can see my own way. Here's all Iask: When I die touch my eyelids soft an' draw 'em shut--I've seen thelook in a dead man's eyes. Close 'em, and I know I'll go to sleep an'have good dreams. And down in the middle of Morgantown is theburyin'-ground. I've ridden past it a thousand times an' watched acorner plot, where the grass grows quicker than it does anywheres elsein the cemetery. Pierre, I'd die plumb easy if I knew I was goin' tosleep the rest of time in that place. "

"It shall be done. "

"But that corner plot, it would cost a pile, son. And I've no money. Igave what I had to them wolf-eyed boys, Bill an' Bert. Money was whatthey wanted, an' after I had Irene's son with me, money was thecheapest way of gettin' rid of 'em. "

"I'll buy the plot. "

"Have you got that much money, lad?"

"Yes, " lied Pierre calmly. 

The bright eyes grew dimmer and then fluttered close. Pierre startedto his feet, thinking that the end had come. But the voice beganagain, fainter, slowly. 

"No light left inside of me, but dyin' this way is easy. There ain'tno wind will blow on me after I'm dead, but I'll be blanketed safefrom head to foot in cool, sweet-smellin' sod--the kind that hastangles of the roots of grass. There ain't no snow will reach to mewhere I lie. There ain't no sun will burn down to me. Dyin' like thatis jest--goin' to sleep. "

After that he said nothing for a time, and the late afternoon darkenedslowly through the room. 

As for Pierre, he did not move, and his mind went back. He did not seethe bearded wreck who lay dying before him, but a picture of Irene, with the sun lighting her copper hair with places of burning gold, anda handsome young giant beside her. They rode together on some uplandtrail at sunset time, sharply framed against the bright sky. 

There was a whisper below him: "Irene!"

And Pierre looked down to blankly staring eyes. He groaned, anddropped to his knees. 

"I have come for you, " said the whisper, "because the time has come, Irene. We have to ride out together. We have a long ways to go. Areyou ready?"

"Yes, " said Pierre. 

"Thank God! It's a wonderful night. The stars are asking us out. Quick! Into your saddle. Now the spurs. So! We are alone and free, with the winds around us, and all that we have been forgottenbehind us. "

The eyes opened wide and stared up; without a stir in the great, gauntbody, he was dead. Pierre reverently drew the eyes shut. There were notears in his eyes, but a feeling of hollowness about his heart. Hestraightened and looked about him and found that the room wasquite dark. 

So in the dimness Pierre fumbled, by force of habit, at his throat, and found the cross which he wore by a silver chain about his throat. He held it in a great grip and closed his eyes and prayed. When heopened his eyes again it was almost deep night in the room, and Pierrehad passed from youth to manhood. Through the gloom nothing stood outdistinctly save the white face of the dead man, and from that Pierrelooked quickly away. 

One by one he numbered his obligations to Martin Ryder, and first andlast he remembered the lie which had soothed his father. The money forthat corner plot where the grass grew first in the spring of theyear--where was he to find it? He fumbled in his pocket and found onlya single coin. 

He leaned back against the wall and strove to concentrate on theproblem, but his thoughts wandered in spite of himself. Lookingbackward, he remembered all things much more clearly than when he hadactually seen them. For instance, he recalled now that as he walkedthrough the door the two figures which had started up to block his wayhad left behind them some playing-cards at the corner table. One ofthese cards had slipped from the edge of the board and flickeredslowly to the floor. 

With that memory the thoughts of Pierre le Rouge stopped. The pictureof the falling card remained; all else went out in his mind like thesnuffing of the candle. Then, as if he heard a voice directing himthrough the utter blackness of the room, he knew what he must do. 

All his wealth was the single half-dollar piece in his pocket, andthere was only one way in which that coin could be increased to thesum he would need to buy that corner plot, where the soul of oldMartin Ryder could sleep long and deep. 

From his brothers he would get no help. The least memory of thosesallow, hungry faces convinced him of that. 

There remained the gaming table. In the north country he had watchedmen sit in a silent circle, smoking, drinking, with the flare of anoil-lamp against deep, seamed faces, and only the slip and whisper ofcard against card. 

Cold conscience tapped the shoulder of Pierre, remembering the lessonsof Father Victor, but a moment later his head went up and his eyeswere shining through the dark. After all, the end justified the means. 

A moment later he was laughing softly as a boy in the midst of aprank, and busily throwing off the robe of serge. Fumbling through thenight he located the shirt and trousers he had seen hanging from anail on the wall. Into these he slipped, and then went out underthe open sky. 

The rest had revived the strength of the tough little cow-pony, and hedrove on at a gallop toward the twinkling lights of Morgantown. Therewas a new consciousness about Pierre as if he had changed his wholenature with his clothes. The sober sense of duty which had kept him inawe all his life like a lifted finger, was almost gone, and in itsplace was a joyous freedom. 

For the first time he faintly realized what an existence other thanthat of a priest might be. Now for a brief moment he could forget thepart of the subdued novice and become merely a man with nothing abouthim to distinguish him from other men, nothing to make heads turn athis approach and raise whispers as he passed. 

It was a game, but he rejoiced in it as a girl does in her firstmasquerade. Tomorrow he must be grave and sober-footed and an exampleto other men; tonight he could frolic as he pleased. 

So Pierre le Rouge tossed back his head and laughed up to the frostystars. The loose sleeves and the skirts of the robe no longerentangled his limbs. He threw up his arms and shouted. A hillsidecaught the sound and echoed it back to him with a wonderful clearness, and up and down the long ravine beat the clatter of the flying hoofs. The whole world shouted and laughed and rode with him on Morgantown. 

If the people in the houses that he passed had known they would havestarted up from their chairs and taken rifle and horse and chasedafter him on the trail. But how could they tell from the passing ofthose ringing hoofs that Pierre, the novice, was dead, and RedPierre was born?

So they drowsed on about their comfortable fires, and Pierre drew reinwith a jerk before the largest of Morgantown's saloons. He had to sethis teeth before he could summon the resolution to throw open thedoor. It was done; he stepped inside, and stood blinking in the suddenrush of light against his face. 

It was all bewildering at first; the radiance, the blue tangle ofsmoke, the storm of voices. For Muldoon's was packed from door todoor. Coins rang in a steady chorus along the bar, and the crowdwaited three and four deep. 

Someone was singing a rollicking song of the range at one end of thebar, and a chorus of four bellowed a profane parody at the other end. 

The ears of Pierre le Rouge tingled hotly, and partly to escape theuproar he worked his way to the quieter room at the back ofthe saloon. 

It was almost as crowded as the bar, but here no one spoke except foran occasional growl. Sudden speaking, and a loud voice, indeed, washardly safe. Someone cursed at his ill-luck as Pierre entered, and adozen hands reached for six-guns. In such a place one had tobe prepared. 

Pierre remembered with quick dismay that he was not armed. All hislife the straight black gown had been weapon enough to make all mengive way before him. Now he carried no borrowed strength upon hisshoulders. 

Automatically he slipped his fingers under the breast of his shirtuntil their tips touched the cold metal of the cross. That gave himstronger courage. The joy of the adventure made his blood warm againas he drew out his one coin and looked for a place to starthis venture. 

So he approached the nearest table. On the surface of it were markedsix squares with chalk, and each with its appropriate number. The manwho ran the game stood behind the table and shook three dice. Thenumbers which turned up paid the gambler. The numbers which failed toshow paid the owner of the game. 

His luck had been too strong that night, and now only two men facedhim, and both of them lost persistently. They were "bucking" the dicewith savage stubbornness. 

Pierre edged closer, shut his eyes, and deposited his coin. When helooked again he saw that he had wagered on the five. 

CHAPTER 5

The dice clattered across the table and were swept up by the hand ofthe man behind the table before Pierre could note them. Sick at heart, he began to turn away, as he saw that hand reach out and gather in thecoins of the other two bettors. It went out a third time and laidanother fifty-cent piece upon his. The heart of Pierre bounded up tohis throat. 

Again the dice rolled, and this time he saw distinctly two fives turnup. Two dollars in silver were dropped upon his, and still he let themoney lie. Again, again, and again the dice rolled. And now there werepieces of gold among the silver that covered the square of the five. The other two looked askance at him, and the owner of the gamegrowled: "Gimme room for the coins, stranger, will you?"

Pierre picked up his winnings. In his left hand he held them, and thecoins brimmed his cupped palm. With the free hand he placed his newwagers. But he lost now. 

"I cannot win forever, " thought Pierre, and redoubled his bets in aneffort to regain the lost ground. 

Still his little fortune dwindled, till the sweat came out on hisforehead and the blood that had flushed his face ran back and left himpale with dread. And at last there remained only one gold piece. Hehesitated, holding it poised for the wager, while the owner of thegame rattled the dice loudly and looked up at the coin withhungry eyes. 

Once more Pierre closed his eyes and laid his wager, while his emptyleft hand slipped again inside his shirt and touched the metal of thecross, and once more when he opened his eyes the hand of the gamblerwas going out to lay a second coin over his. 

"It is the cross!" thought Pierre. "It is the cross which brings meluck. "

The dice rattled out. He won. Again, and still he won. The gamblerwiped his forehead and looked up anxiously. For these were wagers ingold, and the doubling stakes were running high. About Pierre a crowdhad grown--a dozen cattlemen who watched the growing heap of gold withsilent fascination. Then they began to make wagers of their own, andthere were faint whispers of wrath and astonishment as the diceclicked out and each time the winnings of Pierre doubled. 

Suddenly the dealer stopped and held up his left hand as a warning. With his right, very slowly, inch by inch lest anyone should suspecthim of a gunplay, he drew out a heavy forty-five and laid it on thetable with the belt of cartridges. "Three years she's been on my hipthrough thick and thin, stranger. Three years she's shot close an'true. There ain't a butt in the world that hugs your hand tighter. There ain't a cylinder that spins easier. Shoot? Lad, even a kid likeyou could be a killer with that six-gun. What will you lay ag'in' it?"

And his red-stained eyes glanced covetously at the yellow heap ofPierre's money. 

"How much?" said Pierre eagerly. "Is there enough on the table to buythe gun?"

"Buy?" said the other fiercely. "There ain't enough coin west of theRockies to buy that gun. D'you think I'm yaller enough to sell my six?No, but I'll risk it in a fair bet. There ain't no disgrace in that;eh, pals?"

There was a chorus of low grunts of assent. 

"All right, " said Pierre. "That pile against the gun. "

"All of it?"

"All. "

"Look here, kid, if you're tryin' to play a charity game with me--"

"Charity?"

The frank surprise of that look disarmed the other. He swept up thedice-box, and shook it furiously, while his lips stirred. It was as ifhe murmured an incantation for success. The dice rolled out, winkingin the light, spun over, and the owner of the gun stood with bothhands braced against the edge of the table, and stared hopelessly down. 

A moment before his pockets had sagged with a precious weight, andthere had been a significant drag of the belt over his right hip. Nowboth burdens were gone. 

He looked up with a short laugh. 

"I'm dry. Who'll stake me to a drink?"

Pierre scooped up a dozen pieces of the gold. 

"Here. "

The other drew back. "You're very welcome to it. Here's more, ifyou'll have it. "

"The coin I've lost to you? Take back a gamblin' debt?"

"Easy there, " said one of the men. "Don't you see the kid's green?Here's a five-spot. "

The loser accepted the coin as carelessly as if he were conferring afavor by taking it, cast another scowl in the direction of Pierre, andwent out toward the bar. Pierre, very hot in the face, pocketed hiswinnings and belted on the gun. It hung low on his thigh, just in easygripping distance of his hand, and he fingered the butt with a smile. 

"The kid's feelin' most a man, " remarked a sarcastic voice. "Say, kid, why don't you try your luck with Mac Hurley? He's almost through withpoor old Cochrane. "

Following the direction of the pointing finger, Pierre saw one ofthose mute tragedies of the gambling hall. Cochrane, an old cattlemanwhose carefully trimmed, pointed white beard and slender, taperingfingers set him apart from the others in the room, was rather far gonewith liquor. He was still stiffly erect in his chair, and would betill the very moment consciousness left him, but his eyes were misty, and when he spoke his lips moved slowly, as though numbed by cold. 

Beside him stood a tall, black bottle with a little whisky glass toflank it. He made his bets with apparent carelessness, but with a realand deepening gloom. Once or twice he glanced up sharply as thoughreckoning his losses, though it seemed to Pierre le Rouge almost likean appeal. 

And what appeal could affect Mac Hurley? There was no color in theman, either body or soul. No emotion could show in those pale, smalleyes or change the color of the flabby cheeks. If his hands had beencut off, he might have seemed some sodden victim of a drug habit, butthe hands saved him. 

They seemed to belong to another body--beautiful, swift, and strong, and grafted by some foul mischance onto this rotten hulk. Very whitethey were, and long, with a nervous uneasiness in every motion, continually hovering around the cards with little touches which werealmost caresses. 

"It ain't a game, " said the man who had first pointed out the group toPierre, "it's just a slaughter. Cochrane's too far gone to seestraight. Look at that deal now! A kid could see that he's crookingthe cards!"

It was blackjack, and Hurley, as usual, was dealing. He dealt with onehand, flipping the cards out with a snap of the wrist, the fingersworking rapidly over the pack. Now and then he glanced over to thecrowd, as if to enjoy their admiration of his skill. He was showing itnow, not so much by the deftness of his cheating as by the opennesswith which he exposed his tricks. 

As the stranger remarked to Pierre, a child could have discovered thatthe cards were being dealt at will from the top and the bottom of thepack, but the gambler was enjoying himself by keeping his game justopen enough to be apparent to every other man in the room--just covertenough to deceive the drink-misted brain of Cochrane. And the pale, swinish eyes twinkled as they stared across the dull sorrow of the oldman. There was an ominous sound from Pierre: "Do you let a thing likethat happen in this country?" he asked fiercely. 

The other turned to him with a sneer. 

"_Let_ it happen? Who'll stop him? Say, partner, you ain't meanin' tosay that you don't know who Hurley is?"

"I don't need telling. I can see. "

"What you can't see means a lot more than what you can. I've been inthe same room when Hurley worked his gun once. It wasn't any killin', but it was the prettiest bit of cheatin' I ever seen. But even ifHurley wasn't enough, what about Carl Diaz?"

He glared his triumph at Pierre, but the latter was too puzzled toquail, and too stirred by the pale, gloomy face of Cochrane to turntoward the other. 

"What of Diaz?"

"Look here, boy. You're a kid, all right, but you ain't that young. D'you mean to say that you ain't heard of Carlos Diaz?"

It came back to Pierre then, for even into the snowbound seclusion ofthe north country the shadow of the name of Diaz had gone. He couldnot remember just what they were, but he seemed to recollect grimtales through which that name figured. 

The other went on: "But if you ain't ever seen him before, look himover now. They's some says he's faster on the draw than Bob McGurk, but, of course, that's stretchin' him out a size too much. What's thematter, kid; you've met McGurk?"

"No, but I'm going to. "

"Might even be carried to him, eh--feet first?"

Pierre turned and laid a hand on the shoulder of the other. 

"Don't talk like that, " he said gently. "I don't like it. "

The other reached up to snatch the hand from his shoulder, but hestayed his arm. 

He said after an uncomfortable moment of that silent staring: "Well, partner, there ain't a hell of a lot to get sore over, is there? Youdon't figure you're a mate for McGurk, do you?"

He seemed oddly relieved when the eyes of Pierre moved away from himand returned to the figure of Carlos Diaz. The Mexican was a perfectmodel for a painting of a melodramatic villain. He had waxed andtwirled the end of his black mustache so that it thrust out a littlespur on either side of his long face. His habitual expression was ascowl; his habitual position was with a cigarette in the fingers ofhis left hand, and his right hand resting on his hip. He sat in achair directly behind that of Hurley, and Pierre's new-foundacquaintance explained: "He's the bodyguard for Hurley. Maybe there'ssome who could down Hurley in a straight gunfight; maybe there's oneor two like McGurk that could down Diaz--damn his yellow hide--butthere ain't no one can buck the two of 'em. It ain't in reason. Sothey play the game together. Hurley works the cards and Diaz covers upthe retreat. Can't beat that, can you?"

Pierre le Rouge slipped his left hand once more inside his shirt untilthe fingers touched the cross. 

"Nevertheless, that game has to stop. "

"Who'll--say, kid, are you stringin' me, or are you drunk? Look me inthe eye!"

CHAPTER 6

Pierre turned and looked calmly upon the other. 

And the man whispered in a sort of awe: "Well, I'll be damned!"

"Stand aside!"

The other fell back a pace, and Pierre went straight to the table andsaid to Cochrane: "Sir, I have come to take you home. "

The old man looked up and rubbed his eyes as though waking from asleep. 

"Stand back from the table!" warned Hurley. 

"By the Lord, have they been missing me?" queried old Cochrane. "Youare waited for, " answered Pierre le Rouge, "and I've been sent to takeyou home. "

"If that's the case--"

"It ain't the case. The kid's lying. "

"Lying?" repeated Cochrane, as if he had never heard the word before, and he peered with clearing eyes toward Pierre. "No, I think this boyhas never lied. "

Silence had spread through the place like a vapor. Even the slightsounds in the gaming-room were done now, and one pair after another ofeyes swung toward the table of Cochrane and Hurley. The wave of thesilence reached to the barroom. No one could have carried the tidingsso soon, but the air was surcharged with the consciousness of animpending crisis. 

Half a dozen men started to make their way on tiptoe toward the backroom. One stood with his whisky glass suspended in midair, and tiltedback his head to listen. In the gaming-room Hurley pushed back hischair and leaned to the left, giving him a free sweep for his righthand. The Mexican smiled with a slow and deep content. 

"Thank you, " answered Pierre, "but I am waiting still, sir. "

The left hand of Hurley played impatiently on the table. 

He said: "Of course, if you have enough--"

"I--enough?" flared the old aristocrat. 

Pierre le Rouge turned fairly upon Hurley. 

"In the name of God, " he said calmly, "make an end of your game. You're playing for money, but I think this man is playing for hiseternal soul. "

The solemn, bookish phraseology came smoothly from his tongue. He knewno other. It drew a murmur of amusement from the room and a snarlfrom Hurley. 

"Put on skirts, kid, and join the Salvation Army, but don't getyourself messed all up in here. This is my party, and I'm damnedparticular who I invite! Now, run along!" The head of Pierre tiltedback, and he burst into laughter which troubled even Hurley. 

The gambler blurted: "What's happening to you, kid?"

"I've been making a lot of good resolutions, Mr. Hurley, about keepingout of trouble; but here I am in it up to the neck. "

"No trouble as long as you keep your hand out of another man's game, kid. "

"That's it. I can't see you rob Mr. Cochrane like this. You aren'tgambling--you're digging gold. The game stops now. "

It was a moment before the crowd realized what was about to happen;they saw it reflected first in the face of Hurley, which suddenly wenttaut and pale, and then, even as they looked with a smile of curiosityand derision toward Pierre le Rouge, they saw and understood. 

For the moment Pierre said, "The game stops now, " the calm which hadbeen with him was gone. It was like the scent of blood to the starvedwolf. The last word was scarcely off his tongue when he was crouchedwith a devil of green fury in his eyes--the light struck his hair intoa wave of flame--his face altered by a dozen ugly years. 

"D'you mean?" whispered Hurley, as if he feared to break the silencewith his full voice. 

"Get out of the room. "

And the impulse of Hurley, plainly enough, was to obey the order, andgo anywhere to escape from that relentless stare. His glance waveredand flashed around the circle and then back to Red Pierre, for theexpectancy of the crowd forced him back. 

When the leader of the pack springs and fails to kill, the rest of thepack tear him to pieces. Remembering this, Mac Hurley forced hisglance back to Pierre. Moreover, there was a soft voice from behind, and he remembered Diaz. 

All this had taken place in the length of time that it takes a heavybody to totter on the brink of a precipice or a cat to regain its feetafter a fall. After the voice of Diaz there was a sway through theroom, a pulse of silence, and then three hands shot for theirhips--Pierre, Diaz, and Hurley. 

No stop-watch could have caught the differing lengths of time whicheach required for the draw. The muzzle of Hurley's revolver was notclear of the holster--the gun of Diaz was nearly at the level whenPierre's weapon exploded at his hip. The bullet cut through the wristof Hurley. Never again would that slender, supple hand fly over thecards, doing things other than they seemed. He made no effort toescape from the next bullet, but stood looking down at his brokenwrist; horror for the moment gave him a dignity oddly out of placewith his usual appearance. He alone in all the room was moveless. 

The crowd, undecided for an instant, broke for the doors at the firstshot; Pierre le Rouge pitched to the floor as Diaz leaped forward, therevolver in either hand spitting lead and fire. 

It was no bullet that downed Pierre but his own cunning. He broke hisfall with an outstretched left hand, while the bullets of Diaz pumpedinto the void space which his body had filled a moment before. 

Lying there at ease, he leveled the revolver, grinning with themirthless lust of battle, and fired over the top of the table. Theguns dropped from the hands of huge Diaz. He caught at his throat andstaggered back the full length of the room, crashing against the wall. When he pitched forward on his face he was dead before he struckthe floor. 

Pierre, now Red Pierre, indeed, rose and ran to the fallen man, and, looking at the bulk of the giant, he wondered with a cold heart. Heknew before he slipped his hand over the breast of Diaz that this wasdeath. Then he rose again and watched the still fingers which seemedto be gripping at the boards. These he saw, and nothing else, andall he heard was the rattling of the wind of winter, wrenching at someloose shingle on the roof, and he knew that he was alone in the world, for he had put out a life. 

He found a strange weight pulling down his right hand, and startedwhen he saw the revolver. He replaced it in the holster automatically, and in so doing touched the barrel and found it warm. 

Then fear came to Pierre, the first real fear of his life. He jerkedhis head high and looked about him. The room was utterly empty. Hetiptoed to the door and found even the long bar deserted, litteredwith tall bottles and overturned glasses. The cold in his heartincreased. A moment before he had been hand in hand with all the mirthin that place. 

Now the men whose laughter he had repeated with smiles, the menagainst whose sleeves his elbow had touched, were further away fromhim than they had been when all the snow-covered miles from Morgantownto the school of Father Victor had laid between them. They were menwho might lose themselves in any crowd, but he was set apart with abrand, even as Hurley and Diaz had been set apart that eventful evening. 

He had killed a man. That fact blotted out the world. He drew his gunagain and stole down the length of the bar. Once he stopped and poisedthe weapon before he realized that the white, fierce face thatsquinted at him was his own reflection in a mirror. 

Outside the door the free wind caught at his face, and he blessed itin his heart, as if it had been the touch of the hand of a friend. Beyond the long, dark, silent street the moor rose and passed upthrough the safe, dark spaces of the sky. 

He must move quickly now. The pursuit was not yet organized, but itwould begin in a space of minutes. From the group of half a dozenhorses which stood before the saloon he selected the best--a tall, raw-boned nag with an ugly head. Into the saddle he swung, wonderingfaintly that the theft of a horse mattered so little to him. His wasthe greatest sin. All other things mattered nothing. 

Down the long street he galloped. The sharp echoes flew out at himfrom every unlighted house, but not a human being was in sight. So heswung out onto the long road which wound up through the hills, andbeside him rode a grim brotherhood, the invisible fellowship of Cain. 

The moon rose higher, brighter, and a grotesque black shadow gallopedover the snow beside him. He turned his head sharply to the other sideand watched the sweep of white hills which reached back in range afterrange until they blended with the shadows of night. 

The road faded to a bridle path, and this in turn he lost among thewindings of the valley. He was lost from even the traces of men, andyet the fear of men pursued him. Fear, and yet with it there was athrill of happiness, for every swinging stride of the tall, wild roancarried him deeper into freedom, the unutterable fierce freedom ofthe hunted. 

CHAPTER 7

All life was tame compared with this sudden awakening of Pierre. Hehad killed a man. For fear of it he raced the tall roan furiouslythrough the night. 

He had killed a man. For the joy of it he shouted a song that wentringing across the blank, white hills. What place was there in RedPierre for solemn qualms of conscience? Had he not met the first andlast test triumphantly? The oldest instinct in creation was satisfiedin him. Now he stood ready to say to all the world: Behold, a man!

Let it be remembered that his early years had been passed in a dull, dun silence, and time had slipped by him with softly padding, uneventful hours. Now, with the rope of restraint snapped, he rode atthe world with hands, palm upward, asking for life, and that lifewhich lies under the hills of the mountain-desert heard his questionand sent a cold, sharp echo back to answer his lusty singing. 

The first answer, as he plunged on, not knowing where, and not caring, was when the roan reeled suddenly and flung forward to the ground. Even that violent stop did not unseat Red Pierre. He jerked up on thereins with a curse and drove in the spurs. Valiantly the horse rearedhis shoulders up, but when he strove to rise the right foreleg dangledhelplessly. He had stepped in some hole and the bone was brokencleanly across. 

The rider slipped from the saddle and stood facing the roan, whichpricked its ears forward and struggled once more to regain its feet. The effort was hopeless, and Pierre took the broken leg and felt therough edges of the splintered bone through the skin. The animal, as ifit sensed that the man was trying to do it some good, nosed hisshoulder and whinnied softly. 

Pierre stepped back and drew his revolver. The bullet would do quicklywhat the cold would accomplish after lingering hours of torture, yet, facing those pricking ears and the trust of the eyes, he was blindedby a mist and could not aim. He had to place the muzzle of the gunagainst the roan's temple and pull the trigger. When he turned hisback he was the only living thing within the white arms of the hills. 

Yet, when the next hill was behind him, he had already forgotten thesecond life which he put out that night, for regret is the one sorrowwhich never dodges the footsteps of the hunted. Like all hisbrotherhood of Cain, Pierre le Rouge pressed forward across themountain-desert with his face turned toward the brave tomorrow. In theevening of his life, if he should live to that time, he would walk andtalk with God. 

Now he had no mind save for the bright day coming. 

He had been riding with the wind and had scarcely noticed its violencein his headlong course. Now he felt it whipping sharply at his backand increasing with each step. Overhead the sky was clear. It seemedto give vision for the wind and cold to seek him out, and the moonmade his following shadow long and black across the snow. 

The wind quickened rapidly to a gale that cut off the surface of thesnow and whipped volleys of the small particles level with thesurface. It cut the neck of Red Pierre, and the gusts struck hisshoulders with staggering force like separate blows, twisting him alittle from side to side. 

Coming from the direction of Morgantown, it seemed as if the vengeancefor Diaz was following the slayer. Once he turned and laughed in theteeth of the wind, and shook his fist back at Morgantown and all theavenging powers of the law. 

Yet he was glad to turn away from the face of the storm and stride ondown-wind. Even traveling with the gale grew more and more impossible. The snowdrifts which the wind picked up and hurried across the hillspressed against Pierre's back like a great, invisible hand, bowing himas if beneath a burden. In the hollows the labor was not so great, butwhen he approached a summit the gale screamed in his ear and struckhim savagely. 

For all his optimism, for all his young, undrained strength, a doubtbegan to grow in the mind of Pierre le Rouge. At length, rememberinghow that weight of gold came in his pockets, he slipped his left handinto the bosom of his shirt and touched the icy metal of the cross. Almost at once he heard, or thought he heard, a faint, sweet soundof singing. 

The heart of Red Pierre stopped. For he knew the visions which came tomen perishing with cold; but he grew calmer again in a moment. Thistouch of cold was nothing compared with whole months of hard exposurewhich he had endured in the northland. It had not the edge. If it werenot for the wind it was scarcely a threat to life. Moreover, thesinging sounded no more. It had been hardly more than a phrase ofmusic, and it must have been a deceptive murmur of the wind. 

After all, a gale brought wilder deceptions than that. Some men hadactually heard voices declaiming words in such a wind. He himself hadheard them tell their stories. So he leaned forward again and gave hisstanch heart to the task. Yet once more he stopped, for this time thesinging came clearly, sweetly to him. 

There was no doubt of it now. Of course it was wildly impossible, absurd; but beyond all question he heard the voice of a girl comewhistling down the wind. He could almost catch the words. For a littlemoment he lingered still. Then he turned and fought his way into thestrong arms of the storm. 

Every now and then he paused and crouched to the snow. Usually therewas only the shriek of the wind in his ears, but a few times thesinging came to him and urged him on. If he had allowed the idea offailure to enter his mind, he must have given up the struggle, butfailure was a stranger to his thoughts. 

He lowered his head against the storm. Sometimes it caught under himand nearly lifted him from his feet. But he clung against the slope ofthe hill, sometimes gripping hard with his hands. So he worked his wayto the right, the sound of the singing coming more and morefrequently and louder and louder. When he was almost upon the sourceof the music it ceased abruptly. 

He waited a moment, but no sound came. He struggled forward a few moreyards and pitched down exhausted, panting. Still he heard the singingno longer. With a falling heart he rose and resigned himself to wanderon his original course with the wind, but as he started he placed hishand once more against the cross, and it was then that he saw her. 

For he had simply gone past her, and the yelling of the storm had cutoff the sound of her voice. Now he saw her lying, a spot of brightcolor on the snow. He read the story at a glance. As she passed thissteep-sided hill the loosely piled snow had slid down and carried withit the dead trunk of a fallen tree. 

Pierre came from behind and stood over her unnoticed. He saw that theoncoming tree, by a strange chance, had knocked down the girl andpinned her legs to the ground. His strength and the strength of adozen men would not be sufficient to release her. This he saw at thefirst glance, and saw the bright gold of her hair against the snow. Then he dropped on his knees beside her. 

CHAPTER 8

The girl tossed up her arms in a silent greeting, and Pierre caughtthe small cold hands and saw that she was only a child of twelve orfourteen trapped by the wild storm sweeping over them. He crouchedlower still, and when he did so the strength of the wind against hisface decreased wonderfully, for the sharp angle of the hill'sdeclivity protected them. Seeing him kneel there, she cried out with alittle wail: "Help me--the tree--help me!" And, bursting into apassion of sobbing, she tugged her hands from his and coveredher face. 

Pierre placed his shoulder under the trunk and lifted till the musclesof his back snapped and cracked. He could not budge the weight; hecould not even send a tremor through the mass of wood. He dropped backbeside her with a groan. He felt her eyes upon him; she had ceased hersobs, and looked steadily into his face. 

It would have been easy for him to meet that look on the morning ofthis day, but after that night's work in Morgantown he had to bracehis nerve to withstand it. 

She said: "You can't budge the tree?"

"Yes--in a minute; I will try again. "

"You'll only hurt yourself for nothing. I saw how you strained at it. "

The greatest miracle he had ever seen was her calm. Her eyes were wideand sorrowful indeed, but she was almost smiling up to him. 

After a while he was able to say, in a faint voice: "Are you verycold?"

She answered: "I'm not afraid. But if you stay longer with me, you mayfreeze. The snow and even the tree help to keep me almost warm; butyou will freeze. Go for help; hurry, and if you can, send it backto me. "

He thought of the long miles back to Morgantown; no human being couldwalk that distance against this wind; not even a strong horse couldmake its way through the storm. If he went on with the wind, how longwould it be before he reached a house? Before him, over range afterrange of hills, he saw no single sign of a building. If he reachedsome such place it would be the same story as the trip to Morgantown;men simply could not beat a way against that wind. 

Then a cold hand touched him, and he looked up to find her eyes graveand wide once more, and her lips half smiling, as if she strove todeceive him. 

"There's no chance of bringing help?"

He merely stared hungrily at her, and the loveliest thing he had everseen was the play of golden hair beside her cheek. Her smile went out. She withdrew her hand, but she repeated: "I'm not afraid. I'll simplygrow numb and then fall asleep. But you go on and save yourself. "

Seeing him shake his head, she caught his hands again. 

"I'll be unhappy. You'll make me so unhappy if you stay. Please go. "

He raised the small hand and pressed it to his lips. 

She said: "You are crying!"

"No, no!"

"There! I see the tears shining on my hand. What is your name?"

"Pierre. "

"Pierre? I like that name. Pierre, to make me happy, will you go? Yourface is all white and touched with a shadow of blue. It is the cold. Oh, won't you go?" Then she pleaded, finding him obdurate: "If youwon't go for me, then go for your father. "

He raised his head with a sudden laughter, and, raising it, the windbeat into his face fiercely and the particles of snow whippedhis skin. 

"Dear Pierre, then for your mother?"

He bowed his head. 

"Not for all the people who love you and wait for you now by some warmfire--some cozy fire, all yellow and bright?"

He took her hands and with them covered his eyes. "Listen: I have nofather; I have no mother. "

"Pierre! Oh, Pierre, I'm sorry!"

"And for the rest of 'em, I've killed a man. The whole world hates me;the whole world's hunting me. "

The small hands tugged away. He dared not raise his bowed head forfear of her eyes. And then the hands came back to him and touchedhis face. 

She was saying tremulously: "Then he deserved to be killed. There mustbe men like that--almost. And I--like you still, Pierre. "

"Really?"

"I almost think I like you more--because you could kill a man--andthen stay here for me. "

"If you were a grown-up girl, do you know what I'd say?"

"Please tell me. "

"That I could love you. "

"Pierre--"

"Yes. "

"My name is Mary Brown. "

He repeated several times: "Mary. "

"And if I were a grown-up girl, do you know what I would answer?"

"I don't dare guess it. "

"That I could love you, Pierre, if you were a grown-up man. "

"But I am. "

"Not a really one. "

And they both broke into laughter--laughter that died out before asound of rushing and of thunder, as a mass slid swiftly past them, snow and mud and sand and rubble. The wind fell away from them, andwhen Pierre looked up he saw that a great mass of tumbled rock andsoil loomed above them. 

The landslide had not touched them, by some miracle, but in a momentmore it might shake loose again, and all that mass of ton upon ton ofstone and loam would overwhelm them. The whole mass quaked andtrembled, and the very hillside shuddered beneath them. 

She looked up and saw the coming ruin; but her cry was for him, notherself. 

"Run, Pierre--you can save yourself. "

With that terror threatening him from above, he rose and started torun down the hill. A moan of woe followed him, and he stopped andturned back, and fought his way through the wind until he was besideher once more. 

She was weeping. 

"Pierre--I couldn't help calling out for you; but now I'm strongagain, and I won't have you stay. The whole mountain is shaking andfalling toward us. Go now, Pierre, and I'll never make a sound tobring you back. "

He said: "Hush! I've something here which will keep us both safe. Look!"

He tore from the chain the little metal cross, and held it highoverhead, glimmering in the pallid light. She forgot her fearin wonder. 

"I gambled with only one coin to lose, and I came out tonight withhundreds and hundreds of dollars because I had the cross. It is acharm against all danger and against all bad fortune. It has neverfailed me. "

Over them the piled mass slid closer. The forehead of Pierre gleamedwith sweat, but a strong purpose made him talk on. At least he couldtake all the foreboding of death from the child, and when the end cameit would be swift and wipe them both out at one stroke. She clung tohim, eager to believe. 

"I've closed my eyes so that I can believe. "

"It has never failed me. It saved me when I fought two men. One ofthem I crippled and the other died. You see, the power of the cross isas great as that. Do you doubt it now, Mary?"

"Do you believe in it so much--really--Pierre?"

Each time there was a little lowering of her voice, a little pause andcaress in the tone as she uttered his name, and nothing in all hislife had stirred Red Pierre so deeply with happiness and sorrow. 

"Do you believe, Pierre?" she repeated. 

He looked up and saw the shuddering mass of the landslide creepingupon them inch by inch. In another moment it would loose itself with arush and cover them. 

"I believe, " he said. 

"If you should live, and I should die--"

"I would throw the cross away. "

"No, you would keep it; and every time you touched it you would thinkof me, Pierre, would you not?"

"When you reach out to me like that, you take my heart between yourhands. "

"And I feel grown up and sad and happy both together. After we've beentogether on such a night, how can we ever be apart again?"

The mass of the landslide toppled right above them. She did not seemto see. 

"I'm so happy, Pierre. I was never so happy. "

And he said, with his eyes on the approaching ruin: "It was yoursinging that brought me to you. Will you sing again?"

"I sang because I knew that when I sang the sound would carry fartherthrough the wind than if I called for help. What shall I sing for younow, Pierre?"

"What you sang when I came to you. "

And the light, sweet voice rose easily through the sweep of the wind. She smiled as she sang, and the smile and music were all for Pierre, he knew. Through the last stanza of the song the rumble of theapproaching death grew louder, and as she ended he threw himselfbeside her and gathered her into protecting arms. 

She cried: "Pierre! What is it?"

"I must keep you warm; the snow will eat away your strength. "

"No; it's more than that. Tell me, Pierre! You don't trust the powerof the cross?"

"Are you afraid?"

"Oh, no; I'm not afraid, Pierre. "

"If one life would be enough, I'd give mine a thousand times. Mary, weare to die. "

An arm slipped around his neck--a cold hand pressed against his cheek. 

"Pierre. "

"Yes. "

The thunder broke above them with a mighty roaring. 

"_You_ have no fear. "

"Mary, if I had died alone I would have dropped down to hell under mysins; but, with your arm around me, you'll take me with you. Holdme close. "

"With all my heart, Pierre. See--I'm not afraid. It is like going tosleep. What wonderful dreams we'll have!"

And then the black mass of the landslide swept upon them. 

CHAPTER 9

Down all the length of the mountain-desert and across its width ofrocks and mountains and valleys and stern plateaus there is a saying:"You can tell a man by the horse he rides. " For most other importantthings are apt to go by opposites, which is the usual way in which aman selects his wife. With dogs, for instance--a quiet man is apt towant an active dog, and a tractable fellow may keep the most viciousof wolf-dogs. 

But when it comes to a horse, a man's heart speaks for itself, and ifhe has sufficient knowledge he will choose a sympathetic mount. Awoman loves a neat-stepping saddle-horse; a philosopher likes anodding, stumble-footed nag which will jog all day long and care not awhit whether it goes up dale or down. 

To know the six wild riders who galloped over the white reaches of themountain-desert this night, certainly their horses should be studiedfirst and the men secondly, for the one explained the other. 

They came in a racing triangle. Even the storm at its height could notdaunt such furious riders. At the point of the triangle thundered amighty black stallion, his muzzle and his broad chest flecked withwhite foam, for he stretched his head out and champed at the bit withears laid flat back, as though even that furious pace gave him noopportunity to use fully his strength. 

He was an ugly headed monster with a savagely hooked Roman nose andsmall, keen eyes, always red at the corners. A medieval baron in fullpanoply of plate armor would have chosen such a charger among tenthousand steeds, yet the black stallion needed all his strength touphold the unarmored giant who bestrode him, a savage figure. 

When the broad brim of his hat flapped up against the wind themoonshine caught at shaggy brows, a cruelly arched nose, thin, straight lips, and a forward-thrusting jaw. It seemed as if nature hadhewn him roughly and designed him for a primitive age where he couldfight his way with hands and teeth. 

This was Jim Boone. To his right and a little behind him galloped ariderless horse, a beautiful young animal continually tossing itshead and looking as if for guidance at the big stallion. 

To the left strode a handsome bay with pricking ears. A moundinterfered with his course, and he cleared it in magnificent stylethat would have brought a cheer from the lips of any English lover ofthe chase. 

Straight in the saddle sat Dick Wilbur, and he raised his face alittle to the wind, smiling faintly as if he rejoiced in its finestrength, as handsome as the horse he rode, as cleanly cut, as finelybred. The moon shone a little brighter on him than on any other of thesix riders. 

Bud Mansie behind, for instance, kept his head slightly to one sideand cursed beneath his breath at the storm and set his teeth at thewind. His horse, delicately formed, with long, slender legs, could nothave endured that charge against the storm save that it constantlyedged behind the leaders and let them break the wind. It carried lessweight than any other mount of the six, and its strength was cunninglynursed by the rider so that it kept its place, and at the finish itwould be as strong as any and swifter, perhaps, for a sudden, shorteffort, just as Bud Mansie might be numbed through all his nervous, slender body, but never too numb for swift and deadly action. 

On the opposite wing of the flying wedge galloped a dust-colored gray, ragged of mane and tail, and vindictive of eye, like its down-headedrider, who shifted his glance rapidly from side to side and watchedthe ground closely before his horse as if he were perpetually preparedfor danger. 

He distrusted the very ground over which his mount strode. For allthis he seemed the least formidable of all the riders. To see him passnone could have suspected that this was Black Morgan Gandil. 

Last of the crew came two men almost as large as Jim Boone himself, onstrong steady-striding horses. They came last in this crew, but amonga thousand other long-riders they would have ridden first, eitherred-faced, good-humored, loud-voiced Garry Patterson, or Phil Branch, stout-handed, blunt of jaw, who handled men as he had once hammeredred iron at the forge. 

Each of them should have ridden alone in order to be properlyappreciated. To see them together was like watching a flock of eaglesevery one of which should have been a solitary lord of the air. Butafter scanning that lordly train which followed, the more terribleseemed the rider of the great black horse. 

Yet the king was sad, and the reason for his sadness was the riderlesshorse which galloped so freely beside him. His son had ridden thathorse when they set out, and all the way down to the railroad HandsomeHal Boone had kept his mount prancing and curveting and had riddenaround and around tall Dick Wilbur, playing pranks, and had teased hisfather's black until the big stallion lashed out wildly withfurious heels. 

It was the memory of this that kept the grave shadow of a smile on thefather's lips for all the sternness of his eyes. He never turned hishead, for, looking straight forward, he could conjure up the laughingvision; but when he glanced to the empty saddle he heard once more thelast unlucky shot fired from the train as they raced off with theirbooty, and saw Hal reel in his saddle and pitch forward; and how hehad tried to check his horse and turn back; and how Dick Wilbur, andPatterson, and big Phil Branch had forced him to go on and leave thatform lying motionless on the snow. 

At that he groaned, and spurred the black, and so the cavalcade rushedfaster and faster through the night. 

They came over a sharp ridge and veered to the side just in time, forall the further slope was a mass of treacherous sand and rubble andraw rocks and mud, where a landslide had stripped the hill tothe stone. 

As they veered about the ruin and thundered on down to the foot ofthe hill, Jim Boone threw up his hand for a signal and brought hisstallion to a halt on back-braced, sliding legs. 

For a metallic glitter had caught his eye, and then he saw, halfcovered by the pebbles and dirt, the figure of a man. He must havebeen struck by the landslide and not overwhelmed by it, but rathercarried before it like a stick in a rush of water. At the outermostedge of the wave he lay with the rocks and dirt washed over him. Booneswung from the saddle and lifted Pierre le Rouge. 

The gleam of metal was the cross which his fingers still gripped. Boone examined it with a somewhat superstitious caution, took it fromthe nerveless fingers, and slipped it into a pocket of Pierre's shirt. A small cut on the boy's forehead showed where the stone struck whichknocked him senseless, but the cut still bled--a small trickle--Pierrelived. He even stirred and groaned and opened his eyes, large anddeeply blue. 

It was only an instant before they closed, but Boone had seen. Heturned with the figure lifted easily in his arms as if Pierre had beena child fallen asleep by the hearth and now about to be carried offto bed. 

And the outlaw said: "I've lost my boy tonight. This here one wasgiven me by the will of--God. "

Black Morgan Gandil reined his horse close by, leaned to peer down, and the shadow of his hat fell across the face of Pierre. 

"There's no good comes of savin' shipwrecked men. Leave him where youfound him, Jim. That's my advice. Sidestep a redheaded man. That'swhat I say. "

The quick-stepping horse of Bud Mansie came near, and the rider wipedhis stiff lips, and spoke from the side of his mouth, a prison habitof the line that moves in the lockstep: "Take it from me, Jim, thereain't any place in our crew for a man you've picked up without knowinghim beforehand. Let him lay, I say. " But big Dick Wilbur was alreadyleading up the horse of Hal Boone, and into the saddle Jim Boone swungthe inert body of Pierre. The argument was settled, for every man ofthem knew that nothing could turn Boone back from a thing once begun. Yet there were muttered comments that drew Black Morgan Gandil and BudMansie together. 

And Gandil, from the South Seas, growled with averted eyes: "This isthe most fool stunt the chief has ever pulled. "

"Right, pal, " answered Mansie. "You take a snake in out of the cold, and it bites you when it comes to in the warmth; but the chief hasstarted, and there ain't nothing that'll make him stop, except maybeGod or McGurk. "

And Black Gandil answered with his evil, sudden grin: "Maybe McGurk, but not God. "

They started on again with Garry Patterson and Dick Wilbur ridingclose on either side of Pierre, supporting his limp body. It delayedthe whole gang, for they could not go on faster than a jog-trot. Thewind, however, was falling off in violence. Its shrill whistlingceased, at length, and they went on, accompanied only by the harshcrunching of the snow underfoot. 

CHAPTER 10

Consciousness returned to Pierre slowly. Many a time his eyes opened, and he saw nothing, but when he did see and hear it was byvague glimpses. 

He heard the crunch of the snow underfoot; he heard the panting andsnorting of the horses; he felt the swing and jolt of the saddlebeneath him; he saw the grim faces of the long-riders, and he said:"The law has taken me. "

Thereafter he let his will lapse, and surrendered to the sleepynumbness which assailed his brain in waves. He was riding withoutsupport by this time, but it was an automatic effort. There was nomore real life in him than in a dummy figure. It was not the effect ofthe blow. It was rather the long exposure and the overexertion of mindand body during the evening and night. He had simply collapsed beneaththe strain. 

But an old army man has said: "Give me a soldier of eighteen ortwenty. In a single day he may not march quite so far as a more matureman or carry quite so much weight. He will go to sleep each night deadto the world. But in the morning he awakens a new man. He is like aslate from which all the writing has been erased. He is ready for anew day and a new world. Thirty days of campaigning leaves him asstrong and fresh as ever. 

"Thirty days of campaigning leaves the old soldier a wreck. Why?Because as a man grows older he loses the ability to sleep soundly. Hecarries the nervous strain of one day over to the next. Life is aserious problem to a man over thirty. To a man under thirty it issimply a game. For my part, give me men who can play at war. "

So it was with Pierre le Rouge. He woke with a faint heaviness ofhead, and stretched himself. There were many sore places, but nothingmore. He looked up, and the slant winter sun cut across his face andmade a patch of bright yellow on the wall beside him. 

Next he heard a faint humming, and, turning his head, saw a boy offourteen or perhaps a little more, busily cleaning a rifle in a waythat betokened the most expert knowledge of the weapon. Pierre himselfknew rifles as a preacher knows his Bible, and as he lay half awakeand half asleep he smiled with enjoyment to see the deft fingers movehere and there, wiping away the oil. A green hand will spend half aday cleaning a gun, and then do the work imperfectly; an expert doesthe job efficiently in ten minutes. This was an expert. 

Undoubtedly this was a true son of the mountain-desert. He wore hisold slouch hat even in the house, and his skin was that olive brownwhich comes from many years of exposure to the wind and sun. At thesame time there was a peculiar fineness about the boy. His feet wereastonishingly small and the hands thin and slender for all theirsupple strength. And his neck was not bony, as it is in most youths atthis gawky age, but smoothly rounded. 

Men grow big of bone and sparse of flesh in the mountain-desert. Itwas the more surprising to Pierre to see this young fellow with themarvelously delicate-cut features. By some freak of nature here was aplace where the breed ran to high blood. 

The cleaning completed, the boy tossed the butt of the gun to hisshoulder and squinted down the barrel. Then he loaded the magazine, weighted the gun deftly at the balance, and dropped the rifle acrosshis knees. 

"Morning, " said Pierre le Rouge cheerily, and swung off the bunk tothe floor. "How old's the gun?"

The boy, without the slightest show of excitement, snapped the butt tohis shoulder and drew a bead on Pierre's breast. 

"Sit down before you get all heated up, " said a musical voice. "There's nobody waiting for you on horseback. "

And Pierre sat down, partly because Western men never argue a pointwhen that little black hole is staring them in the face, partlybecause he remembered with a rush that the last time he had fullypossessed his consciousness he had been lying in the snow with thecross gripped hard and the toppling mass of the landslide above him. All that had happened between was blotted from his memory. He fumbledat his throat. The cross was not there. He touched his pockets. "Ease your hands away from your hip, " said the cold voice of the boy, who had dropped his gun to the ready with a significant finger curledaround the trigger, "or I'll drill you clean. "

Pierre obediently raised his hands to the level of his shoulders. Theboy sneered. 

"This isn't a hold-up, " he explained. "Put 'em down again, but watchyourself. "

The sneer varied to a contemptuous smile. 

"I guess you're tame, all right. "

"Point that gun another way, will you, son?"

The boy flushed. 

"Don't call me son. "

"Is this a lockup--a jail?"

"This?"

"What is it, then? The last I remember I was lying in the snow with--"

"I wish to God you'd been let there, " said the boy bitterly. 

But Pierre, overwhelmed with the endeavor to recollect, rushed on withhis questions and paid no heed to the tone. 

"I had a cross in my hand--"

The scorn of the boy grew to mighty proportions. 

"It's there in the breast-pocket of your shirt. "

Pierre drew out the little cross, and the touch of it against his palmrestored whatever of his strength was lacking. Very carefully heattached it to the chain about his throat. Then he looked up to thecontempt of the boy, and as he did so another memory burst on him andbrought him to his feet. The gun went to the boy's shoulders at thesame time. 

"When I was found--was anyone else with me?"

"Nope. "

"What happened?"

"Must have been buried in the landslide. Half a hill caved in, andthe dirt rolled you down to the bottom. Plain luck, that's all, thatkept you from going out. "

"Luck?" said Pierre and he laid his hand against his breast where hecould feel the outline of the cross. "Yes, I suppose it was luck. And she--"

He sat down slowly and buried his face in his hands. A new tone camein the voice of the boy as he asked: "Was a woman with you?" ButPierre heard only the tone and not the words. His face was gray whenhe looked up again, and his voice hard. 

"Tell me as briefly as you can how I come here, and who picked me up. "

"My father and his men. They passed you lying on the snow. Theybrought you home. "

"Who is your father?"

The boy stiffened and his color rose. 

"My father is Jim Boone. "

Instinctively, while he stared, the right hand of Pierre le Rougecrept toward his hip. 

"Keep your hand steady, " said the boy. "I got a nervoustrigger-finger. Yeh, dad is pretty well known. "

"You're his son?"

"I'm Jack Boone. "

"But I've heard--tell me, why am I under guard?"

Jack was instantly aflame with the old anger. 

"Not because I want you here. "

"Who does?"

"Dad. "

"Put away your pop-gun and talk sense. I won't try to get away untilJim Boone comes. I only fight men. "

Even the anger and grief of the boy could not keep him from smiling. 

"Just the same I'll keep the shooting-iron handy. Sit still. A gundon't keep me from talking sense, does it? You're here to take Hal'splace. Hal!" The little wail told a thousand things, and Pierre, shocked out of the thought of his own troubles, waited. 

"My brother, Hal; he's dead; he died last night, and on the way backdad found you and brought you to take Hal's place. _Hal's_ place!"

The accent showed how impossible it was that Hal's place could betaken by any mortal man. 

"I got orders to keep you here, but if I was to do what I'd like todo, I'd give you the best horse on the place and tell you to clearout. That's me!"

"Then do it. "

"And face dad afterward?"

"Tell him I overpowered you. That would be easy; you a slip of a boy, and me a man. "

"Stranger, it goes to show you may have heard of Jim Boone, but youdon't anyways know him. When he orders a thing done he wants it done, and he don't care how, and he don't ask questions why. He justraises hell. "

"He really expects to keep me here?"

"Expects? He will. "

"Going to tie me up?" asked Pierre ironically. 

"Maybe, " answered Jack, overlooking the irony. "Maybe he'll just putyou on my shoulders to guard. "

He moved the gun significantly. 

"And I can do it. "

"Of course. But he would have to let me go sometime. "

"Not till you'd promised to stick by him. I told him that myself, buthe said that you're young and that he'd teach you to like this lifewhether you wanted to or not. Me speaking personally, I agree withBlack Gandil: This is the worst fool thing that dad has ever done. What do we want with you--in Hal's place!"

"But I've got a thing to do right away--today; it can't wait. "

"Give dad your word to come back and he'll let you go. He says you'rethe kind that will keep your word. You see, he found you with across in your hand. "

And Jack's lips curled again. 

It was all absurd, too impossible to be real. The only real thingswere the body of yellow-haired Mary Brown, under the tumbled rocks anddirt of the landslide, and the body of Martin Ryder waiting to beplaced in that corner plot where the grass grew quicker than all othergrass in the spring of the year. 

However, having fallen among madmen, he must use cunning to get awaybefore the outlaw and his men came back from wherever they had gone. Otherwise there would be more bloodshed, more play of guns and humof lead. 

"Tell me of Hal, " he said, and dropped his elbows on his knees as ifhe accepted his fate. 

"Don't know you well enough to talk of Hal. "

"I'm sorry. "

The boy made a little gesture of apology. 

"I guess that was a mean thing to say. Sure I'll tell you aboutHal--if I can. "

"Tell me anything you can, " said Pierre gently, "because I've got totry to be like him, haven't I?"

"You could try till rattlers got tame, but it'd take ten like you tomake one like Hal. He was dad's own son--he was my brother. "

The sob came openly now, and the tears were a mist in the boy's eyes. 

"What's your name?"

"Pierre. "

"Pierre? I suppose I got to learn it. "

"I suppose so. " And he edged farther forward so that he was sittingonly on the edge of the bunk. 

"Please do. " And he gathered his feet under him, ready for a springforward and a grip at the boy's threatening rifle. 

Jack had canted his head a little to one side. "Did you ever see ahorse that was gentle and yet had never been ridden, or his spiritbroke, Pierre--"

Here Pierre made his leap swift as some bobcat of the northern woods;his hand whipped out as lightning fast as the striking paw of thelynx, and the gun was jerked from the hands of Jack. Not before theboy clutched at it with a cry of horror, but the force of the pullsent him lurching to the floor and broke his grip. 

He was up in an instant, however, and a knife of ugly length glitteredin his hand as he sprang at Pierre. 

Pierre tossed aside the rifle and met the attack barehanded. He caughtthe knife-bearing hand at the wrist and under his grip the handloosened its hold and the steel tinkled on the floor. His other armcaught the body of Jack in a mighty vise. 

There was a brief and futile struggle, and a hissing of breath in thesilence till the hat tumbled from the head of Jack and down over theshoulders streamed a torrent of silken black hair. 

Pierre stepped back. This was the meaning, then, of the strangelysmall feet and hands and the low music of the voice. It was the bodyof a girl that he had held. 

CHAPTER 11

It was not fear nor shame that made the eyes of Jacqueline so wide asshe stared past Pierre toward the door. He glanced across hisshoulder, and blocking the entrance to the room, literally fillingthe doorway, was the bulk of Jim Boone. 

"Seems as if I was sort of steppin' in on a little family party, " hesaid. "I'm sure glad you two got acquainted so quick. Jack, how didyou and--What the hell's your name, lad?"

"He tricked me, dad, or he would never have got the gun away from me. This--this Pierre--this beast--he got me to talk of Hal. Thenhe stole--"

"The point, " said Jim Boone coldly, "is that he _got_ the gun. Runalong, Jack. You ain't so growed up as I was thinkin'. Or holdon--maybe you're _more_ grown up. Which is it? Are you turnin' into awoman, Jack?"

She whirled on Pierre in a white fury. 

"You see? You see what you've done? He'll never trust me again--never!Pierre, I hate you. I'll always hate you. And if Hal were here--"

A storm of sobs and tears cut her short, and she disappeared throughthe door. Boone and Pierre stood regarding each other critically. 

Pierre spoke first: "You're not as big as I expected. "

"I'm plenty big; but you're older than I thought. "

"Too old for what you want of me. The girl told me what that was. "

"Not too old to be made what I want. "

And his hands passed through a significant gesture of molding theempty air. The boy met his eye dauntlessly. 

"I suppose, " he said, "that I've a pretty small chance of gettingaway. "

"Just about none, Pierre. Come here. "

Pierre stepped closer and looked down the hall into another room. There, about a table, sat the five grimmest riders of themountain-desert that he had ever seen. They were such men as one couldjudge at a glance, and Pierre made that instinctive motion for hissix-gun. "The girl, " Jim Boone was saying, "kept you pretty busytryin' to make a break, and if she could do anything maybe you'd havea pile of trouble with one of them guardin' you. But if I'd had a goodlook at you, lad, I'd never have let Jack take the job ofguardin' you. "

"Thanks, " answered Pierre dryly. 

"You got reason; I can see that. Here's the point, Pierre. I knowyoung men because I can remember pretty close what I was at your age. I wasn't any ladies' lap dog, at that, but time and older men moldedme the way I'm going to mold you. Understand?"

Pierre was nerved for many things, but the last word made him stir. Itroused in him a red-tinged desire to get through the forest of blackbeard at the throat of Boone and dim the glitter of those keen eyes. It brought him also another thought. 

Two great tasks lay before him: the burial of his father and theavenging of him on McGurk. As to the one, he knew it would be childishmadness for him to attempt to bury his father in Morgantown with onlyhis single hand to hold back the powers of the law or the friends ofthe notorious Diaz and crippled Hurley. 

And for the other, it was even more vain to imagine that through hisown unaided power he could strike down a figure of such almostlegendary terror as McGurk. The bondage of the gang might be aterrible thing through the future, but the present need blinded him towhat might come. 

He said: "Suppose I stop raising questions or making a fight, but giveyou my hand and call myself a member--"

"Of the family? Exactly. If you did that I'd know it was because youwere wantin' something, Pierre, eh?"

"Two things. "

"Lad, I like this way of talk. One--two--you hit quick like a two-gunman. Well, I'm used to paying high for what I get. What's up?""The first--"

"Wait. Can I help you out by myself, or do you need the gang?"

"The gang. "

"Then come, and I'll put it up to them. You first. "

It was equally courtesy and caution, and Pierre smiled faintly as hewent first through the door. He stood in a moment under the eyes offive silent men. 

The booming voice of Jim Boone pronounced: "This is Pierre. He'll beone of us if he can get the gang to do two things. I ask you, will youhear him for me, and then pass on whether or not you try his game?"

They nodded. There were no greetings to acknowledge the introduction. They waited, eyeing the youth with distrust. 

Pierre eyed them in turn, and then he spoke directly to big DickWilbur. 

"Here's the first: I want to bury a man in Morgantown and I need helpto do it. "

Black Gandil snarled: "You heard me, boys; blood to start with. Who'sthe man you want us to put out?"

"He's dead--my father. "

They came up straight in their chairs like trained actors rising to astage crisis. The snarl straightened on the lips of BlackMorgan Gandil. 

"He's lying in his house a few miles out of Morgantown. As he died hetold me that he wanted to be buried in a corner plot in the Morgantowngraveyard. He'd seen the place and counted it for his a good manyyears because he said the grass grew quicker there than any otherplace, after the snow went. "

"A damned good reason, " said Garry Patterson. As the idea stuck moredeeply into his imagination he smashed his fist down on the table sothat the crockery on it danced. "A damned good reason, say I!"

"Who's your father?" asked Dick Wilbur, who eyed Pierre morecritically but with less enmity than the rest. 

"Martin Ryder. "

"A ringer!" cried Bud Mansie, and he leaned forward alertly. "Youremember what I said, Jim?"

"Shut up. Pierre, talk soft and talk quick. We all know Mart Ryder hadonly two sons and you're not either of them. "

The Northerner grew stiff and as his face grew pale the red mark wherethe stone had struck his forehead stood out like a danger signal. 

He said slowly: "I'm his son, but not by the mother of those two. "

"Was he married twice?"

Pierre was paler still, and there was an uneasy twitching of his righthand which every man understood. 

He barely whispered. "No; damn you!"

But Black Gandil loved evil. 

He said, with a marvelously unpleasant smile: "Then she was--"

The voice of Dick Wilbur cut in like the snapping of a whip: "Shut up, Gandil, you devil!"

There were times when not even Boone would cross Wilbur, and this wasone of them. 

Pierre went on: "The reason I can't go to Morgan town is that I'm notvery well liked by some of the men there. "

"Why not?"

"When my father died there was no money to pay for his burial. I hadonly a half-dollar piece. I went to the town and gambled and won agreat deal. But before I came out I got mixed up with a man calledHurley, a professional gambler. "

"And Diaz?" queried a chorus. 

"Yes. Hurley was hurt in the wrist and Diaz died. I think I'm wantedin Morgantown. "

Out of a little silence came the voice of Black Gandil: "Dick, I'mthankin' you now for cuttin' me so short a minute ago. "

Phil Branch had not spoken, as usual, but now he repeated, with rapt, far-off eyes: "'Hurley was hurt in the wrist and Diaz died?' Hurleyand Diaz! I played with Hurley, a couple of times. "

"Speakin' personal, " said Garry Patterson, his red verging towardpurple in excitement, "which I'm ready to go with you down toMorgantown and bury your father. "

"And do it shipshape, " added Black Gandil. 

"With all the trimmings, " said Bud Mansie, "with all Morgantownjoinin' the mournin' voluntarily under cover of our six-guns. "

"Wait, " said Boone. "What's the second request?"

"That can wait. "

"It's a bigger job than this one?"

"Lots bigger. "

"And in the meantime?"

"I'm your man. "

They shook hands. Even Black Gandil rose to take his share in theceremony--all save Bud Mansie, who had glanced out the window a momentbefore and then silently left the room. A bottle of whisky wasproduced and glasses filled all round. Jim Boone brought in theseventh chair and placed it at the table. They raised their glasses. 

"To the empty chair, " said Boone. 

They drank, and for the first time in his life, the liquid fire wentdown the throat of Pierre. He set down his glass, coughing, and theothers laughed good-naturedly. 

"Started down the wrong way?" asked Wilbur. 

"It's beastly stuff; first I ever drank. "

A roar of laughter answered him. 

"Still I got an idea, " broke in Jim Boone, "that he's worthy of takin'the seventh chair. Draw it up lad. "

Vaguely it reminded Pierre of a scene in some old play with himselfin the role of the hero signing away his soul to the devil, but aninterruption kept him from taking the chair. There was a racket at thedoor--a half-sobbing, half-scolding voice, and the laughter of a man;then Bud Mansie appeared carrying Jack in spite of her struggles. Heplaced her on the floor and held her hands to protect himself fromher fury. 

"I glimpsed her through the window, " he explained. "She was lining outfor the stable and then a minute later I saw her swing a saddleonto--what horse d'you think?"

"Out with it. "

"Jim's big Thunder. Yep, she stuck the saddle on big black Thunder andhad a rifle in the holster. I saw there was hell brewing somewhere, soI went out and nabbed her. "

"Jack!" called Jim Boone. "What were you started for?"

Bud Mansie released her arms and she stood with them stiffening at hersides and her fists clenched. 

"Hal--he died, and there was nothing but talk about him--nothing done. You got a live man in Hal's place. "

She pointed an accusing finger at Pierre. 

"Maybe he takes his place for you, but he's not my brother--I hatehim. I went out to get another man to make up for Pierre. "

"Well?"

"A dead man. I shoot straight enough for that. "

A very solemn silence spread through the room; for every man waswatching in the eyes of the father and daughter the same shining blackdevil of wrath. 

"Jack, get into your room and don't move out of it till I tell you to. D'you hear?"

She turned on her heel like a soldier and marched from the room. 

"Jack. "

She stopped in the door but would not turn back. "Jack, don't youlove your old dad anymore?" She whirled and ran to him withoutstretched arms and clung to him, sobbing. "Oh, dad, " she groaned. "You've broken my heart. "

CHAPTER 12

The annals of the mountain-desert have never been written and cannever be written. They are merely a vast mass of fact and traditionand imagining which floats from tongue to tongue from the Rockies tothe Sierra Nevadas. A man may be a fact all his life and die only alocal celebrity. Then again, he may strike sparks from thatimagination which runs riot by camp-fires and at the bars of thecrossroads saloons. 

In that case he becomes immortal. It is not that lies are told abouthim or impossible feats ascribed to him, but every detail about him isseized upon and passed on with a most scrupulous and loving care. 

In due time he will become a tradition. That is, he will be knownfamiliarly at widely separated parts of the range, places which he hasnever visited. It has happened to a few of the famous characters ofthe mountain-desert that they became traditions before their deaths. It happened to McGurk, of course. It also happened to Red Pierre. 

Oddly enough, the tradition of Red Pierre did not begin with his ridefrom the school of Father Victor to Morgantown, distant many days ofdifficult and dangerous travel. Neither did tradition seize on thegunfight that crippled Hurley and "put out" wizard Diaz. These thingswere unquestionably known to many, but they did not strike the popularimagination. What set men first on fire was the way Pierre le Rougeburied his father "at the point of the gun" in Morgantown. 

That day Boone's men galloped out of the higher mountains down thetrail toward Morgantown. They stole a wagon out of a ranch stable onthe way and tied two lariats to the tongue. So they towed it, boundingand rattling, over the rough trail to the house where Martin Ryderlay dead. 

His body was placed in state in the body of the wagon, pillowed witheverything in the line of cloth which the house could furnish. Thusequipped they went on at a more moderate pace toward Morgantown. 

What followed it is useless to repeat here. Tradition rehearsed everydetail of that day's work, and the purpose of this narrative is onlyto give the details of some of the events which tradition does notknow, at least in their entirety. 

They started at one end of Morgantown's street. Pierre guarded thewagon in the center of the street and kept the people under cover ofhis rifle. The rest of Boone's men cleaned out the houses as they wentand sent the occupants piling out to swell the crowd. 

And so they rolled the crowd out of town and to the cemetery, where"volunteers" dug the grave of Martin Ryder wide and deep, and Pierrepaid for the corner plot three times over in gold. 

Then a coffin--improvised hastily for the occasion out of apacking-box--was lowered reverently, also by "volunteer" mourners, andbefore the first sod fell on the dead. Pierre raised over his head thecrucifix of Father Victor that brought good luck, and intoned aservice in the purest Ciceronian Latin, surely, that ever regaledthe ears of Morgantown's elect. 

The moment he raised that cross the bull throat of Jim Boone belloweda command, the poised guns of the gang enforced it, and all the crowddropped to their knees, leaving the six outlaws scattered about theedges of the mob like sheep dogs around a folding flock, while in thecenter stood Pierre with white, upturned face and the raised cross. 

So Martin Ryder was buried with "trimmings, " and the gang rode back, laughing and shouting, through the town and up into the safety of themountains. Election day was fast approaching and therefore the rivalcandidates for sheriff hastily organized posses and made the usualfutile pursuit. 

In fact, before the pursuit was well under way, Boone and his men satat their supper table in the cabin. The seventh chair was filled; allwere present except Jack, who sulked in her room. Pierre went to herdoor and knocked. He carried under his arm a package which he hadsecured in the General Merchandise Store of Morgantown. 

"We're all waiting for you at the table, " he explained. 

"Just keep on waiting, " said the husky voice of Jacqueline. 

"I've brought you a present. "

"I hate your presents!"

"It's a thing you've wanted for a long time, Jacqueline. "

Only a stubborn silence. 

"I'm putting your door a little ajar. "

"If you dare to come in I'll--"

"And I'm leaving the package right here at the entrance. I'm so sorry, Jacqueline, that you hate me. "

And then he walked off down the hall--cunning Pierre--before she couldsend her answer like an arrow after him. At the table he arranged aneighth plate and drew up a chair before it. "If that's for Jack, "remarked Dick Wilbur, "you're wasting your time. I know her and I knowher type. She'll never come out to the table tonight--nor tomorrow, either. I know!"

In fact, he knew a good deal too much about girls and women also, didWilbur, and that was why he rode the long trails of themountain-desert with Boone and his men. Far south and east in theBahamas a great mansion stood vacant because he was gone, and the dustlay thick on the carpets and powdered the curtains and tapestries witha common gray. 

He had built it and furnished it for a woman he loved, and afterwardfor her sake he had killed a man and fled from a posse and escaped inthe steerage of a west-bound ship. Still the law followed him, and hekept on west and west until he reached the mountain-desert, whichthinks nothing of swallowing men and their reputations. 

There he was safe, but someday he would see some woman smile, catchthe glimmer of some eye, and throw safety away to ride after her. 

It was a weakness, but what made a tragic figure of handsome DickWilbur was that he knew his weakness and sat still and let fate walkup and overtake him. 

Yet Pierre le Rouge answered this man of sorrowful wisdom: "In my partof the country men say: 'If you would speak of women let money talkfor you. '"

And he placed a gold piece on the table. 

"She will come out to the supper table. "

"She will not, " smiled Wilbur, and covered the coin. "Will you takeodds?"

"No charity. Who else will bet?"

"I, " said Jim Boone instantly. "You figure her for an ordinary sulkykid. "

Pierre smiled upon him. 

"There's a cut in my shirt where her knife passed through; and that'sthe reason that I'll bet on her now. " The whole table covered hiscoin, with laughter. 

"We've kept one part of your bargain, Pierre. We've seen your fatherburied in the corner plot. Now, what's the second part?"

"I don't know you well enough to ask you that, " said Pierre. 

They plied him with suggestions. 

"To rob the Berwin Bank?"

"Stick up a train?"

"No. That's nothing. "

"Round up the sheriffs from here to the end of the mountains?"

"Too easy. "

"Roll all those together, " said Pierre, "and you'll begin to get anidea of what I'll ask. "

Then a low voice called from the black throat of the hall: "Pierre!"

The others were silent, but Pierre winked at them, and made greatflourish with knife and fork against his plate as if to cover thesound of Jacqueline's voice. 

"Pierre!" she called again. "I've come to thank you. "

He jumped up and turned toward the hall. 

"Do you like it?"

"It's a wonder!"

"Then we're friends?"

"If you want to be. "

"There's nothing I want more. Then you'll come out and have supperwith us, Jack?"

There was a little pause, and then Jim Boone struck his fist on thetable and cursed, for she stepped from the darkness into the flaringlight of the room. 

CHAPTER 13

She wore a cartridge-belt slung jauntily across her hips and from ithung a holster of stiff new leather with the top flap open to show thebutt of a man-sized forty-five caliber six-shooter--her first gun. Nota man of the gang but had loaned her his guns time and again, but theyhad never dreamed of giving her a weapon of her own. 

So they stared at her agape, where she stood with her head back, onehand resting on her hip, one hovering about the butt of the gun, as ifshe challenged them to question her right to be called "man. "

It was as if she abandoned all claims to femininity with that singlestep; the gun at her side made her seem inches taller and years older. She was no longer a child, but a long-rider who could shoot withthe best. 

One glance she cast about the room to drink in the amazement of thegang, and then her father broke in rather hoarsely: "Sit down, girl. Sit down and be one of us. One of us you are by your own choice fromthis day on. You're neither man nor woman, but a long-rider with everyman's hand against you. You've done with any hope of a home or offriends. You're one of us. Poor Jack--my girl!"

"Poor?" she returned. "Not while I can make a quick draw and shootstraight. "

And then she swept the circle of eyes, daring them to take her boastlightly, but they knew her too well, and were all solemnly silent. Atthis she relented somewhat, and went directly to Pierre, flushingfrom throat to hair. She held out her hand. 

"Will you shake and call it square?"

"I sure will, " nodded Pierre. 

"And we're pals--you and me, like the rest of 'em?"

"We are. "

She took the place beside him. 

As the whisky went round after round the two seemed shut away from theothers; they were younger, less marked by life; they listened whilethe others talked, and now and then exchanged glances of interestor aversion. 

"Listen, " she said after a time, "I've heard this story before. "

It was Phil Branch, square-built and square of jaw, who was talking. 

"There's only one thing I can handle better than a gun, and that's asledgehammer. A gun is all right in its way, but for work in a crowd, well, give me a hammer and I'll show you a way out. "

Bud Mansie grinned: "Leave me my pair of sixes and you can have allthe hammers between here and Central Park in a crowd. There's nothingmakes a crowd remember its heels like a pair of barking sixes. "

"Ah, ah!" growled Branch. "But when they've heard bone crunch underthe hammer there's nothing will hold them. "

"I'd have to see that. "

"Maybe you will, Bud, maybe you will. It was the hammer that startedme for the trail west. I had a big Scotchman in the factory whocouldn't learn how to weld. I'd taught him day after day and cursedhim and damn near prayed for him. But he somehow wouldn't learn--theswine--ah, ah!"

He grew vindictively black at the memory. 

"Every night he wiped out what I'd taught him during the day and theeraser he used was booze. So one fine day I dropped the hammer afterwatchin' him make a botch on a big bar, and cussed him up one leg anddown the other. The Scotchman had a hangover from the night before andhe made a pass at me. It was too much for me just then, for the daywas hot and the forge fire had been spitting cinders in my face allmorning. So I took him by the throat. "

He reached out and closed his taut fingers slowly. 

"I didn't mean nothin' by it, but after a man has been moldin' iron, flesh is pretty weak stuff. When I let go of Scotchy he dropped on thefloor, and while I stood starin' down at him somebody seen what hadhappened and spread the word. 

"I wasn't none too popular, bein' not much on talk, so the boys gottogether and pretty soon they come pilin' through the door at me, packin' everything from hatchets to crowbars. 

"Lads, I was sorry about Scotchy, but after I glimpsed that gangcomin' I wasn't sorry for nothing. I felt like singin', though therewasn't no song that could say just what I meant. But I grabbed up thebig fourteen-pound hammer and met 'em halfway. 

"The first swing of the hammer it met something hard, but not as hardas iron. The thing crunched with a sound like an egg under a man'sheel. And when that crowd heard it they looked sick. God, how sickthey looked! They didn't wait for no second swing, but they beat ithard and fast through the door with me after 'em. They scattered, butI kept right on and didn't never really stop till I reached themountain-desert and you, Jim. "

"Which is a good yarn, " said Bud Mansie, "but I can tell you onethat'll cap it. It was--"

He stopped short, staring up at the door. Outside, the wind had keptup a perpetual roaring, and no one noticed the noise of the openingdoor. Bud Mansie, facing that door, however, turned a queer yellowand sat with his lips parted on the last word. He was not pretty tosee. The others turned their heads, and there followed the strangestpanic which Pierre had ever seen. 

Jim Boone jerked his hand back to his hip, but stayed the motion, halfcompleted, and swung his hands stiffly above his head. Garry Pattersonsat with his eyes blinked shut, pale, waiting for death to come. DickWilbur rose, tall and stiff, and stood with his hands gripped at hissides, and Black Morgan Gandil clutched at the table before him andhis eyes wandered swiftly about the room, seeking a place for escape. 

There was only one sound, and that was a whispering moan of terrorfrom Jacqueline. Only Pierre made no move, yet he felt as he had whenthe black mass of the landslide loomed above him. 

What he saw in the door was a man of medium size and almost slenderbuild. In spite of the patch of gray hair at either temple he was onlysomewhere between twenty-five and thirty. But to see him was to forgetall details except the strangest face which Pierre had ever seen orwould ever look upon in all his career. 

It was pale, with a pallor strange to the ranges; even the lips seemedbloodless, and they curved with a suggestion of a smile that was anervous habit rather than any sign of mirth. The nerves of the lefteye were also affected, and the lid dropped and fluttered almost shut, so that he had to carry his head far back in order to see plainly. There was such pride and scorn in the man that his name came up to thelips of Pierre: "McGurk. "

A surprisingly gentle voice said: "Jim, I'm sorry to drop in on youthis way, but I've had some unpleasant news. "

His words dispelled part of the charm. The hands of big Boone lowered;the others assumed more natural positions, but each, it seemed toPierre, took particular and almost ostentatious care that theirright hands should be always far from the holsters of their guns. 

The stranger went on: "Martin Ryder is finished, as I suppose youknow. He left a spawn of two mongrels behind him. I haven't botheredwith them, but I'm a little more interested in another son that hascropped up. He's sitting over there in your family party and his nameis Pierre. In his own country they call him Pierre le Rouge, whichmeans Red Pierre, in our talk. 

"You know I've never crossed you in anything before, Jim. Have I?"

Boone moistened his white lips and answered: "Never, " huskily, as ifit were a great muscular effort for him to speak. 

"This time I have to break the custom. Boone, this fellow Pierre hasto leave the country. Will you see that he goes?"

The lips of Boone moved and made no sound. 

He said at length: "McGurk, I'd rather cross the devil than cross you. There's no shame in admitting that. But I've lost my boy, Hal. "

"Too bad, Jim. I knew Hal; at a distance, of course. "

"And Pierre is filling Hal's place in the family. "

"Is that your answer?"

"McGurk, are you going to pin me down in this?"

And here Jack whirled and cried: "Dad, you won't let Pierre go!"

"You see?" pleaded Boone. 

It was uncanny and horrible to see the giant so unnerved before thisstranger, but that part of it did not come to Pierre until later. Nowhe felt a peculiar emptiness of stomach and a certain jumping chillthat traveled up and down his spine. Moreover, he could not move hiseyes from the face of McGurk, and he knew at length that this wasfear--the first real fear that he had ever known. 

Shame made him hot, but fear made him cold again. He knew that if herose his knees would buckle under him; that if he drew out hisrevolver it would slip from his palsied fingers. For the fear of deathis a mighty fear, but it is nothing compared with the fear of man. 

"I've asked you a question, " said McGurk. "What's your answer?"

There was a quiver in the black forest of Boone's beard, and if Pierrewas cold before, he was sick at heart to see the big man cringebefore McGurk. 

He stammered: "Give me time. "

"Good, " said McGurk. "I'm afraid I know what your answer would be now, but if you take a couple of days you will think things over and cometo a reasonable conclusion. I will be at Gaffney's place about fifteenmiles from here. You know it? Send your answer there. In themeantime"--he stepped forward to the table and poured a small drinkof whisky into a glass and raised it high--"here's to the long healthand happiness of us all. Drink!"

There was a hasty pouring of liquor. 

"And you also!"

Pierre jumped as if he had been struck, and obeyed the order hastily. 

"So, " said the master, pleasant again, and Pierre wiped his foreheadfurtively and stared up with fascinated eyes. "An unwilling pledge isbetter than none at all. To you, gentlemen, much happiness; to you, Pierre le Rouge, bon voyage. "

They drank; the master placed his glass on the table again, smiledupon them, and was gone through the door. He turned his back inleaving. There was no fitter way in which he could have expressed hiscontempt. 

CHAPTER 14

The mirth died and in its place came a long silence. Jim Boone staredupon Pierre with miserable eyes, and then rose and left the room. Theothers one by one followed his example. Dick Wilbur in passing droppedhis hand on Pierre's shoulder. Jacqueline was silent. 

As he sat there minute after minute and then hour after hour of thelong night Pierre saw the meaning of it. If they sent word that theywould not give up Pierre it was war, and war with McGurk had only oneending. If they sent word that Pierre was surrendered the shame wouldnever leave Boone and his men. 

Whatever they did there was ruin for them in the end. All this Pierreconned slowly in his mind, until he was cold. Then he looked up andsaw that the lamp had burned out and that the wood in the fireplacewas consumed to a few red embers. 

He replenished the fire, and when the yellow flames began to mount hemade his resolution and walked slowly up and down the floor with it. For he knew that he must go to meet McGurk. 

The very thought of the man sent the old chill through his blood, yethe must go and face him and end the thing. 

It came over him with a pang that he was very young; that life wasbarely a taste in his mouth, whether bitter or sweet he could nottell. He picked a flaming stick from the fire and went before a littleround mirror on the wall. 

Back at him stared the face of a boy. He had seen so much of thegrim six in the last day that the contrast startled him. They weremen, hardened to life and filled with knowledge of it. They were bookswritten full. But he? He was a blank page with a scribbled word hereand there. Nevertheless, he was chosen and he must go. 

Having reached that decision he closed his mind on what would happen. There was a vague fear that when he faced McGurk he would be frozenwith fear; that his spirit would be broken and he would become a thingtoo despicable for a man to kill. 

One thing was certain: if he was to act a man's part and die a man'sdeath he must not stand long before McGurk. It seemed to him then thathe would die happy if he had the strength to fire one shot beforethe end. 

Then he tiptoed from the house and went over the snow to the barn andsaddled the horse of Hal Boone. It was already morning, and as he ledthe horse to the door of the barn a shadow, a faint shadow in thatearly light, fell across the snow before him. 

He looked up and saw Jacqueline. She stepped close, and the horsenosed her shoulder affectionately. 

She said: "Isn't there anything that will keep you from going?"

"It's just a little ride before breakfast. I'll be back in an hour. "

It was foolish to try to blind her, as he saw by her wan, unchildishsmile. 

"Is there no other way, Pierre?"

"I don't know of any, do you?"

"You have to leave us, and never come back?"

"Is he as sure as that, Jack?"

"Sure? Who?"

She had not known, after all; she thought that he was merely ridingaway from the region where McGurk was king. Now she caught his wristsand shook them. "Pierre, you are not going to face McGurk? Pierre!"

"If you were a man, you would understand. "

"I know; because of your father. I do understand, but oh, Pierre, listen! I can shoot as straight as almost any man. We will ride downtogether. We will go through the doors together--me first to take hisfire, and you behind to shoot him down. "

"I guess no man can be as brave as a woman, Jack. No; I have to seeMcGurk alone. He faced my father alone and shot him down. I'll faceMcGurk alone and live long enough to put my mark on him. "

"But you don't know him. He can't be hurt. Do you think my fatherand--and Dick Wilbur would fear any man who could be hurt? No, butMcGurk has been in a hundred fights and never been touched. There's acharm over him, don't you see?"

"I'll break the charm, that's all. "

He was up in the saddle. 

"Then I'll call dad--I'll call them all--if you die they shall allfollow you. I swear they shall. Pierre!"

He merely leaned forward and touched the horse with his spurs, butafter he had raced the first hundred yards he glanced back. She wasrunning hard for the house, and calling as she went. Pierre cursed andspurred the horse again. 

Yet even if Jim Boone and his men started out after him they couldnever overtake him. Before they were in their saddles and up with him, he'd be a full three miles out in the hills. Not even black Thundercould make up as much ground as that. 

So all the fifteen miles to Gaffney's place he urged his horse. Theexcitement of the race kept the thought of McGurk back in his mind. Only once he lost time when he had to pull up beside a buckboard andinquire the way. After that he flew on again. Yet as he clattered upto the door of Gaffney's crossroads saloon and swung to the groundhe looked back and saw a cluster of horsemen swing around the shoulderof a hill and come tearing after him. Surely his time was short. 

He thrust open the door of the place and called for a drink. Thebartender spun the glass down the bar to him. 

"Where's McGurk?"

The other stopped in the very act of taking out the bottle from theshelf, and his curious glance went over the face of Pierre le Rouge. He decided, apparently, that it was foolish to hold suspicions againstso young a man. 

"In that room, " and he jerked his hand toward a door. "What do youwant with him?"

"Got a message for him. "

"Tell it to me, and I'll pass it along. "

Pierre met the eye of the other and smiled faintly. 

"Not _this_ message. "

"Oh, " said the other, and then shouted: "McGurk!"

Far away came the rush of hoofs over a hard trail. Only a minute moreand they would be here; only a minute more and the room would be fullof fighting men ready to die with him and for him. Yet Pierre wasglad; glad that he could meet the danger alone; ten minutes from now, if he lived, he could answer certainly one way or the other thegreatest of all questions: "Am I a man?"

Out of the inner room the pleasant voice which he dreaded answered:"What's up?"

The barkeeper glanced Pierre le Rouge over again and then answered: "Afriend with a message. "

The door opened and framed McGurk. He did not start, seeing Pierre. 

He said: "None of the rest of them had the guts even to bring me themessage, eh?"

Pierre shrugged his shoulders. It was a mighty effort, but he was ableto look his man fairly in the eyes. "All right, lad. How long is itgoing to take you to clear out of the country?"

"That's not the message, " answered a voice which Pierre did notrecognize as his own. 

"Out with it, then. "

"It's in the leather on my hip. "

And he went for his gun. Even as he started his hand he knew that hewas too slow for McGurk, yet the finest splitsecond watch in the worldcould not have caught the differing time they needed to get their gunsout of the holsters. 

Just a breath before Pierre fired there was a stunning blow on hisright shoulder and another on his hip. He lurched to the floor, hisrevolver clattering against the wood as he fell, but falling, hescooped up the gun with his left and twisted. 

That movement made the third shot of McGurk fly wide and Pierre firedfrom the floor and saw a spasm of pain contract the face ofthe outlaw. 

Instantly the door behind him flew open and Boone's men stormed intothe room. Once more McGurk fired, but his wound made his aim wide andthe bullet merely tore up a splinter beside Pierre's head. A fusilladefrom Boone and his men answered, but the outlaw had leaped backthrough the door. 

"He's hurt, " thundered Boone. "By God, the charm of McGurk is broken. Dick, Bud, Gandil, take the outside of the place. I'll forcethe door. "

Wilbur and the other two raced through the door and raised a shout atonce, and then there was a rattle of shots. Big Patterson leanedover Pierre. 

He said in an awe-stricken voice: "Lad, it's a great work that you'vedone for all of us, if you've drawn the blood from McGurk. "

"His left shoulder, " said Pierre, and smiled in spite of his pain. "And you, lad?"

"I'm going to live; I've got to finish the job. Who's that beside you?There's a mist over my eyes. "

"It's Jack. She outrode us all. "

Then the mist closed over the eyes of Pierre and his senses went outin the dark. 

CHAPTER 15

Those who are curious about the period which followed during which thetitle "Le Rouge" was forgotten and he became known only as "Red"Pierre through all the mountain-desert, can hear the tales of hisdoing from the analysts of the ranges. This story has to do only withhis struggle with McGurk. 

The gap of six years which occurs here is due to the fact that duringthat period McGurk vanished from the mountain-desert. He died awayfrom the eyes of men and in their minds he became that tradition whichlives still so vividly, the tradition of the pale face, the sneering, bloodless lips, and the hand which never failed. 

During this lapse of time there were many who claimed that he hadridden off into some lonely haunt and died of the wound which hereceived from Pierre's bullet. A great majority, however, would neveraccept such a story, and even when the six years had rolled by theystill shook their heads. They awaited his return just as certainstanch old Britons await the second coming of Arthur from the islandof Avalon. In the meantime the terror of his name passed on to him whohad broken the "charm" of McGurk. 

Not all that grim significance passed on to Red Pierre, indeed, because he never impressed the public imagination as did the terribleruthlessness of McGurk. At that he did enough to keep tongues wagging. 

Cattlemen loved to tell those familiar exploits of the "two sheriffs, "or that "thousand-mile pursuit of Canby, " with its half-tragic, half-humorous conclusion, or the "Sacking of Two Rivers, " or the"three-cornered battle" against Rodriguez and Blond. 

But men could not forget that in all his work there rode behind RedPierre six dauntless warriors of the mountain-desert, while McGurk hadbeen always a single hand against the world, a veritable lone wolf. 

Whatever kept him away through those six years, the memory of thewound he received at Gaffney's place never left McGurk, and now he wascoming back with a single great purpose in his mind, and in his hearta consuming hatred for Pierre and all the other of Boone's men. 

Certainly if he had sensed the second coming of McGurk, Pierre wouldnot have ridden so jauntily through the hills this day, or whistled socarelessly, or swept the hills with such a complacent, lordly eye. Aman of mark cannot bear himself too modestly, and Pierre, from bootsto high-peaked, broad-brimmed sombrero, was the last word in elegancefor a rider of the mountain-desert. 

Even his mount seemed to sense the pride of his master. It was acream-colored mustang, not one of the lump-headed, bony-hipped speciescommon to the ranges, but one of those rare reversions to the Spanishthoroughbreds from which the Western cow-pony is descended. The marewas not over-large, but the broad hips and generous expanse of chestwere hints, and only hints, of her strength and endurance. There wasthe speed of the blooded racer in her and the tirelessness ofthe mustang. 

Now, down the rocky, half-broken trail she picked her way as daintilyas any debutante tiptoeing down a great stairway to the ballroom. Lifehad been easy for Mary since that thousand-mile struggle to overtakeCanby, and now her sides were sleek from good feeding and some casualtwenty miles a day, which was no more to her than a canter through thepark is to the city horse. 

The eye which had been so red-stained and fierce during the long rideafter Canby was now bright and gentle. At every turn she pricked hersmall sharp ears as if she expected home and friends on the other sideof the curve. And now and again she tossed her head and glanced backat the master for a moment and then whinnied across someechoing ravine. 

It was Mary's way of showing happiness, and her master'sacknowledgment was to run his gloved left hand up through her mane andwith his ungloved right, that tanned and agile hand, pat hershoulder lightly. 

Passing to the end of the down-grade, they reached a slight upwardincline, and the mare, as if she had come to familiar ground, brokeinto a gallop, a matchless, swinging stride. Swerving to right and toleft among the great boulders, like a football player running a brokenfield, she increased the gallop to a racing pace. 

That twisting course would have shaken an ordinary horseman to thetoes, but Pierre, swaying easily in the saddle, dropped the reins intothe crook of his left arm and rolled a cigarette in spite of themotion and the wind. It was a little feat, but it would have drawnapplause from a circus crowd. 

He spoke to the mare while he lighted a match and she dropped to aneasy canter, the pace which she could maintain from dawn to dark, eating up the gray miles of the mountain and the desert, and it wasthen that Red Pierre heard a gay voice singing in the distance. 

His attitude changed at once. He caught a shorter grip on the reinsand swung forward a little in the saddle, while his right hand touchedthe butt of the revolver in its holster and made sure that it wasloose; for to those who hunt and are hunted every human voice in themountain-desert is an ominous token. 

The mare, sensing the change of her master through that weirdtelegraphy which passed down the taut bridle reins, held her head highand flattened her short ears against her neck. 

The song and the singer drew closer, and the vigilance of Pierreceased as he heard a mellow baritone ring out. 

 "They call me poor, yet I am rich In the touch of her golden hair, My heart is filled like a miser's hands With the red-gold of her hair. The sky I ride beneath all day Is the blue of her dear eyes; The only heaven I desire Is the blue of her dear eyes. "

And here Dick Wilbur rode about the shoulder of a hill, broke off hissong at the sight of Pierre le Rouge, and shouted a welcome. They cametogether and continued their journey side by side. The half-dozenyears had hardly altered the blond, handsome face of Wilbur, and now, with the gladness of his singing still flushing his face, he seemedhardly more than a boy--younger, in fact, than Red Pierre, into whoseeyes there came now and then a grave sternness. 

"After hearing that song, " said Pierre smiling, "I feel as if I'dlistened to a portrait. " "Right!" said Wilbur, with unabatedenthusiasm. "It's the bare and unadorned truth, Prince Pierre. My fineGalahad, if you came within eye-shot of her there'd be a small-sizedhell raised. "

"No. I'm immune there, you know. "

"Nonsense. The beauty of a really lovely woman is like a fine perfume. It strikes right to a man's heart; there's no possibility ofresistance. I know. You, Pierre, act like a man already in love or aboy who has never known a woman. Which is it, Pierre?"

The other made a familiar gesture with those who knew him, a touchingof his left hand against his throat where the cross lay. 

He said: "I suppose it seems like that to you. "

"Like what? Dodging me, eh? Well, I never press the point, but I'dgive the worth of your horse, Pierre, to see you and Mary together. "

Red Pierre started, and then frowned. 

"Irritates you a little, eh? Well, a woman is like a spur to mostmen. "

He added, with a momentary gloom: "God knows, I bear the marks of'em. "

He raised his head, as if he looked up in response to his thought. 

"But there's a difference with this girl. I've named the quality ofher before--it disarms a man. "

Pierre looked to his friend with some alarm, for there was a sayingamong the followers of Boone that a woman would be the downfall of bigDick Wilbur again, as a woman had been his downfall before. Thedifference would be that this fall must be his last. 

And Wilbur went on: "She's Eastern, Pierre, and out here visiting thedaughter of old Barnes who owns about a thousand miles of range, youknow. How long will she be here? That's the question I'm trying toanswer for her. I met her riding over the hills--she was gallopingalong a ridge, and she rode her way right into my heart. Well, I'm afool, of course, but about this girl I can't be wrong. Tonight I'mtaking her to a masquerade. "

He pulled his horse to a full stop. 

"Pierre, you have to come with me. "

CHAPTER 16

Pierre stared at his companion with almost open-mouthed astonishment. 

"I? A dance?"

And then his head tilted back and he laughed. 

"My good times, Dick, come out of the hills and the skyline, and thegallop of Mary. But as for women, they bore me, Dick. "

"Even Jack?"

"She's more man than woman. "

It was the turn of Wilbur to laugh, and he responded uproariouslyuntil Pierre frowned and flushed a little. 

"When I see you out here on your horse with your rifle in the boot andyour six-gun swinging low in the scabbard, and riding the fastest bitof horseflesh on the ranges, " explained Wilbur, "I get to thinkingthat you're pretty much king of the mountains; but in certainrespects, Pierre, you're a child. "

Pierre stirred uneasily in his saddle. A man must be well over thirtybefore he can withstand ridicule. 

He said dryly: "I've an idea that I know Jack's about as well as thenext man. " "Let it drop, " said Wilbur, sober again, for he sharedwith all of Boone's crew a deep-rooted unwillingness to press RedPierre beyond a certain point. "The one subject I won't quarrel aboutis Jack, God bless her. "

"She's the best pal, " said Pierre soberly, "and the nearest to a manI've ever met. "

"Nearest to a man?" queried Wilbur, and smiled, but so furtively thateven the sharp eye of Red Pierre did not perceive the mockery. He wenton: "But the dance, what of that? It's a masquerade. There'd be nofear of being recognized. "

Pierre was silent a moment more. Then he said: "This girl--what didyou call her?"

"Mary. "

"And about her hair--I think you said it was black?"

"Golden, Pierre. "

"Mary, and golden hair, " mused Red Pierre. "I think I'll go to thatdance. "

"With Jack? She dances wonderfully, you know. "

"Well--with Jack. "

So they reached a tumbled ranch house squeezed between two hills sothat it was sheltered from the storms of the winter but held all theheat of the summer. 

Once it had been a goodly building, the home of some cattle king. Butbad times had come. A bullet in a saloon brawl put an end to thecattle king, and now his home was a wreck of its former glory. Thenorthern wing shelved down to the ground as if the building werekneeling to the power of the wind, and the southern portion of thehouse, though still erect, seemed tottering and rotten throughout andholding together until at a final blow the whole structure wouldcrumple at once. 

To the stables, hardly less ruinous than the big house, Pierre andWilbur took their horses, and a series of whinnies greeted them fromthe stalls. To look down that line of magnificent heads raised abovethe partitions of the stalls was like glancing into the stud of somecrowned head who made hunting and racing his chief end in life, forthese were animals worthy of the sport of kings. 

They were chosen each from among literal hundreds, and they were caredfor far more tenderly than the masters cared for themselves. There wasa reason in it, for upon their speed and endurance depended the lifeof the outlaw. Moreover, the policy of Jim Boone was one of actual"long riding. "

Here he had come to a pause for a few days to recuperate his horsesand his men. Tomorrow, perhaps, he would be on the spur again andsweeping off to a distant point in the mountain-desert to strike andbe gone again before the rangers knew well that he had been there. Very rarely did one settler have another neighbor at a distance ofless than two hundred miles. It meant arduous and continual riding, and a horse with any defect was worse than useless because the speedof the gang had to be the speed of the slowest horse in the lot. 

It was some time before the two long riders had completed the groomingof their horses and had gone down the hill and into the house. In thelargest habitable room they found a fire fed with rotten timbers fromthe wrecked portion of the building, and scattered through the room asullen and dejected group: Mansie, Branch, Jim Boone, and BlackMorgan Gandil. 

At a glance it was easy to detect their malady; it was the horribleennui which comes to men who are always surrounded by one set offaces. If a man is happily married he may bear with his wife and hischildren constantly through long stretches of time, but the glamour oflife lies in the varying personalities which a man glimpses inpassing, but never knows. 

This was a rare crew. Every man of them was marked for courage andstamina and wild daring. Yet even so in their passive moments theyhated each other with a hate that passed the understanding ofcommon men. 

Through seven years they had held together, through fair weather andfoul, and now each knew from the other's expression the words thatwere about to be spoken, and each knew that the other was reading him, and loathing what he read. 

So they were apt to relapse into long silences unless Jack was withthem, for being a woman her variety was infinite, or Pierre le Rouge, whom all except Black Gandil loved and petted, and feared. 

They were a battered crowd. Wind and hard weather and a thousand sunshad marked them, and the hand of man had branded them. Here and therewas a touch of gray in their hair, and about the mouth of each werelines which in such silent moments as this one gave an expressionof yearning. 

"What's up? What's wrong?" asked Wilbur from the door, but since noanswer was deigned he said no more. 

But Pierre, like a charmed man who dares to walk among lions, strolledeasily through the room, and looked into the face of big Boone, whosmiled faintly up to him, and Black Gandil, who scowled doubly dark, and Bud Mansie, who shifted uneasily in his chair and then nodded, andfinally to Branch. He dropped a hand on the massive shoulder of theblacksmith. 

"Well?" he asked. 

Branch let himself droop back into his chair. His big, dull, colorlesseyes stared up to his friend. 

"I dunno, lad. I'm just weary with the sort of tired that you can'thelp by sleepin'. Understand?"

Pierre nodded, slowly, because he sympathized. "And the trouble?"

Branch stared about as if searching for a reason. "Jack's upstairssulking; Patterson hasn't come home yet. "

And Black Gandil, who heard all things, said without looking up: "Aman that saves a shipwrecked fellow, he gets bad luck for thanks. "

Pierre turned a considerable eye on him, and Gandil scowled back. 

"You've been croaking for six years, Morgan, about the bad luck thatwould come to Jim from saving me out of the snow. It's neverhappened, has it?"

Gandil, snarling from one side of his mouth, answered: "Where'sPatterson?"

"Am I responsible if the blockhead has got drunk someplace?"

"Patterson doesn't get drunk--not that way. And he knows that we wereto start again today. "

"There ain't no doubt of that, " commented Branch. 

"It's the straight dope. Patterson keeps his dates, " said Bud Mansie. 

The booming bass of Jim Boone broke in: "Shut up, the whole gang ofyou. We've had luck for the six years Pierre has been with us. Whocalls him a Jonah?"

And Black Gandil answered: "I do. I've sailed the seas. I know badluck when I see it. "

"You've been seeing it for six years. "

"The worst storms come on a voyage that starts with fair weather. Patterson? He's gone; he ain't just delayed; he's gone. "

It was not the first of these gloomy prophecies which Gandil had made, but each time a heavy gloom broke over Red Pierre. For when he summedup the good fortune which the cross of Father Victor had brought him, he found that he had gained a father, and lost him at their firstmeeting; and he had won money on that night of the gambling, but ithad cost the life of another man almost at once. The horse whichcarried him away from the vengeance in Morgantown had died on the wayand he had been saved from the landslide, but the girl had perished. 

He had driven McGurk from the ranges, and where would the penalty fallon those who were near and dear to him? In a superstitious horror hehad asked himself the question a thousand times, and finally he couldhardly bear to look into the ominous, brooding eyes of Black Gandil. It was as if the man had a certain and evil knowledge of the future. 

CHAPTER 17

The knowledge of the torment he was inflicting made the eye of BlackGandil bright with triumph. 

He continued, and now every man in the room was sitting up, alert, with gloomy eyes fixed upon Pierre: "Patterson is the first, but heain't the last. He's just the start. Who's next?" He lookedslowly around. 

"Is it you, Bud, or you, Phil, or you, Jim, or maybe me?"

And Pierre said: "What makes you think you know that trouble's coming, Morgan?"

"Because my blood runs cold in me when I look at you. "

Red Pierre grew rigid and straightened in a way they knew. 

"Damn you, Gandil, I've borne with you and your croaking too long, d'ye hear? Too long, and I'll hear no more of it, understand?"

"Why not? You'll hear from me every time I sight you in the offing. You c'n lay to that!"

The others were tense, ready to spring for cover, but Boone reared uphis great figure. 

"Don't answer him, Pierre. You, Gandil, shut your face or I'll breakye in two. "

The fierce eyes of Pierre le Rouge never wavered from his victim, buthe answered: "Keep out of this. This is _my_ party. I'll tell you whyyou'll stop gibbering, Gandil. "

He made a pace forward and every man shrank a little away from him. 

"Because the cold in your blood is part hate and more fear, BlackGandil. "

The eyes of Gandil glared back for an instant. With all his soul heyearned for the courage to pull his gun, but his arm was numb; hecould not move it, and his eyes wavered and fell. 

The shaggy gray head of Jim Boone fell likewise, and he was murmuringto his savage old heart: "The good days are over. They'll never resttill one of 'em is dead, and then the rest will take sides and we'llhave gun-plays at night. Seven years, and then to break up!"

Dick Wilbur, as usual, was the pacifier. He strode across the room, and the sharp sound of his heels on the creaking floor broke thetension. He said softly to Pierre: "You've raised hell enough. Nowlet's go and get Jack down here to undo what you've just finished. Besides, you've got to ask her for that dance, eh?"

The glance of Pierre still lingered on Gandil as he turned andfollowed Wilbur up the complaining stairs to the one habitable room inthe second story of the house. It was set aside for the use ofJacqueline. 

At the door Wilbur said: "Shrug your shoulders back; you look as ifyou were going to jump at something. And wipe the wolf look off yourface. After all, Jack's a girl, not a gunfighter. "

Then he knocked and opened the door. 

She lay face down on her bunk, her head turned from them toward thewall. Slender and supple and strong, it was still only the size of herboots and her hands that would make one look at her twice and thenguess that this was a woman, for she was dressed, from trousers evento the bright bandanna knotted around her throat, like any prosperousrange rider. 

Now, to be sure, the thick coils of black hair told her sex, but whenthe broad-brimmed sombrero was pulled well down on her head, when thecartridge-belt and the six-gun were slung about her waist, and most ofall when she spurred her mount recklessly across the hills no onecould have suspected that this was not some graceful boy born and bredin the mountain-desert, willful as a young mountain lion, and asdangerous. 

"Sleepy?" called Wilbur. 

She waited a moment and then queried with exaggerated impudence:"Well?"

Ennui unspeakable was in that drawling monotone. 

"Brace up; I've got news for you. And I've brought Pierre along totell you about it. "

"Oh!"

And she sat bolt upright with shining eyes. Instantly she rememberedto yawn again, but her glance smiled on them above her hand. 

She apologized. "Awfully sleepy, Dick. "

But he was not deceived. He said: "There's a dance down near theBarnes place, and Pierre wants you to go with him. "

"Pierre! A dance?"

He explained: "Dick's lost his head over a girl with yellow hair, andhe wants me to go down and see her. He thought you might want to goalong. " Her face changed like the moon when a cloud blows across it. She answered with another slow, insolent yawn: "Thanks! I'm stayinghome tonight. "

Wilbur glared his rage covertly at Pierre, but the latter was blandlyunconscious that he had made any _faux pas_. 

He said carelessly: "Too bad. It might be interesting. Jack?"

At his voice she looked up--a sharp and graceful toss of her head. 

"What?"

"The girl with the yellow hair. "

"Then go ahead and see her. I won't keep you. You don't mind if I goon sleeping? Sit down and be at home. "

With this she calmly turned her back again and seemed thoroughlydisposed to carry out her word. 

Red Pierre flushed a little, watching her, and he spoke his angeroutright: "You're acting like a sulky kid, Jack, not like a man. "

It was a habit of his to forget that she was a woman. Without turningher head she answered: "Do you want to know why?"

"You're like a cat showing your claws. Go on! Tell me what the reasonis. "

"Because I get tired of you. "

In all his life he had never been so scorned. He did not see thecovert grin of Wilbur in the background. He blurted: "Tired?"

"Awfully. You don't mind me being frank, do you, Pierre?"

He could only stammer: "Sometimes I wish to God you _were_ a man, Jack!"

"You don't often remember that I'm a woman. "

"Do you mean that I'm rude or rough with you, Jacqueline?" Still thesilence, but Wilbur was grinning broader than ever. "Answer me!"

She started up and faced him, her face convulsed with rage. 

"What do you want me to say? Yes, you are rude--I hate you and yourlot. Go away from me; I don't want you; I hate you all. "

And she would have said more, but furious sobs swelled her throat andshe could not speak, but dropped, face down, on the bunk and grippedthe blankets in each hardset hand. Over her Pierre leaned, utterlybewildered, found nothing that he could say, and then turned andstrode, frowning, from the room. Wilbur hastened after him and caughthim just as the door was closing. 

"Come back, " he pleaded. "This is the best game I've ever seen. Comeback, Pierre! You've made a wonderful start. "

Pierre le Rouge shook off the detaining hand and glared up at Wilbur. 

"Don't try irony, Dick. I feel like murder. Think of it! All this timeshe's been hating me; and now it's making her weep; think ofit--Jack--weeping!"

"Why, you're a child, Pierre. She's in love with you. "

"With me?"

"With Red Pierre. "

"You can't make a joke out of Jack with me. You ought to know that. "

"Pierre, I'd as soon make a joke out of a wildcat. "

"Grinning still? Wilbur, I'm taking more from you than I would fromany man on the ranges. "

"I know you are, and that's why I'm stringing this out because I'mgoing to have a laugh--ha, ha, ha!--the rest of my life--ha, ha, ha, ha!--whenever I think of this!"

The burst of merriment left him speechless, and Pierre, glowering, his right hand twitching dangerously close to that holster at his hip. He sobered, and said: "Go in and talk to her and prove thatI'm right. "

"Ask Jack if she loves me? Why, I'd as soon ask any man the samequestion. "

The big long-rider was instantly curious. 

"Has she never appealed to you as a woman, Pierre?"

"How could she? I've watched her ride; I've watched her use her gun;I've slept rolled in the same blankets with her, back to back; I'vewalked and talked and traveled with her as if she were mykid brother. "

Wilbur nodded, as if the miracle were being slowly unfolded before hiseyes. 

"And you've never noticed anything different about her? Never watcheda little lift and grace in her walk that no man could ever have; neverseen her color change just because you, Pierre, came near or went faraway from her?"

"Because of me?" asked the bewildered Pierre. 

"You fool, you! Why, lad, I've been kept amused by you two for a wholeevening, watching her play for your attention, saving her best smilesfor you, keeping her best attitudes for you, and letting all therichness of her voice go out for--a block--a stone. Gad, the thingstill doesn't seem possible! Pierre, one instant of that girl wouldgive romance to a man's whole life. "

"This girl? This Jack of ours?"

"He hasn't seen it! Why, if I hadn't seen years ago that she had tiedher hands and turned her heart over to you, I'd have been begging herfor a smile, a shadow of a hope. "

"If I didn't know you, Dick, I'd say that you were partly drunk andpartly a fool. "

"Here's a hundred--a cold hundred that I'm right. I'll make it athousand, if you dare. "

"Dare what?"

"Ask her to marry you. " "Marry--me?"

"Damn it all--well, then--whatever you like. But I say that if you goback into that room and sit still and merely look at her, she'll be inyour arms within five minutes. "

"I hate to take charity, but a bet is a bet. That hundred is in mypocket already. It's a go!"

They shook hands. 

"But what will be your proof, Dick, whether I win or lose?"

"Your face, blockhead, when you come out of the room. "

Upon this Pierre pondered a moment, and then turned toward the door. He set his hand on the knob, faltered, and finally set his teeth andentered the room. 

CHAPTER 18

She lay as he had left her, except that her face was now pillowed inher arms, and the long sobs kept her body quivering. Curiosity sweptover Pierre, looking down at her, but chiefly a puzzled grief such asa man feels when a friend is in trouble. He came closer and laid ahand on her shoulder. 

"Jack!"

She turned far enough to strike his hand away and instantly resumedher former position, though the sobs were softer. This childish angerirritated him. He was about to storm out of the room when the thoughtof the hundred dollars stopped him. The bet had been made, and itseemed unsportsmanlike to leave without some effort. 

The effort which he finally made was that suggested by Wilbur. Hefolded his arms and stood silent, waiting, and ready to judge the timeas nearly as he could until the five minutes should have elapsed. Hewas so busy computing the minutes that it was with a start that henoticed some time later that the weeping had ceased. She lay quiet. Her hand was dabbing furtively at her face for a purpose which Pierrecould not surmise. 

At last a broken voice murmured: "Pierre!"

He would not speak, but something in the voice made his anger go. After a little it came, and louder this time: "Pierre?"

He did not stir. 

She whirled and sat on the edge of the bunk, crying: "Pierre!" with anote of fright. 

Still he persisted in that silence, his arms folded, the keen blueeyes considering her as if from a great distance. 

She explained: "I was afraid--Pierre! Why don't you speak? Tell me, are you angry?"

And she sprang up and made a pace toward him. She had never seemed solittle manlike, so wholly womanly. And the hand which stretched towardhim, palm up, was a symbol of everything new and strange that hefound in her. 

He had seen it balled to a small, angry fist, brown and dangerous; hehad seen it gripping the butt of a revolver, ready for the draw; hehad seen it tugging at the reins and holding a racing horse in checkwith an ease which a man would envy; but never before had he seen itturned palm up, to his knowledge; and now, because he could not speakto her, according to his plan, he studied her thoroughly for thefirst time. 

Slender and marvelously made was that hand. The whole woman was init, made for beauty, not for use. It was all he could do to keep fromexclaiming. 

She made a quick step toward him, eager, uncertain: "Pierre, I thoughtyou had left me--that you were gone, and angry. "

Something caught on fire in Pierre, but still he would say nothing. Hewas beginning to feel a cruel pleasure in his victory, but it was notwithout a deep sense of danger. 

She had laid aside her six-gun, but she had not abandoned it. She hadlaid aside her anger, but she could resume it again as swiftly as shecould take up her revolver. 

She cried with a little burst of rage: "Pierre, you are making a gameof me!"

But seeing that he did not change she altered swiftly and caught hishand in both of hers. She spoke the name which she always used whenshe was greatly moved. 

"Ah, Pierre le Rouge, what have I done?"

His silence tempted her on like the smile of the sphinx. 

And suddenly she was inside his arms, though how she separated them hecould not tell, and crying: "Pierre, I am unhappy. Help me, Pierre!"

It was true, then, and Wilbur had won his bet. But how could it havehappened? He took the arms that encircled his neck and brought themslowly down, and watched her curiously. Something was expected of him, but what it was he could not tell, for women were as strange to him asthe wild sea is strange to the Arab. 

He hunted his mind, and then: "One of the boys has angered you, Jack?"

And she said, because she could think of no way to cover the confusionwhich came to her after the outbreak: "Yes. "

He dropped her arms and strode a pace or two up and down the room. 

"Gandil?"

"N-no!" "You're lying. It was Gandil. "

And he made straight for the door. 

She ran after him and flung herself between him and the door. Clearly, as if it were a painted picture, she saw him facing Gandil--saw theirhands leap for the guns--saw Gandil pitch face forward on the floor. "Pierre--for God's sake!"

Her terror convinced him partially, and the furor went back from hiseyes as a light goes back in a long, dark hall. 

"On your honor, Jack, it's not Gandil?"

"On my honor. "

"But someone has broken you up. And he's here--he's one of us, thisman who's bothered you. "

She could not help but answer: "Yes. "

He scowled down at the floor. 

"You would never be able to guess who it is. Give it up. After all--Ican live through it--I guess. "

He took her face between his hands and frowned down into her eyes. "Tell me his name, Jack, and the dog--"

She said: "Let me go. Take your hands away, Pierre. "

He obeyed her, deeply worried, and she stood up for a moment with ahand pressed over her eyes, swaying. He had never seen her like this;he was like a pilot striving to steer his ship through an unfathomablefog. Following what had become an instinct with him, he raised hisleft hand and touched the cross beneath his throat. And inspirationcame to him. 

CHAPTER 19

"Whether you want to or not, Jack, we'll go to this dance tonight. "

Jacqueline's hand fell away from her eyes. She seemed suddenly gladagain. 

"Do you want to take me, Pierre?"

He explained: "Of course. Besides, we have to keep an eye on Wilbur. This girl with the yellow hair--"

She had altered swiftly again. There was no understanding her orfollowing her moods this day. He decided to disregard them, as he hadoften done before. 

"Black Gandil swears that I'm bringing bad luck to the boys at last. Patterson has disappeared; Wilbur has lost his head about a girl. We've got to save Dick. "

He knew that she was fond of Wilbur, but she showed no enthusiasm now. 

"Let him go his own way. He's big enough to take care of himself. "

"But it's common talk, Jack, that the end of Wilbur will come througha woman. It was that that sent him on the long trail, you know. Andthis girl with the yellow hair--"

"Why do you harp on her?"

"Harp on her?"

"Every other word--nothing but yellow hair. I'm sick of it. I know thekind--faded corn color--dyed, probably. Pierre, you are all blind, andyou most of all. "

This being obviously childish, Pierre brushed the consideration of itfrom his mind. "And for clothes, Jack?"

They were both dumb. It had been years since she had worn the clothesof a woman. She had danced with the men of her father's gang many atime while someone whistled or played on a mouth-organ, and there wasthe time they rode into Beulah Ferry and held up the dance hall, andJim Boone and Mansie lined up the crowd with their hands held highabove their heads while the sweating musicians played fast and furiousand Jack and Pierre danced down the center of the hall. 

She had danced many a time, but never in the clothes of a woman; sothey stared, mutely puzzled. 

A though came first to Jacqueline. She stepped close and murmured hersuggestion in the ear of Pierre. Whatever it was, it made his jaw sethard and brought grave lines into his face. 

She stepped back, asking: "Well?"

"We'll do it. What a little demon you are, Jack!"

"Then we'll have to start now. There's barely time. "

They ran from the room together, and as they passed through the roombelow Wilbur called after them: "The dance?"

"Yes. "

"Wait and go with me. "

"We ride in a roundabout way. "

They were through the door as Pierre called back, and a moment laterthe hoofs of their horses scattered the gravel down the hillside. Jacqueline rode a black stallion sired by her father's mighty Thunder, who had grown old but still could do the work of three ordinary horsesin carrying the great bulk of his master. The son of Thunder waslittle like his sire, but a slender-limbed racer, graceful, nervous, eager. A clumsy rider would have ruined the horse in a single day'shard work among the trails of the mountain-desert, but Jacqueline, fairly reading the mind of the black, nursed his strength when it wasneeded and let him run free and swift when the ground before himwas level. 

Now she picked her course dexterously down the hillside with thecream-colored mare of Pierre following half a length behind. 

After the first down-pitch of ground was covered they passed intodifficult terrain, and for half an hour went at a jog trot, winging inand out among the rocks, climbing steadily up and up throughthe hills. 

Here the ground opened up again, and they roved on at a free gallop, the black always half a length in front. Along the ridge of a crest, an almost level stretch of a mile or more, Jack eased the grip on thereins, and the black responded with a sudden lengthening of stride andlowered his head with ears pressed back flat while he fairly flew overthe ground. 

Nothing could match that speed. The strong mare fell to the rear, fighting gamely, but beaten by that effort of the stallion. 

Jack swerved in the saddle and looked back, laughing her triumph. Pierre smiled grimly in response and leaned forward, shifting hisweight more over the withers of Mary. He spoke to her, and one of herpricking ears fell back as if to listen to his voice. He spoke againand the other ear fell back, her neck straightened, she gave her wholeheart to her work. 

First she held the stallion even, then she began to gain. That was themeaning of those round, strong hips, and the breadth of the chest. Sheneeded a half-mile of running to warm her to her work, and now theblack came back to her with every leap. 

The thunder of the approaching hoofs warned the girl. One more glanceshe cast in apprehension over her shoulder, and then brought her spursinto play again and again. Still the rush of hoofs behind her grewlouder and louder, and now there was a panting at her side and thehead of cream-colored Mary drew up and past. 

She gave up the battle with a little shout of anger and slowed up hermount with a sharp pull on the reins. It needed only a word fromPierre and his mare drew down to a hand-gallop, twisting her head alittle toward the black as if she called for some recognition of hersuperiority. 

"It's always this way, " cried Jack, and jerked at the reins with achildish impotence of anger. "I beat you for the first quarter of amile and then this fool of a horse--I'm going to give him away. "

"The black, " said Pierre, assuming an air of quiet and superiorknowing which always aggravated her most, "is a good second-ratecayuse when someone who knows horses is in the saddle. I'd give youfifty for him on the strength of his looks and keep him for adecoration. "

She could only glare her speechless rage for a moment. Then shechanged swiftly and threw out her hands in a little gesture ofsurrender. 

"After all, what difference does it make? Your Mary can beat him in along run or a short one, but it's your horse, Pierre, and that takesthe sting away. If it were anyone else's I'd--well, I'd shoot eitherthe horse or the rider. But my partner's horse is my horse, you know. "

He swerved his mare sharply to the left and took her hand with astrong grip. 

"Jack, of all the men I've ever known, I'd rather ride with you, I'drather fight for you. "

"Of all the _men_ you ever knew, " she said, "I suppose that I am. "

He did not hear the low voice, for he was looking out over the canyon. A few moments later they swung out onto the very crest of the range. 

On all sides the hills dropped away through the gloom of the evening, brown nearby, but falling off through a faint blue haze and growingblue-black with the distance. A sharp wind, chill with the coming ofnight, cut at them. Not a hundred feet overhead shot a low-winginghawk back from his day's hunting and rising only high enough to clearthe range and then plunge down toward his nest. 

Like the hawks they peered down from their point of vantage into theprofound gloom of the valley below. They shaded their eyes and studiedit with a singular interest for long moments, patient, as the hawk. 

So these two marauders stared until she raised a hand slowly and thenpointed down. He followed the direction she indicated, and there, through the haze of the evening, he made out a glimmer of lights. 

He said sharply: "I know the place, but we'll have a devil of a rideto get there. "

And like the swooping hawk they started down the slope. It wasprecipitous in many places, but Pierre kept almost at a gallop, makingthe mare take the slopes often crouched back on her haunches withforefeet braced forward, and sliding many yards at a time. 

In between the boulders he darted, twisting here and there, and alwayserect and jaunty in the saddle, swaying easily with every movement ofthe mare. Not far behind him came the girl. Fine rider that she was, she could not hope to compete with such matchless horsemanship whereman and horse were only one piece of strong brawn and muscle, onedaring spirit. Many a time the chances seemed too desperate to her, but she followed blindly where he led, setting her teeth at eachsucceeding venture, and coming out safe every time, until they swungout at last through a screen of brush and onto the level floor ofthe valley. 

CHAPTER 20

In the heart of that valley two roads crossed. Many a year before aman with some imagination and illimitable faith was moved by thecrossing of those roads to build a general merchandise store. 

Time justified his faith, in a small way, and now McGuire's store wasfamed for leagues and leagues about, for he dared to take chances withall manner of novelties, and the curious, when their pocketbooks werefull, went to McGuire's to find inspiration. 

Business was dull this night, however; there was not a single patronat the bar, and the store itself was empty, so he went to put out thebig gasoline lamp which hung from the ceiling in the center of theroom, and was on the ladder, reaching high above his head, when asingular chill caught him in the center of his plump back and radiatedfrom that spot in all directions, freezing his blood. He swallowed thelump in his throat and with his arms still stretched toward the lamphe turned his head and glanced behind. 

Two men stood watching him from a position just inside the door. Howthey had come there he could never guess, for the floor creaked at thelightest step. Nevertheless, these phantoms had appeared silently, andnow they must be dealt with. He turned on the ladder to face them, andstill he kept the arms automatically above his head while he descendedto the floor. However, on a closer examination, these two did notseem particularly formidable. They were both quite young, one withdark-red hair and a somewhat overbright eye; the other was hardly morethan a boy, very slender, delicately made, the sort of handsome youngscoundrel whom women cannot resist. 

Having made these observations, McGuire ventured to lower his arms byjerks; nothing happened; he was safe. So he vented his feelings byscowling on the strangers. 

"Well, " he snapped, "what's up? Too late for business. I'm closin'up. "

The two quite disregarded him. Their eyes were wandering calmly aboutthe place, and now they rested on the pride of McGuire's store. Thefigure of a man in evening clothes, complete from shoes to gloves andsilk hat, stood beside a girl of wax loveliness. She wore a low-cutgown of dark green, and over her shoulders was draped a scarf of dullgold. Above, a sign said: "You only get married once; why don't you doit up right?"

"That, " said the taller stranger, "ought to do very nicely for us, eh?"

And the younger replied in a curiously light, pleasant voice: "Justwhat we want. But how'll I get away with all that fluffy stuff, eh?"

The elder explained: "We're going to a bit of a dance and we'll takethose evening clothes. "

The heart of McGuire beat faster and his little eyes took in thestrangers again from head to foot. 

"They ain't for sale, " he said. "They's just samples. But right overhere--"

"This isn't a question of selling, " said the red-headed man. "We'vecome to accept a little donation, McGuire. "

The storekeeper grew purple and white in patches. Still there was noshow of violence, no display of guns; he moved his hand toward his ownweapon, and still the strangers merely smiled quietly on him. Hedecided that he had misunderstood, and went on: "Over here I got aline of goods that you'll like. Just step up and--"

The younger man, frowning now, replied: "We don't want to see any moreof your junk. The clothes on the models suit us all right. Slip 'emoff, McGuire. "

"But--" began McGuire and then stopped. 

His first suspicion returned with redoubled force; above all, thathead of dark red hair made him thoughtful. He finished hoarsely: "Whatthe hell's this?"

"Why, " smiled the taller man, "you've never done much in the interestsof charity, and now's a good time for you to start. Hurry up, McGuire;we're late already!"

There was a snarl from the storekeeper, and he went for his gun, butsomething in the peculiarly steady eyes of the two made him stop withhis fingers frozen hard around the butt. 

He whispered: "You're Red Pierre?"

"The clothes, " repeated Pierre sternly, "on the jump, McGuire. "

And with a jump McGuire obeyed. His hands trembled so that he couldhardly remove the scarf from the shoulders of the model, but afterwardfear made his fingers supple, as he did up the clothes in two bundles. 

Jacqueline took one of them and Pierre the other under his left arm;with his right hand he drew out some yellow coins. 

"I didn't buy these clothes because I didn't have the time to dickerwith you, McGuire. I've heard you talk prices before, you know. Buthere's what the clothes are worth to us. "

And into the quaking hands of McGuire he poured a chinking stream ofgold pieces. 

Relief, amazement, and a very wholesome fear struggled in the face ofMcGuire as he saw himself threefold overpaid. At that littleyellow heap he remained staring, unheeding the sound of theretreating outlaws. 

"It ain't possible, " he said at last, "thieves have begun to pay. "

His eyes sought the ceiling. 

"So that's Red Pierre?" said McGuire. 

As for Pierre and Jacqueline, they were instantly safe in the blackheart of the mountains. Many a mile of hard riding lay before them, however, and there was no road, not even a trail that they couldfollow. They had never even seen the Crittenden schoolhouse; they knewits location only by vague descriptions. 

But they had ridden a thousand times in places far more bewilderingand less known to them. Like all true denizens of the mountain-desert, they had a sense of direction as uncanny as that of an Eskimo. Nowthey struck off confidently through the dark and trailed up and downthrough the mountains until they reached a hollow in the center ofwhich shone a group of dim lights. It was the schoolhouse near theBarnes place, the scene of the dance. 

So they turned back behind the hills and in the covert of a group ofcottonwoods they kindled two more little fires, shading them on threesides with rocks and leaving them open for the sake of light onthe fourth. 

They worked busily for a time, without a word spoken by either ofthem. The only sound was the rustling of Jacqueline's stolen silks andthe purling of a small stream of water near them, some meager spring. 

But presently: "P-P-Pierre, I'm f-freezing. "

He himself was numbed by the chill air and paused in the task ofthrusting a leg into the trousers, which persisted in tangling andtwisting under his foot. 

"So'm I. It's c-c-cold as the d-d-d-devil. "

"And these--th-things--aren't any thicker than spider webs. " "Wait. I'll build you a great big fire. "

And he scooped up a number of dead twigs. 

There was an interlude of more silk rustling, then: "P-P-Pierre. "

"Well?"

"I wish I had a m-m-m-mirror. "

"Jack, are you vain?"

A cry of delight answered him. He threw caution to the winds andadvanced on her. He found her kneeling above a pool of water fed bythe soft sliding little stream from the spring. With one hand she helda burning branch by way of a torch, and with the other she patted herhair into shape and finally thrust the comb into the glittering, heavy coils. 

She started, as if she felt his presence. 

"P-P-Pierre!"

"Yes?"

"Look!"

She stood with the torch high overhead, and he saw a beauty soglorious that he closed his eyes involuntarily and still he saw thevision in the dull-green gown, with the scarf of old gold about herdazzling white shoulders. And there were two lights, the barbaric redof the jewels in her hair, and the black shimmer of her eyes. He drewback a step more. It was a picture to be looked at from a distance. 

She ran to him with a cry of dismay: "Pierre, what's wrong with me?"

His arms went round her of their own accord. It was the only placethey could go. And all this beauty was held in the circle of his will. 

"It isn't that, but you're so wonderful, Jack, so glorious, that Ihardly know you. You're like a different person. "

He felt the warm body trembling, and the thought that it was notentirely from the cold set his heart beating like a trip-hammer. Whathe felt was so strange to him that he stepped back in a vague alarm, and then laughed. She stood with an expectant smile. 

"Jack, how am I to risk you in the arms of all the strangers in thatdance?

"It's late. Listen!"

She cupped a hand at her ear and leaned to listen. Up from the hollowbelow them came a faint strain of music, a very light sound that wasdrowned a moment later by the solemn rushing of the wind through thegreat trees above them. 

They looked up of one accord. 

"Pierre, what was that?"

"Nothing; the wind in the branches, that's all. "

"It was a hushing sound. It was like--it was like a warning, almost. "

But he was already turning away, and she followed him hastily. 

CHAPTER 21

Jacqueline could never ride a horse in that gown, or even sit sidewisein the saddle without hopelessly crumpling it, so they walked to theschoolhouse. It was a slow progress, for she had to step lightly andcarefully for fear of the slippers. He took her bare arm and helpedher; he would never have thought of it under ordinary conditions, butsince she had put on this gown she was greatly changed to him, nolonger the wild, free rider of the mountain-desert, but adefenseless, strangely weak being. Her strength was now somethingother than the skill to ride hard and shoot straight and quick. 

So they came to the schoolhouse and reached the long line of buggies, buckboards, and, most of all, saddled horses. They crowded thehorse-shed where the school children stabled their mounts in thewinter weather. They were tethered to the posts of the fence; theywere grouped about the trees. 

It was a prodigious gathering, and a great affair for themountain-desert. They knew this even before they had set foot withinthe building. 

They stopped here and adjusted their masks carefully. They were madefrom a strip of black lining which Jack had torn from one of the coatsin the trunk which lay far back in the hills. 

Those masks had to be tied firmly and well, for some jester might tryto pull away that of Pierre, and if his face were seen, it would bedeath--a slaughter without defense, for he had not been able toconceal his big Colt in these tight-fitting clothes. Even as it was, there was peril from the moment that the lights within should shine onthat head of dark-red hair. 

As for Jack, there was little fear that she would be recognized. Shewas strange even to Pierre every time he looked down at her, for shehad ceased to be Jack and had become very definitely "Jacqueline. " Butthe masks were on; the scarf adjusted about the throat and bare, shivering shoulders of Jack, and they stood arm in arm before the doorout of which streamed the voices and the music. 

"Are you ready?"

"Yes. "

But she was trembling so, either from fear, or excitement, or both, that he had to take a firm hold on her arm and almost carry her up thesteps, shove the door open, and force her in. A hundred eyes wereinstantly upon them, practiced, suspicious eyes, accustomed to searchinto all things and take nothing for granted; eyes of men who, when arap came at the door, looked to see whether or not the shadow of thestranger fell full in the center of the crack beneath the door. If itfell to one side the man might be an enemy, and therefore they wouldstand at one side of the room, their hands upon the butt of a six-gun, and shout: "Come in. " Such was the battery of glances from the men, and the color of Pierre altered, paled. 

He knew some of those faces, for those who hunt and are hunted neverforget the least gestures of their enemies. There was a mightytemptation to turn back even then, but he set his teeth and forcedhimself to stand calmly. 

The chuckle which replied to this maneuver freed him for the moment. Suspicion was lulled. Moreover, the red-jeweled hair of Jacqueline andher lighted eyes called all attention almost immediately upon her. Sheshifted the golden scarf--the white arms and breast flashed in thelight--a gasp responded. There would be talk tomorrow; there werewhispers even now. 

It was not the main hall that they stood in, for this school, havingbeen built by an aspiring community, contained two rooms; this smallerroom, used by the little ones of the school, was now converted into ahat-and-cloak room. 

Pierre hung up his hat, removed his gloves slowly, nerving himself toendure the sharp glances, and opened the door for Jacqueline. 

If she had held back tremulously before, something she had seen in theeyes of those in the first room, something in the whisper and murmurwhich rose the moment she started to leave, gave her courage. Shestepped into the dance-hall like a queen going forth to addressdevoted subjects. The second ordeal was easier than the first. Therewere many times more people in that crowded room, but each was intentupon his own pleasure. A wave of warmth and light swept upon them, anda blare of music, and a stir and hum of voices, and here and there thesweet sound of a happy girl's laughter. They raised their heads, thesetwo wild rangers of the mountain-desert, and breathed deep of thefantastic scene. 

There was no attempt at beauty in the costumes of the masqueraders. Here and there some girl achieved a novel and pleasing effect; but onthe whole they strove for cheaper and more stirring things in the lineof the grotesque. 

Here passed a youth wearing a beard made from the stiff, red bristlesof the tail of a sorrel horse. Another wore a bear's head cunninglystuffed, the grinning teeth flashing over his head and the skin drapedover his shoulders. A third disfigured himself by painting after thefashion of an Indian on the warpath, with crimson streaks down hisforehead and red and black across his cheeks. 

But not more than a third of all the assembly made any effort tomasquerade, beyond the use of the simple black mask across the upperpart of the face. The rest of the men and women contented themselveswith wearing the very finest clothes they could afford to buy, andthere was through the air a scent of the general merchandise storewhich not even a liberal use of cheap perfume and all the drifts ofpale-blue cigarette smoke could quite overcome. 

As for the music, it was furnished by two very old men, relics of thedays when there were contests in fiddling; a stout fellow of middleage, with cheeks swelled almost to bursting as he thundered outterrific blasts on a slide trombone; a youth who rattled two sticks onan overturned dish-pan in lieu of a drum, and a cornetist ofreal skill. 

There were hard faces in the crowd, most of them, of men who had settheir teeth against hard weather and hard men, and fought their waythrough, not to happiness, but to existence, so that fighting hadbecome their pleasure. 

Now they relaxed their eternal vigilance, their eternal suspicion. Another phase of their nature weakened. Some of them were smiling andlaughing for the first time in months, perhaps, of labor andloneliness on the range. With the gates of good-nature opened, averitable flood of gaiety burst out. It glittered in their eyes, itrose to their lips in a wild laughter. They seemed to be dancing morefuriously fast in order to forget the life which they had left, and towhich they must return. 

These were the conquerors of the bitter nature of the mountain-desert. There was beauty here, the beauty of strength in the men and a brownloveliness in the girls; just as in the music, the blatancy of therattling dish-pan and the blaring trombone were more than balanced bythe real skill of the violinists, who kept a high, sweet, singing tonethrough all the clamor. 

And Pierre le Rouge and Jacqueline? They stood aghast for a momentwhen that crash of noise broke around them; but they came from a lifewhere there was nothing of beauty except the lonely strength of themountains and the appalling silences of the stars that roll above thedesert. Almost at once they caught the overtone of human joyousness, and they turned with smiles to each other, and it was "Pierre?""Jack?" Then a nod, and she was in his arms, and they glided intothe dance. 

CHAPTER 22

When a crowd gathers in the street, there rises a babel of voices, aconfused and pointless clamor, no matter what the purpose of thegathering, until some man who can think as well as shout begins tospeak. Then the crowd murmurs a moment, and after a few secondscomposes itself to listen. 

So it was with the noise in the hall when Pierre and Jacqueline beganto dance. First there were smiles of derision and envy around them, but after a moment a little hush came where they moved. 

They could not help but dance well, for they had youth and grace andstrength, and the glances of applause and envy were like wine toquicken their blood, while above all they caught the overtone of thesinging violins, and danced by that alone. The music ended with a longflourish just as they whirled to a stop in a corner of the room. Atonce an eddy of men started toward them. 

"Who shall it be?" smiled Pierre. "With whom do you want to dance?It's your triumph, Jack. "

She was alight and alive with the victory, and her eyes roved over thecrowd. 

"The big man with the tawny hair. "

"But he's making right past us. "

"No; he'll turn and come back. "

"How do you know?"

For answer she glanced up and laughed, and he realized with a singularsense of loneliness that she knew many things which were beyond hisken. Someone touched his arm, and a voice, many voices, beset him. 

"How's the chances for a dance with the girl, partner?"

"This dance is already booked, " Pierre answered, and kept his eyes onthe tall man with the scarred face and the resolute jaw. He wonderedwhy Jacqueline had chosen such a partner. 

At least she had prophesied correctly, for the big man turned towardthem just as he seemed about to head for another part of the hall. Thecrowd gave way before him, not that he shouldered them aside, but theyseemed to feel the coming of his shadow before him, and separated asthey would have done before the shadow of a falling tree. 

In another moment Pierre found himself looking up to the giant. Nomask could cover that long, twisting mark of white down his cheek, norhide the square set of the jaw, nor dim the steady eyes. 

And there came to Pierre an exceedingly great uneasiness in his righthand, and a twitching of the fingers low down on his thigh where thefamiliar holster should have hung. His left hand rose, following theold instinct, and touched beneath his throat where the cold cross lay. 

He was saying easily: "This is your dance, isn't it?"

"Right, Bud, " answered the big man in a mellow voice as great as hissize. "Sorry I can't swap partners with you, but I hunt alone. "

An overwhelming desire to get a distance between himself and this hugeunknown came to Pierre. 

He said: "There goes the music. You're off. "

And the other, moving toward Jack, leaned down a little and murmuredat the ear of the outlaw: "Thanks, Pierre. "

Then he was gone, and Jacqueline was laughing over his shoulder backto Pierre. 

Through his daze and through the rising clamor of the music, a voicesaid beside him: "You look sort of sick, dude. Who's your friend?"

"Don't you know him?" asked Pierre. 

"No more than I do you; but I've ridden the range for ten years aroundhere, and I know that he's new to these parts. If I'd ever glimpsedhim before, I'd remember him. He'd be a bad man in a mix, eh?"

And Pierre answered with devout earnestness: "He would. "

"But where'd you buy those duds, pal? Hey, look! Here's what I've beenwaiting for--the Barneses and the girl that's visitin' 'em fromthe East. "

"What girl?"

"Look!"

The Barnes group was passing through the door, and last came theunmistakable form of Dick Wilbur, masked, but not masked enough tohide his familiar smile or cover the well-known sound of his laughteras it drifted to Pierre across the hall, and on his arm was a girl inan evening dress of blue, with a small, black mask across her eyes, and deep-golden hair. 

Pausing before she swung into the dance with Wilbur, she made agesture with the white arm, and looked up laughing to big, handsomeDick. Pierre trembled with a red rage when he saw the hands of Wilburabout her. 

Dick, in passing, marked Pierre's stare above the heads of the crowd, and frowned with trouble. The hungry eyes of Pierre followed them asthey circled the hall again; and this time Wilbur, perhaps fearingthat something had gone wrong with Pierre, steered close to the edgeof the dancing crowd and looked inquisitively across. 

He leaned and spoke to the girl, and she turned her head, smiling, toPierre. Then the smile went out, and even despite the mask, he saw hereyes widen. She stopped and slipped from the arm of Wilbur, and camestep by step slowly toward him like one walking in her sleep. There, by the edge of the dancers, with the noise of the music and theshuffling feet to cover them, they met. The hands she held to him werecold and trembling. 

"Is it you?"

"It is I. "

That was all; and then the shadow of Wilbur loomed above them. 

"What's this? Do you know each other? It isn't possible! Pierre, areyou playing a game with me?"

But under the glance of Pierre he fell back a step, and reached forthe gun which was not there. They were alone once more. 

"Mary--Mary Brown!"

"Pierre!"

"But you are dead!"

"No, no! But you--Pierre, where can we go?"

"Outside. "

"Let us go quickly!"

"Do you need a wrap?"

"No. "

"But it is cold outside, and your shoulders are bare. "

"Then take that cloak. But quickly, Pierre, before we're followed. "

He drew it about her; he led her through the door; it clicked shut;they were alone with the sweet, frosty air before them. She toreaway the mask. 

"And yours, Pierre?"

"Not here. "

"Why?"

"Because there are people. Hurry. Now here, with just the trees aroundus--"

And he tore off his mask. 

The white, cold moon shone over them, slipping down between the darktops of the trees, and the wind stirred slowly through the brancheswith a faint, hushing sound, as if once more a warning were coming toPierre this night. He looked up, his left hand at the cross. 

"Look down. You are afraid of something, Pierre. What is it?"

"With your arms around my neck, there's nothing in the world I fear. Inever dreamed I could love anything more than the little girl who layin the snow, and died there that night. "

"And I never dreamed I could smile at any man except the boy who layby me that night. And he died. "

"What miracle saved you?"

She said: "It was wonderful, and yet very simple. You remember how thetree crushed me down into the snow? Well, when the landslide moved, itcarried the tree before it; the weight of the trunk was lifted fromme. Perhaps it was a rock that struck me over the head then, for Ilost consciousness. The slide didn't bury me, but the rush carried mebefore it like a stick before a wave, you see. 

"When I woke I was almost completely covered with a blanket of debris, but I could move my arms, and managed to prop myself up in a sittingposture. It was there that my father and his searching party found me;he had been combing that district all night. They carried me back, terribly bruised, but without even a bone broken. It was a miraclethat I escaped, and the miracle must have been worked by your cross;do you remember?"

He shuddered. "The cross--for every good fortune it has brought me, ithas brought bad luck to others. I'll throw it away, now--and then--no, it makes no difference. We are done for. "

"Pierre!"

"Don't you see, Mary, or are you still blind as I was ever since I sawyou tonight? It's all in that name--Pierre. "

"There's nothing in it, Pierre, that I don't love. "

His head was bowed as if with the weight of the words which heforesaw. "You have heard of the wild men of the mountains, and thelong-riders?"

He knew that she nodded, though she could not speak. 

"I am Red Pierre. "

"_You_!"

"Yes. "

Yet he had the courage to raise his head and watch her shrink withhorror. It was only an instant. Then she was beside him again, and onearm around him, while she turned her head and glanced fearfully backat the lighted schoolhouse. The faint music mocked them. 

"And you dared to come to the dance? We must go. Look, there arehorses! We'll ride off into the mountains, and they'll never findus--we'll--"

"Hush! One day's riding would kill you--riding as I ride. "

"I'm strong--very strong, and the love of you, Pierre, will give memore strength. But quickly, for if they knew you, every man in thatplace would come armed and ready to kill. I know, for I've heard themtalk. Tell me, are one-half of all the terrible things they say--"

"They are true, I guess. "

"I won't think of them. Whatever you've done, it was not you, but somedevil that forced you on. Pierre, I love you more than ever. Will yougo East with me, and home? We will lose ourselves in New York. Themillions of the crowd will hide us. "

"Mary, there are some men from whom even the night can't hide me. Ifthey were blind their hate would give them eyes to find me. "

"Pierre, you are not turning away from me--Pierre--There's some ghostof a chance for us. Will you take that chance and come with me?"

He thought of many things, but what he answered was: "I will. " "Thenlet's go at once. The railroad--"

"Not that way. No one in that house suspects me now. We'll go back andput on our masks again, and--hush. What's there?"

"Nothing. "

"There is--a man's step. "

And she, seeing the look on his face, covered her eyes in horror. Whenshe looked up a great form was looming through the dark, and then thevoice of Wilbur came, hard and cold. 

"I've looked everywhere for you. Miss Brown, they are anxious aboutyou in the schoolhouse. Will you go back?"

"No--I--"

But Pierre commanded: "Go back. "

So she turned, and he ordered again: "I think our friend has somethingto say to me. You can find your way easily. Tomorrow--"

"Tomorrow, Pierre?"

"Yes. "

"I shall be waiting. "

With what a voice she said it! And then she was gone. 

He turned quietly to big Dick Wilbur, on whose contorted face themoonlight fell. 

"Say it, Dick, and have it out in cursing me, if that'll help. "

The big man stood with his hands gripped behind, fighting forself-control. 

"Pierre, I've cared for you more than I've cared for any other man. I've thought of you like a kid brother. Now tell me that you haven'tdone this thing, and I'll believe you rather than my senses. Tell meyou haven't stolen the girl I love away from me; tell me--"

"I love her, Dick. "

"Damn you! And she?"

"She'll forget me; God knows I hope she'll forget me. " "I broughttwo guns with me. Here they are. "

He held out the weapons. 

"Take your choice. "

"Does it have to be this way?"

"If you'd rather have me shoot you down in cold blood?"

"I suppose this is as good a way as any. "

"What do you mean?"

"Nothing. Give me a gun. "

"Here. This is ten paces. Are you ready?"

"Yes. "

"Pierre. God forgive you for what you've done. She liked me, I know. If it weren't for you, I would have won her and a chance for real lifeagain--but now--damn you!"

"I'll count to ten, slowly and evenly. When I reach ten we fire?"

"Yes. "

"I'll trust you not to beat the count, Dick. "

"And I you. Start. "

He counted quietly, evenly: "One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine--ten!"

The gun jerked up in the hand of Wilbur, but he stayed the movementwith his finger pressing still upon the trigger. The hand of Pierrehad not moved. 

He cried: "By God, Pierre, what do you mean?"

There was no answer. He strode across the intervening space, droppedhis gun and caught the other by the shoulders. Out of Pierre'snerveless fingers the revolver slipped to the ground. 

"In the name of God, Pierre, what has happened to you?"

"Dick, why didn't you fire?"

"Fire? Murder you?"

"You shoot straight--I know--it would have been over quickly. "

"What is it, boy? You look dead--there's no color in your face, nolight in your eyes, even your voice is dead. I know it isn't fear. What is it?"

"You're wrong. It's fear. "

"Fear and Red Pierre. The two don't mate. "

"Fear of living, Dick. "

"So that's it? God help you. Pierre, forgive me. I should have knownthat you had met her before, but I was mad, and didn't know what I wasdoing, couldn't think. "

"It's over and forgotten. I have to go back and get Jack. Will youride home with us?"

"Jack? She's not in the hall. She left shortly after you went, and shemeans some deviltry. There's a jealous fiend in that girl. I watchedher eyes when they followed you and Mary from the hall. "

"Then we'll ride back alone. "

"Not I. Carry the word to Jim that I'm through with the game. I'mgoing to wash some of the grime off my conscience and try to makemyself fit to speak to this girl again. "

"It's the cross, " said Pierre. 

"What do you mean?"

"Nothing. The bad luck has come to poor old Jim at last, because hesaved me out of the snow. Patterson has gone, and now you, and perhapsJack--well, this is good-bye, Dick?"

"Yes. "

Their hands met. 

"You forgive me, Dick?"

"With all my heart, old fellow. "

"I'll try to wish you luck. Stay close to her. Perhaps you'll winher. "

"I'll do what one man can. "

"But if you succeed, ride out of the mountain-desert with her--neverlet me hear of it. "

"I don't understand. Will you tell me what's between you, Pierre?You've some sort of claim on her. What is it?" "I've said good-bye. Only one thing more. Never mention my name to her. "

So he turned and walked out into the moonlight and Wilbur stared afterhim until he disappeared beyond the shoulder of a hill. 

CHAPTER 23

It was early morning before Pierre reached the refuge of Boone's gang, but there was still a light through the window of the large room, andhe entered to find Boone, Mansie, and Gandil grouped about the fire, all ominously silent, all ominously wakeful. They looked up to him andbig Jim nodded his gray head. Otherwise there was no greeting. 

From a shadowy corner Jacqueline rose and went toward the door. Hecrossed quickly and barred the way. 

"What is it, Jack?"

"Get out of the way. "

"Not till you tell me what's wrong. "

A veritable devil of fury came blazing in her eyes, and her handtwitched nervously back to her hip where the dark holster hung. Shesaid in a voice that shook with anger: "Don't try your bluff on me. Iain't no shorthorn, Pierre le Rouge. "

He stepped aside, frowning. 

"Tomorrow I'll argue the point with you, Jack. " She turned at thedoor and snapped back: "You? You ain't fast enough on the draw toargue with me!"

And she was gone. He turned to face the mocking smile of Black Gandiland a rapid volley of questions. 

"Where's Patterson?"

"No more idea than you have. "

"And Branch?"

"What's become of Branch? Hasn't he returned?"

"No. And Dick Wilbur?"

"Boys, he's done with this life and I'm glad of it. He's starting on anew track. "

"After a woman?" sneered Bud Mansie. 

"Shut up, Bud, " broke in Boone, and then slowly to Pierre:

"Patterson is gone for two days now. You ought to know what thatmeans. Branch ought to have returned from looking for him, and Branchis still out. Wilbur is gone. Out of seven we're only four left. Who's next?"

He stared gloomily from face to face, and Gandil snarled: "A fellowwho saves a shipwrecked man--"

"Damn you, keep still, Gandil. "

"Don't damn me, Pierre le Rouge, but damn the luck you've brought toJim Boone. "

"Jim, do you chalk all this up against me?"

"I, lad? No, no! But it's queer. Patterson's done for; there's nodoubt of that. Good-natured Garry Patterson. God, boy, how we'll misshim! And Branch seems to have gone the same way. If neither of themshow up before morning we can cross 'em off the list. Now Wilbur hasgone and Jack has ridden home looking like a small-sized thunderstorm, and now you come with a white face and a blank eye. What hell istrailin' us, Pierre, what hell is in store for us. You've seensomething, and we want to know what it is. "

"A ghost, Jim, that's all. "

Bud Mansie said softly: "There's only one ghost that could make youlook like this. Was it McGurk, Pierre?"

Boone commanded: "No more of that, Bud. Boys, we're going to turn in, and tomorrow we'll climb the hills looking for the two we've lost. Butthere's something or someone after us. Lads, I'm thinking our gooddays are over. The seven of us have been too many for a small posseand too fast for a big one, but the seven are down to four. The gooddays are over. "

And the three answered in a solemn chorus: "The good days are over. "

All eyes fixed on Pierre, and his glance was settled on the floor. 

The morning brought them no better cheer, for Jack, whose singinggenerally wakened them, was not to be coaxed into speech, and whenPierre entered the room she rose and left the breakfast table. The sadeyes of Jim Boone followed her and then turned to Pierre. Noexplanation was forthcoming, and he asked for none. The old fatalisthad accepted the worst, and now he waited for doom to descend. 

They took their horses after breakfast and rode out to search thehills, for it was quite possible that an accident had crippled atleast one of the two lost men, either Patterson or Branch. Not a gullywithin miles was left unsearched, but toward evening they rode back, one by one, with no tidings. 

One by one they rode up, and whistled to announce their coming, andthen rode on to the stable to unsaddle their horses. About the suppertable all gathered with the exception of Bud Mansie. So they waitedthe meal and each from time to time stole a glance at the fifth platewhere Bud should sit. 

It was Jack who finally stirred herself from her dumb gloom to take upthat fifth and carry it out of the room. It was as if she hadannounced the death of Mansie. 

After that, they ate what they could and then went back around thefire. The evening waned, but it brought no sign of any of the missingthree. The wood burned low in the fire. The first to break the longsilence was Jim Boone, with "Who brings in the wood?"

And Black Gandil answered: "We'll match, eh?"

In an outburst of energy the day before he disappeared Garry Pattersonhad chopped up some wood and left a pile of it at the corner of thehouse. It was a very little thing to bring in an armful of that wood, but long-riders do not love work, and now they started the matchingseriously. The odd man was out, and Pierre went out on the first tossof the coins. 

"You see, " said Gandil. "Bad luck to everyone but himself. "

At the next throw Jacqueline was the lucky one, and her fatherafterward. Gandil rose and stretched himself leisurely, yet as hesauntered toward the door his backward glance at Pierre was blackindeed. He glanced curiously toward Jack--who looked away sharply--andthen turned his eyes to her father. 

The latter was considering him with a gloomy, foreboding stare andconsidering over and over again, as Pierre le Rouge well knew, theprophecy of Black Morgan Gandil. 

He fell in turn into a solemn brooding, and many a picture out of thepast came up beside him and stood near till he could almost feel itspresence. He was roused by the creaking of the floor beneath theponderous step of Jim Boone, who flung the door open and shouted:"Oh, Morgan. "

In the silence he turned and stared back at Pierre. 

"What's up with Gandil?"

"God knows, not I. "

Pierre rose and ran from the room and around the side of the building. There by the woodpile lay the prostrate body. It was a mere limpweight when he turned and raised it in his arms. So he walked backinto the house carrying all that was left of Black Morgan Gandil, andplaced his burden on a bunk at the side of the room. 

There had been no outcry from either Jim Boone or his daughter, butthey came quickly to him, and Jacqueline pressed her ear over theheart of the hurt man. 

She said: "He's still alive, but nearly gone. Where's the wound?"

They found it when they drew off his coat--a small cut high on theright breast, and another lower and more to the left. Either of themwould have been fatal, and about each the flesh was discolored wherethe hilt of the knife or the fist of the striker had driven homethe blade. 

They stood back and made no hopeless effort to save him. It wasuncanny that Black Morgan Gandil, after all of his battles, should diewithout a struggle in this way. And it had been no cowardly attackfrom the rear. Both wounds were in the front. A hope came to them whenhis color increased at one time, but it was for only a moment; it wentout again as if someone were erasing paint from his cheeks. 

But just as they were about to turn away his body stirred with aslight convulsion, the eyes opened wide, and he strove to speak. A redfroth came on his lips. He made another desperate effort, and twistinghimself onto one elbow pointed a rigid arm at Pierre. He gasped:"McGurk--God!" and dropped. He was dead before his head touchedthe blanket. 

It was Jacqueline who closed the staring eyes, for the two men werefrozen where they stood. They had heard the story of Patterson andBranch and Mansie in one word from the lips of the dying man. 

McGurk was back. McGurk was prowling about the last of the gang ofBoone, and the lone wolf had pulled down four of the band one by oneon successive days. Only two remained, and these two looked at oneanother with a common thought. 

"The lights!" cried Jacqueline, turning from the body of Gandil. "Hecan shoot us down through the windows at his leisure. "

"But he won't, " said her father. "I've lived too long with the name ofMcGurk in my ears not to know the man. He'll never kill by stealth, but openly and man to man. I know him, damn him. He'll wait till hemeets us alone, and then we'll finish as poor Gandil, there, orPatterson and Branch and Bud Mansie, all of them fallen somewhere inthe mountains with the buzzards left to bury 'em. That's how we'llfinish with McGurk on our trail. And you--Gandil was right--it's youthat's brought him on us. A shipwrecked man--by God, Gandilwas right!"

His right hand froze on the butt of his gun and his face convulsedwith impotent rage, for he knew, as both the others knew, that longbefore that gun was clear of the holster the bullet from Pierre's gunwould be on its way. But Pierre threw his arms wide, and standing so, his shadow made a black cross on the wall behind him. He even smiledto tempt the big man further. 

CHAPTER 24

Jacqueline ran between and caught the hand of her father, crying:

"Are you going to finish the work of McGurk before he has a chance tostart it? He hunted the rest down one by one. Dad, if you put outPierre what is left? Can you face that devil alone?"

And the old man groaned: "But it's his luck that's ruined me. It's hisdamned luck which has broken up the finest fellowship that ever mockedat law on the ranges. Oh, Jack, the heart in me's broken. I wish toGod that I lay where Gandil lies. What's the use of fighting anylonger? No man can stand up against McGurk!"

And the cold which had come in the blood of Pierre agreed with him. Hewas a slayer of men, but McGurk was a devil incarnate. His father haddied at the hand of this lone rider; it was fitting, it was fate thathe himself should die in the same way. The girl looked from face toface, and sensed their despondency. It seemed that their fear gave herthe greater courage. Her face flushed as she stood glaring her scorn. 

"The yellow streak took a long time in showin', but it's in you, allright, Pierre le Rouge. "

"You've hated me ever since the dance, Jack. Why?"

"Because I knew you were yellow--like this!"

He shrugged his shoulders like one who gives up the fight against awoman, and seeing it, she changed suddenly and made a gesture withboth hands toward him, a sudden gesture filled with grace and a queertenderness. 

She said: "Pierre, have you forgotten that when you were only a boyyou stood up to McGurk and drew blood from him? Are you afraid ofhim now?"

"I'll take my chance with any man--but McGurk--"

"He has no cross to bring him luck. "

"Aye, and he has no friends for that luck to ruin. Look at Gandil, Jack, and then speak to me of the cross. "

"Pierre, that first time you met you almost beat him to the draw. Oh, if I were a man, I'd--Pierre, it was to get McGurk that you rode outto the range. You've been here six years, and McGurk is still alive, and now you're ready to run from his shadow. "

"Run?" he said hotly. "I swear to God that as I stand here I've nofear of death and no hope for the life ahead. "

She sneered: "You're white while you say it. Your will may be brave, but your blood's a coward, Pierre. It deserts you. "

"Jack, you devil--"

"Aye, you can threaten me safely. But if McGurk were here--"

"Let him come. "

"Then give me one promise. "

"A thousand of 'em. "

"Let me hunt him with you. "

He stared at her with wonder. 

"Jack, what a heart you have! If you were a man we could rule themountains, you and I. "

"Even as I am, what prevents us, Pierre?"

And looking at her he forgot the sorrow which had been his ever sincehe looked up to the face framed with red-gold hair and the dark treebehind and the cold stars steady above it. It would come to him again, but now it was gone, and he murmured, smiling: "I wonder?"

They made their plans that night, sitting all three together. It wasbetter to go out and hunt the hunter than to wait there and be trackeddown. Jack, for she insisted on it, would ride out with Pierre thenext morning and hunt through the hills for the hiding-placeof McGurk. 

Some covert he must have, so as to be near his victims. Nothing elsecould explain the ease with which he kept on their track. They wouldtake the trail, and Jim Boone, no longer agile enough to be effectiveon the trail, would guard the house and the body of Gandil in it. 

There was little danger that even McGurk would try to rush a hostilehouse, but they took no chances. The guns of Jim Boone were given athorough overhauling, and he wore as usual at his belt theheavy-handled hunting knife, a deadly weapon in a hand-to-hand fight. Thus equipped, they left him and took the trail. 

They had not ridden a hundred yards when a whistle followed them, thefamiliar whistle of the gang. They reined short and saw big DickWilbur riding his bay after them, but at some distance he halted andshouted: "Pierre!"

"He's come back to us!" cried Jack. 

"No. It's only some message. "

"Do you know?"

"Yes. Stay here. This is for me alone. "

And he rode back to Wilbur, who swung his horse close alongside. However hard he had followed in the pursuit of happiness, his face wasdrawn with lines of age and his eyes circled with shadows. 

He said: "I've kept close on her trail, Pierre, and the nearest shehas come to kindness has been to send me back with a message to you. "

He laughed without mirth, and the sound stopped abruptly. 

"This is the message in her own words: 'I love him, Dick, and there'snothing in the world for me without him. Bring him back to me. I don'tcare how; but bring him back. ' So tell Jack to ride the trail alonetoday and go back with me. I give her up, not freely, but because Iknow there's no hope for me. "

But Pierre answered: "Wherever I've gone there's been luck for me andhell for everyone around me. I lived with a priest, Dick, and left himwhen I was nearly old enough to begin repaying his care. I came Southand found a father and lost him the same day. I gambled for money withwhich to bury him, and a man died that night and another was hurt. Iescaped from the town by riding a horse to death. I was nearly killedin a landslide, and now the men who saved me from that are done for. 

"It's all one story, the same over and over. Can I carry a fortunelike that back to her? Dick, it would haunt me by day and by night. She would be the next. I know it as I know that I'm sitting in thesaddle here. That's my answer. Carry it back to her. "

"I won't lie and tell you I'm sorry, because I'm a fool and still havea ghost of a hope, but this will be hard news to tell her, and I'drather give five years of life than face the look that will come inher eyes. "

"I know it, Dick. "

"But this is final?"

"It is. "

"Then good-bye again, and--God bless you, Pierre. "

"And you, old fellow. "

They swerved their horses in opposite directions and galloped apart. 

"It was nothing, " said Pierre to Jack, when he came up with her anddrew his horse down to a trot. But he knew that she had read his mind. 

But all day through the mazes of canyon and hill and rolling groundthey searched patiently. There was no cranny in the rocks too smallfor them to reconnoiter with caution. There was no group of trees theydid not examine. 

Yet it was not strange that they failed. In the space of every squaremile there were a hundred hiding-places which might have servedMcGurk. It would have taken a month to comb the country. They had onlya day, and left the result to chance, but chance failed them. When theshadows commenced to swing across the gullies they turned back androde with downward heads, silent. 

One hill lay between them and the old ranch house which had been theheadquarters for their gang so many days, when they saw a faint driftof smoke across the sky--not a thin column of smoke such as rises froma chimney, but a broad stream of pale mist, as if a dozen chimneyswere spouting wood smoke at once. 

They exchanged glances and spurred their horses up the last slope. Asalways in a short spurt, the long-legged black of Jacquelineout-distanced the cream-colored mare, and it was she who first toppedthe rise of land. The girl whirled in her saddle with raised arm, screamed back at Pierre, and rode on at a still more furious pace. 

What he saw when he reached a corresponding position was the ranchhouse wreathed in smoke, and through all the lower windows was the reddance of flames. Before him fled Jacqueline with all the speed of theblack. He loosened the reins, spoke to the mare, and she respondedwith a mighty rush. Even that tearing pace could not quite take him upto the girl, but he flung himself from the saddle and was at her sidewhen she ran across the smoking veranda and wrenched at thefront door. 

The whole frame gave back at her, and as Pierre snatched her to oneside the doorway fell crashing on the porch, while a mighty volume ofsmoke burst out at them like a puff from the pit. 

They stood sputtering, coughing, and choking, and when they could lookagain they saw a solid wall of red flame, thick, impenetrable, shuddering with the breath of the wind. 

While they stared a stronger breath of that wind tore the wall offlames apart, driving it back in a raging tide to either side. Thefire had circled the walls of the entire room, but it had scarcelyencroached on the center, and there, seated at the table, was Boone. 

He had scarcely changed from the position in which they last saw him, save that he was fallen somewhat deeper in the chair, his head restingagainst the top of the back. He greeted them, through that infernalfurnace, with laughter, and wide, steady eyes. At least it seemedlaughter, for the mouth was agape and the lips grinned back, but therewas no sound from the lips and no light in the fixed eyes. Laughterindeed it was, but it was the laughter of death, as if the soul of theman, in dying, recognized its natural wild element and had burst intoconvulsive mirth. So he sat there, untouched as yet by the wide riverof fire, chuckling at his destiny. The wall of fire closed across thedoorway again and the work of red ruin went on with a crashing oftimbers from the upper part of the building. 

As that living wall shut solidly, Jacqueline leaped forward, shouting, like a man, words of hope and rescue; Pierre caught her barely intime--a precarious grasp on the wrist from which she nearly wrenchedherself free and gained the entrance to the fire. But the jerk threwher off balance for the least fraction of an instant, and the nextmoment she was safe in his arms. 

Safe? He might as well have held a wildcat, or captured with his barehands a wild eagle, strong of talon and beak. She tore and raged in awild fury. 

"Pierre, coward, devil!"

"Steady, Jack!"

"Are you going to let him die?"

"Don't you see? He's already dead. "

"You lie. You only fear the fire!"

"I tell you, McGurk has been here before us. "

Her arm was freed by a twisting effort and she beat him furiouslyacross the face. One blow cut his lip and a steady trickle of hotblood left a taste of salt in his mouth. 

"You young fiend!" he cried, and grasped both her wrists with acrushing force. 

She leaned and gnashed at his hands, but he whirled her about and heldher from behind, impotent, raging still. 

"A hundred McGurks could never have killed him!"

There was a sharp explosion from the midst of the fire. 

"See! He's fighting against his death!"

"No! No! It's only the falling of a timber!"

Yet with a panic at his heart he knew that it was the sharp crack of afirearm. "Liar again! Pierre, for God's sake, do something for him. Father! He's fighting for his life!"

Another and another explosion from the midst of the fire. Heunderstood then. 

"The flames have reached his guns. That's all, Jack. Don't you see?We'd be throwing ourselves away to run into those flames. "

Realization came to her at last. A heavy weight slumped down suddenlyover his arms. He held her easily, lightly. Her head had tilted back, and the red flare of the fire beat across her face and throat. Theroar of the flames shut out all other thought of the world and cast awide inferno of light around them. 

Higher and higher rose the fires, and the wind cut off great fragmentsand hurried them off into the night, blowing them, it seemed, straightup against the piled thunder of the clouds. Then the roof sagged, swayed, and fell crashing, while a vast cloud of sparks and lividfires shot up a hundred feet into the air. It was as if the soul ofold Boone had departed in that final flare. 

It started the girl into sudden life, surprising Pierre, so that shemanaged to wrench herself free and ran from him. He sprang after herwith a shout, fearing that in her hysteria she might fling herselfinto the fire, but that was not her purpose. Straight to the blackhorse she ran, swung into the saddle with the ease of a man, and rodefuriously off through the falling of the night. 

He watched her with a curious closing of loneliness like a hand abouthis heart. He had failed, and because of that failure even Jacquelinewas leaving him. It was strange, for since the loss of the girl of theyellow hair and those deep blue eyes, he had never dreamed thatanother thing in life could pain him. 

So at length he mounted the mare again and rode slowly down the hilland out toward the distant ranges, trotting mile after mile withdownward head, not caring even if McGurk should cross him, forsurely this was the final end of the world to Pierre le Rouge. 

About midnight he halted at last, for the uneasy sway of the mareshowed that she was nearly dead on her feet with weariness. He found aconvenient place for a camp, built his fire, and wrapped his blanketabout him without thinking of food. 

He never knew how long he sat there, for his thoughts circled theworld and back again and found all a prospect of desert before him andbehind, until a sound, a vague sound out of the night, startled himinto alertness. He slipped from beside the fire and into the shadow ofa steep rock, watching with eyes that almost pierced the dark onall sides. 

And there he saw her creeping up on the outskirts of the firelight, prone on her hands and knees, dragging herself up like a young wildcathunting prey; it was the glimmer of her eyes that he caught firstthrough the gloom. A cold thought came to him that she had returnedwith her gun ready. 

Inch by inch she came closer, and now he was aware of her restlessglances probing on all sides of the camp-fire. Silence--only thecrackling of a pitchy stick. And then he heard a muffled sound, soft, soft as the beating of a heart in the night, and regularly pulsing. Ithurt him infinitely, and he called gently: "Jack, why areyou weeping?"

She started up with her fingers twisted at the butt of her gun. 

"It's a lie, " called a tremulous voice. "Why should I weep?"

And then she ran to him. 

"Oh, Pierre, I thought you were gone!"

That silence which came between them was thick with understandinggreater than speech. He said at last: "I've made my plan. I am goingstraight for the higher mountains and try to shake McGurk off mytrail. There's one chance in ten I may succeed, and if I do then I'llwait for my chance and come down on him, for sooner or later we haveto fight this out to the end. "

"I know a place he could never find, " said Jacqueline. "The old cabinin the gulley between the Twin Bears. We'll start for it tonight. "

"Not we, " he answered. "Jack, here's the end of our riding together. "

She frowned with puzzled wonder. 

He explained: "One man is stronger than a dozen. That's the strengthof McGurk--that he rides alone. He's finished your father's men. There's only Wilbur left, and Wilbur will go next--then me!"

She stretched her hands to him. She seemed to be pleading for her verylife. 

"But if he finds us and has to fight us both--I shoot as straight as aman, Pierre!"

"Straighter than most. And you're a better pal than any I've everridden with. But I must go alone. It's only a lone wolf that will everbring down McGurk. Think how he's rounded us up like a herd of cattleand brought us down one by one. "

"By getting each man alone and killing him from behind. "

"From the front, Jack. No, he's fought square with each one. Thewounds of Black Gandil were all in front, and when McGurk and I meetit's going to be face to face. "

Her tone changed, softened: "But what of me, Pierre?"

"You have to leave this life. Go down to the city, Jack. Live like awoman; marry some lucky fellow; be happy. "

"Can you leave me so easily?"

"No, it's hard, devilish hard to part with a pal like you, Jack; butall the rest of my life I've got hard things to face, partner. "

"Partner!" she repeated with an indescribable emphasis. "Pierre, Ican't leave you. "

"Why?"

"I'm afraid to go: Let me stay!"

He said gloomily: "No good will come of it. "

"I'll never trouble you--never!"

"No, the bad luck comes on the people who are with me, but never onme. It's struck them all down, one by one; your turn is next, Jack. IfI could leave the cross behind--"

He covered his face and groaned: "But I don't dare; I don't dare! Ihave to face McGurk. Jack, I hate myself for it, but I can't help it. I'm afraid of McGurk, afraid of that damned white face, that lowered, fluttering eyelid, that sneering mouth. Without the cross to bring meluck, how could I meet him? But while I keep the cross there's ruinand hell without end for everyone with me. "

She was white and shaking. She said: "I'm not afraid. I've one friendleft; there's nothing else to care for. "

"So it's to be this way, Jack?"

"This way, and no other. "

"Partner, I'm glad. My God, Jack, what a man you would have made!"

Their hands met and clung together, and her head had drooped, perhapsin acquiescence. 

CHAPTER 25

Dick Wilbur, telling Mary how Pierre had cut himself adrift, did noteven pretend to sorrow, and she listened to him with her eyes fixedsteadily on his own. As a matter of fact, she had shown neither hopenor excitement from the moment he came back to her and started to tellhis message. But if she showed neither hope nor excitement forherself, surely she gave Dick still fewer grounds for any optimisticforesights. 

So he finished gloomily: "And as far as I can make out, Pierre isright. There's some rotten bad luck that follows him. It may not bethe cross--I don't suppose you believe in superstition like that, Miss Brown?"

She said: "It saved my life. "

"The cross?"

"Yes. "

"Then Pierre--you mean--you met before the dance--you mean--"

He was stammering so that he couldn't finish his thoughts, and shebroke in: "If he will not come to me, then I must go to him. "

"Follow Pierre le Rouge?" queried Wilbur. "You're an optimist. Butthat's because you've never seen him ride. I consider it a good day'swork to start out with him and keep within sight till night, but asfor following and over-taking him--"

He laughed heartily at the thought. 

And she smiled a little sadly, answering: "But I have the mostboundless patience in the world. He may gallop all the way, but I willwalk, and keep on walking, and reach him in the end. "

Her hands moved out as though testing their power, gripping at theair. 

"Where will you go to hunt for him?"

"I don't know. But every evening, when I look out at the sunset hills, with the purple along the valleys, I think that he must be out theresomewhere, going toward the highest ranges. If I were up in thatcountry I know that I could find him. " "Never in a thousand years. "

"Why?"

"Because he's on the trail--"

"On the trail?"

"Of McGurk. "

She started. 

"What is this man McGurk? I hear of him on all sides. If one of themen rides a bucking horse successfully, someone is sure to say: 'Whotaught you what you know, Bud--McGurk?' And then the rest laugh. Theother day a man was pointed out to me as an expert shot. 'Not as fastas McGurk, ' it was said, 'but he shoots just as straight. ' Finally Iasked someone about McGurk. The only answer I received was: 'I hopeyou never find out what he is. ' Tell me, what is McGurk?"

Wilbur considered the question gravely. 

He said at last: "McGurk is--hell!"

He expanded his statement: "Think of a man who can ride anything thatwalks on four feet, who never misses with either a rifle or arevolver, who doesn't know the meaning of fear, and then imagine thatman living by himself and fighting the rest of the world like a lonewolf. That's McGurk. He's never had a companion; he's never trustedany man. Perhaps that's why they say about him the same thing thatthey say about me. "

"What's that?"

"You will smile when you hear. They say that McGurk will lose out inthe end on account of some woman. "

"And they say that of you?"

"They say right of me. I know it myself. Look at me now. What righthave I here? If I'm found I'm the meat of the first man who sights me, but here I stay, and wait and watch for your smiles--like a love-sickboy. By God, you must despise me, Mary!"

"I don't try to understand you Westerners, " she answered, "and that'swhy I have never questioned you before. Tell me, why is it thatyou come so stealthily to see me and run away as soon as anyoneelse appears?"

He said with wonder: "Haven't you guessed?"

"I don't dare guess. "

"But you have, and your guess was right. There's a price on my head. By right, I should be out there on the ranges with Pierre le Rouge andMcGurk. There's the only safe place; but I saw you and I came down outof the wilds and can't go back. I'll stay, I suppose, till I run myhead into a halter. "

She was too much moved to speak for a moment, and then: "You come tome in spite of that? Dick, whatever you have done, I know that it'sonly chance which made you go wrong, just as it made Pierre. I wish--"

The dimness of her eyes encouraged him with a hope. He moved closer toher. 

He repeated: "You wish--"

"That you could be satisfied with a mere friendship. I could give youthat, Dick, with all my heart. "

He stepped back and smiled somewhat grimly on her. 

She went on: "And this McGurk--what do you mean when you say thatPierre is on his trail?"

"Hunting him with a gun. "

She grew paler, but her voice remained steady. 

"But in all those miles of mountains they may never meet?"

"They can't stay apart any more than iron can stay away from a magnet. Listen: half a dozen years ago McGurk had the reputation of bearing acharmed life. He had been in a hundred fights and he was never touchedwith either a knife or a bullet. Then he crossed Pierre le Rouge whenPierre was only a youngster just come onto the range. He put twobullets through Pierre, but the boy shot him from the floor andwounded him for the first time. The charm of McGurk was broken. 

"For half a dozen years McGurk was gone; there was never a whisperabout him. Then he came back and went on the trail of Pierre. He haskilled the friends of Pierre one by one; Pierre himself is the next inorder--Pierre or myself. And when those two meet there will be thegreatest fight that was ever staged in the mountain-desert. "

She stood straight, staring past Wilbur with hungry eyes. 

"I knew he needed me. I have to save him, Dick. You see that? I haveto bring him down from the mountains and keep him safe from McGurk. McGurk! Somehow the sound means what 'devil' used to mean to me. "

"You've never traveled alone, and yet you'd go up there and braveeverything that comes for the sake of Pierre? What has he done todeserve it, Mary?". 

"What have I done, Dick, to deserve the care you have for me?"

He stared gloomily on her. 

"When do you start?"

"Tonight. "

"Your friends won't let you go. "

"I'll steal away and leave a note behind me. "

"And you'll go alone?"

She caught at a hope. 

"Unless you'll go with me, Dick?"

"I? Take you--to Pierre?"

She did not speak to urge him, but in the silence her beauty pleadedfor her. 

He said: "Mary, how lovely you are. If I go I will have you for a fewdays--for a week at most, all to myself. "

She shook her head. From the window behind her the sunset light flaredin her hair, flooding it with red-gold. 

"All the time that we are gone, you will never say things like this, Dick?"

"I suppose not. I should be near you, but terribly far away from yourthoughts all the while. Still, you will be near. You will be verybeautiful, Mary, riding up the trail through the pines, with all thescents of the evergreens blowing about you, and I--well, I must goback to a second childhood and play a game of suppose--"

"A game of what?"

"Of supposing that you are really mine, Mary, and riding out into thewilderness for my sake. "

She stepped a little closer, peering into his face. 

"No matter what you suppose, I'm sure you'll leave that part of itmerely a game, Dick!"

He laughed suddenly, though the sound broke off as short and sharp asit began. 

"Haven't I played a game all my life with the fair ladies? And have Ianything to show for it except laughter? I'll go with you, Mary, ifyou'll let me. "

"Dick, you've a heart of gold! What shall I take?"

"I'll make the pack up, and I'll be back here an hour after dark andwhistle. Like this--"

And he gave the call of Boone's gang. 

"I understand. I'll be ready. Hurry, Dick, for we've very littletime. "

He hesitated, then: "All the time we're on the trail you must be farfrom me, and at the end of it will be Pierre le Rouge--and happinessfor you. Before we start, Mary, I'd like to--"

It seemed that she read his mind, for she slipped suddenly insidehis arms, kissed him, and was gone from the room. He stood a momentwith a hand raised to his face. 

"After all, " he muttered, "that's enough to die for, and--" He threwup his long arms in a gesture of resignation. 

"The will of God be done!" said Wilbur, and laughed again. 

CHAPTER 26

She was ready, crouched close to the window of her room, when thesignal came, but first she was not sure, because the sound was asfaint as a memory. Moreover, it might have been a freakish whistlingin the wind, which rose stronger and stronger. It had piled thethunder-clouds higher and higher, and now and again a heavy drop ofrain tapped at her window like a thrown pebble. 

So she waited, and at last heard the whistle a second time, unmistakably clear. In a moment she was hurrying down to the stable, climbed into the saddle, and rode at a cautious trot out among thesand-hills. 

For a time she saw no one, and commenced to fear that the whole thinghad been a gruesomely real, practical jest. So she stopped her horseand imitated the signal whistle as well as she could. It was repeatedimmediately behind her--almost in her ear, and she turned to make outthe dark form of a tall horseman. 

"A bad night for the start, " called Wilbur. "Do you want to wait tilltomorrow?"

She could not answer for a moment, the wind whipping against her face, while a big drop stung her lips. 

She said at length: "Would a night like this stop Pierre--or McGurk?"

For answer she heard his laughter. 

"Then I'll start. I must never stop for weather. "

He rode up beside her. 

"This is the start of the finish. "

"What do you mean?" "Nothing. But somewhere on this ride, I've anidea a question will be answered for me. "

"What question?"

Instead of replying he said: "You've got a slicker on?"

"Yes. "

"Then follow me. We'll gallop into the wind a while and get the horseswarmed up. Afterward we'll take the valley of the Old Crow and followit up to the crest of the range. "

His horse lunged out ahead of hers, and she followed, leaning farforward against a wind that kept her almost breathless. For severalminutes they cantered steadily, and before the end of the gallop shewas sitting straight up, her heart beating fast, a faint smile on herlips, and the blood running hot in her veins. For the battle wasbegun, she knew, by that first sharp gallop, and here at the start shefelt confident of her strength. When she met Pierre she could forcehim to turn back with her. 

Wilbur checked his horse to a trot; they climbed a hill, and just asthe rain broke on them with a rattling gust they swung into the valleyof the Old Crow. Above them in the sky the thunder rode; the rainwhipped against the rocks like the rattle of a thousand flying hoofs;and now and again the lightning flashed across the sky. 

Through that vast accompaniment they moved on in the night straighttoward the heart of the mountains which sprang into sight with everyflash of the lightning and seemed toppling almost above them, yet theywere weary miles away, as she knew. 

By those same flashes she caught glimpses of the face of Wilbur. Shehardly knew him. She had seen him always big, gentle, handsome, good-natured; now he was grown harder, with a stern set of the jaw, and a certain square outline of face. It had seemed impossible. Nowshe began to guess how the law could have placed a price upon hishead. For he belonged out here with the night and the crash of thestorm, with strong, lawless things about him. An awe grew in her, and she was filled half with dread and half with curiosity at thethought of facing him, as she must many a time, across the camp-fire. In a way, he was the ladder by which she climbed to an understandingof Pierre le Rouge, Red Pierre. For that Pierre, she knew, was to bigWilbur what Dick himself was to the great mass of law-abiding men. Accident had cut Wilbur adrift, but it was more than accident whichstarted Pierre on the road to outlawry; it was the sheer love ofdangerous chance, the glory in fighting other men. This was Pierre. 

What was the man for whom Pierre hunted? What was McGurk? Not even thedescription of Wilbur had proved very enlightening. Her thought of himwas vague, nebulous, and taking many forms. Sometimes he was tall anddark and stern. Again he was short and heavy and somewhat deformed ofbody. But always he was everywhere in the night about her. 

All this she pondered as they began the ride up the valley, but as thelong journey continued, and the hours and the miles rolled past them, a racking weariness possessed her and numbed her mind. She began towish desperately for morning, but even morning might not bring an endto the ride. That would be at the will of the outlaw beside her. Finally, only one picture remained to her. It stabbed across thedarkness of her mind--the red hair and the keen eyes of Pierre. 

The storm decreased as they went up the valley. Finally the wind felloff to a pleasant breeze, and the clouds of the rain broke in thecenter of the heavens and toppled west in great tumbling masses. Inhalf an hour's time the sky was clear, and a cold moon looked down onthe blue-black evergreens, shining faintly with the wet, and on thedead black of the mountains. 

For the first time in all that ride her companion spoke: "In an hourthe gray will begin in the east. Suppose we camp here, eat, get abit of sleep, and then start again?"

As if she had waited for permission, fighting against her weariness, she now let down the bars of her will, and a tingling stupor sweptover her body and broke in hot, numbing waves on her brain. 

"Whatever you say. I'm afraid I couldn't ride much further tonight. "

"Look up at me. "

She raised her head. 

"No; you're all in. But you've made a game ride. I never dreamed therewas so much iron in you. We'll make our fire just inside the trees andcarry water up from the river, eh?"

A scanty growth of the evergreens walked over the hills and skirtedalong the valley, leaving a broad, sandy waste in the center where theriver at times swelled with melted snow or sudden rains and rushedover the lower valley in a broad, muddy flood. 

At the edge of the forest he picketed the horses in a little openspace carpeted with wet, dead grass. It took him some time to find drywood. So he wrapped her in blankets and left her sitting on a saddle. As the chill left her body she began to grow delightfully drowsy, andvaguely she heard the crack of his hatchet. He had found a rottenstump and was tearing off the wet outer bark to get at the drywood within. 

After that it was only a moment before a fire sputtered feebly andsmoked at her feet. She watched it, only half conscious, in her utterweariness, and seeing dimly the hollow-eyed face of the man whostopped above the blaze. Now it grew quickly, and increased to asharp-pointed pyramid of red flame. The bright sparks showered up, crackling and snapping, and when she followed their flight she saw thedarkly nodding tops of the evergreens above her. With the fire wellunder way, he took the coffeepot to get water from the river, and lefther to fry the bacon. The fumes of the frying meat wakened her atonce, and brushed even the thought of her exhaustion from her mind. She was hungry--ravenously hungry. 

So she tended the bacon slices with care until they grew brown andcrisped and curled at the edges. After that she removed the pan fromthe fire, and it was not until then that she began to wonder whyWilbur was so long in returning with the water. The bacon grew cold;she heated it again and was mightily tempted to taste one piece of it, but restrained herself to wait for Dick. 

Still he did not come. She stood up and called, her high voice risingsharp and small through the trees. It seemed that some sound answered, so she smiled and sat down. Ten minutes passed and he was still gone. A cold alarm swept over her at that. She dropped the pan and ran outfrom the trees. 

Everywhere was the bright moonlight--over the wet rocks, and sand, andglimmering on the slow tide of the river, but nowhere could she seeWilbur, or a form that looked like a man. Then the moonlight glintedon something at the edge of the river. She ran to it and found thecoffee-can half in the water and partially filled with sand. 

A wild temptation to scream came over her, but the tight muscles ofher throat let out no sound. But if Wilbur were not here, where had hegone? He could not have vanished into thin air. The ripple of thewater washing on the sand replied. Yes, that current might have rolledhis body away. 

To shut out the grim sight of the river she turned. Stretched acrossthe ground at her feet she saw clearly the impression of a body in themoist sand. 

CHAPTER 27

The heels had left two deeply defined gouges in the ground; there wasa sharp hollow where the head had lain, and a broad depression for theshoulders. It was the impression of the body of a man--a large manlike Wilbur. Any hope, any doubt she might have had, slipped from hermind, and despair rolled into it with an even, sullen current, likethe motion of the river. 

It is strange what we do with our big moments of fear and sorrow andeven of joy. Now Mary stooped and carefully washed out the coffee-pot, and filled it again with water higher up the bank; and turned backtoward the edge of the trees. 

It was all subconscious, this completing of the task which Wilbur hadbegun, and subconscious still was her careful rebuilding of the firetill it flamed high, as though she were setting a signal to recall thewanderer. But the flame, throwing warmth and red light across hereyes, recalled her sharply to reality, and she looked up and saw thedull dawn brightening beyond the dark evergreens. 

Guilt, too, swept over her, for she remembered what big, handsome DickWilbur had said: He would meet his end through a woman. Now it hadcome to him, and through her. 

She cringed at the thought, for what was she that a man should die inher service? She raised her hands with a moan to the nodding tops ofthe trees, to the vast, black sky above them, and the full knowledgeof Wilbur's strength came to her, for had he not ridden calmly, defiantly, into the heart of this wilderness, confident in his powerto care both for himself and for her? But she! What could she dowandering by herself? The image of Pierre le Rouge grew dim indeed andsad and distant. 

She looked about her at the pack, which had been distributed expertly, and disposed on the ground by Wilbur. She could not even lash it inplace behind the saddle. So she drew the blanket once more around hershoulders and sat down to think. 

She might return to the house--doubtless she could find her way back. And leave Pierre in the heart of the mountains, surely lost to herforever. She made a determination, sullen, like a child, to ride onand on into the wilderness, and let fate take care of her. The packshe could bundle together as best she might; she would live as shemight; and for a guide there would be the hunger for Pierre. 

So she ended her thoughts with a hope; her head nodded lower, and sheslept the deep sleep of the exhausted mind and body. She woke hourslater with a start, instantly alert, quivering with fear and life andenergy, for she felt like one who has gone to sleep with voices inhis ear. 

While she slept someone had been near her; she could have sworn itbefore her startled eyes glanced around. 

And though she kept whispering, with white lips, "No, no; it isimpossible!" yet there was evidence which proved it. The fire shouldhave burned out, but instead it flamed more brightly than ever, andthere was a little heap of fuel laid conveniently close. Moreover, both horses were saddled, and the pack lashed on the saddle of herown mount. 

Whatever man or demon had done this work evidently intended that sheshould ride Wilbur's beautiful bay. Yes, for when she went closer, drawn by her wonder, she found that the stirrups had been muchshortened. 

Nothing was forgotten by this invisible caretaker; he had even leftout the cooking-tins, and she found a little batter of flapjackflour mixed. 

The riddle was too great for solving. Perhaps Wilbur had disappearedmerely to play a practical jest on her; but that supposition was toochildish to be retained an instant. Perhaps--perhaps Pierre himselfhad discovered her, but having vowed never to see her again, he caredfor her like the invisible hands in the old Greek fable. 

This, again, an instinctive knowledge made her dismiss. If he were soclose, loving her, he could not stay away; she read in her own heart, and knew. Then it must be something else; evil, because it feared tobe seen; not wholly evil, because it surrounded her with care. 

At least this new emotion obscured somewhat the terror and the sorrowof Wilbur's disappearance. She cooked her breakfast as if obeying theorder of the unseen, climbed into the saddle of Wilbur's horse, andstarted off up the valley, leading her own mount. 

Every moment or so she turned in the saddle suddenly in the hope ofgetting a glimpse of the follower, but even when she surveyed theentire stretch of country from the crest of a low hill, she sawnothing--not the least sign of life. 

She rode slowly, this day, for she was stiff and sore from the violentjourney of the night before, but though she went slowly, she keptsteadily at the trail. It was a broad and pleasant one, being thebeaten sand of the river-bottom; and the horse she rode was thefinest that ever pranced beneath her. 

His trot was as smooth and springy as the gallop of most horses, andwhen she let him run over a few level stretches, it was as if she hadsuddenly been taken up from the earth on wings. There was somethingabout the animal, too, which reminded her of its vanished owner; forit had strength and pride and gentleness at once. Unquestionablyit took kindly to its new rider; for once when she dismounted the bighorse walked up behind and nuzzled her shoulder. 

The mountains were much plainer before the end of the day. They rosesheer up in wave upon frozen wave like water piled ragged by someterrific gale, with the tops of the waters torn and tossed and thenfrozen forever in that position, like a fantastic and gargantuan maskof dreaming terror. It overawed the heart of Mary Brown to look up tothem, but there was growing in her a new impulse of friendlyunderstanding with all this scalped, bald region of rocks, as if inentering the valley she had passed through the gate which closes outthe gentler world, and now she was admitted as a denizen of themountain-desert, that scarred and ugly asylum for crime and fearand grandeur. 

Feeling this new emotion, the old horizons of her mind gave way andwidened; her gentle nature, which had known nothing but smiles, admitted the meaning of a frown. Did she not ride under the veryshadow of that frown with her two horses? Was she not armed? Shetouched the holster at her hip, and smiled. To be sure, she couldnever hit a mark with that ponderous weapon, but at least the pistolgave the feeling of a dangerous lone rider, familiar with the wilds. 

It was about dark, and she was on the verge of looking about for asuitable camping-place, when the bay halted sharply, tossed up hishead, and whinnied. From the far distance she thought she heard thebeginning of a whinny in reply. She could not be sure, but thepossibility made her pulse quicken. In this region, she knew, nostranger could be a friend. 

So she started the bay at a gallop and put a couple of swift milesbetween her and the point at which she had heard the sound; no livingcreature, she was sure, could have followed the pace the bay heldduring that distance. So, secure in her loneliness, she trotted thehorse around a bend of the rocks and came on the sudden light ofa campfire. 

It was too late to wheel and gallop away; so she remained with herhand fumbling at the butt of the revolver, and her eyes fixed on theflicker of the fire. Not a voice accosted her. As far as she couldpeer among the lithe trunks of the saplings, not a sign of a livingthing was near. 

Yet whoever built that fire must be near, for it was obviously newlylaid. Perhaps some fleeing outlaw had pitched his camp here and hadbeen startled by her coming. In that case he lurked somewhere in thewoods at that moment, his keen eyes fixed on her, and his gun grippedhard in his hand. Perhaps--and the thought thrilled her--this littlecamp had been prepared by the same power, human or unearthly, whichhad watched over her early that morning. 

All reason and sane caution warned her to ride on and leave that campunmolested, but an overwhelming, tingling curiosity besieged her. Thethin column of smoke rose past the dark trees like a ghost, andreaching the unsheltered space above the trees, was smitten by a lightwind and jerked away at a sharp angle. 

She looked closer and saw a bed made of a great heap of the tips oflimbs of spruce, a bed softer than down and more fragrant than anymanufactured perfume, however costly. 

Possibly it was the sight of this bed which tempted her down from thesaddle, at last. With the reins over her arm, she stood close to thefire and warmed her hands, peering all the while on every side, likesome wild and beautiful creature tempted by the bait of the trap, butshrinking from the scent of man. 

As she stood there a broad, yellow moon edged its way above the hillsand rolled up through the black trees and then floated through thesky. Beneath such a moon no harm could come to her. It was while shestared at it, letting her tensed alertness relax little by little, that she saw, or thought she saw, a hint of moving white pass over thetop of the rise of ground and disappear among the trees. 

She could not be sure, but her first impulse was to gather the reinswith a jerk and place her foot in the stirrup; but then she lookedback and saw the fire, burning low now and asking like a human voiceto be replenished from the heap of small, broken fuel nearby; and shesaw also the softly piled bed of evergreens. 

She removed her foot from the stirrup. What mattered that imaginaryfigure of moving white? She felt a strong power of protection lyingall about her, breathing out to her with the keen scent of the pines, fanning her face with the chill of the night breeze. She was alone, but she was secure in the wilderness. 

CHAPTER 28

For many a minute she waited by that camp-fire, but there was never asign of the builder of it, though she centered all her will in makingher eyes and ears sharper to pierce through the darkness and to gatherfrom the thousand obscure whispers of the forest any sounds of humanorigin. So she grew bold at length to take off the pack and thesaddles; the camp was hers, built for her coming by the invisiblepower which surrounded her, which read her mind, it seemed, andchose beforehand the certain route which she must follow. 

She resigned herself to that force without question, and the worry ofher search disappeared. It seemed certain that this omnipotence, whatever it might be, was reading her wishes and acting with all itspower to fulfill them, so that in the end it was merely a question oftime before she should accomplish her mission--before she should meetPierre le Rouge face to face. 

That night her sleep was deep, indeed, and she only wakened when theslant light of the sun struck across her eyes. It was a bright day, crisp and chill, and through the clear air the mountains seemedleaning directly above her, and chief of all two peaks, almost exactlysimilar, black monsters which ruled the range. Toward the gorgebetween them the valley of the Old Crow aimed its course, and straightup that diminishing canyon she rode all day. 

The broad, sandy bottom changed and contracted until the channel wasscarcely wide enough for the meager stream of water, and beside it shepicked her way along a narrow path with banks on either side, whichbecame with every mile more like cliffs, walling her in and doomingher to a single destination. 

It was evening before she came to the headwaters of the Old Crow, androde out into the gorge between the two mountains. The trail failedher here. There was no semblance of a ravine to follow, except themighty gorge between the two peaks, and she ventured into the darkthroat of this pass, riding through a gate with the guarding towerstall and black on either side. 

The moment she was well started in it and the steep shadow of theevening fell across her almost like night from the west, her heartgrew cold as the air. A sense of coming danger filled her. Yet shekept on, holding a tight rein, throwing many a fearful glance at thevast rocks which might have concealed an entire army in every mileof their extent. 

When she found the cabin she mistook it at first for merely anotherrock of singular shape. It was at this shape that she stared, andchecked her horse, and not till then did she note the faint flicker ofa light no brighter than the phosphorescent glow of the eyes of ahunted beast. 

Her impulse was to drive her spurs home and pass that place at aracing gallop, but she checked the impulse sharply and began toreason. In the first place, it was doubtless only the cabin of someprospector, such as she had often heard of. In the second place, nightwas almost upon her, and she saw no desirable camping-place, or atleast any with the necessary water at hand. 

What harm could come to her? Among Western men, she well knew a womanis safer than all the law and the police of the settled East can makeher, so she nerved her courage and advanced toward the faint, changing light. 

The cabin was hidden very cunningly. Crouched among the mightyboulders which earthquakes and storms of some wilder, earlier epochhad torn away from the side of the crags above, the house was likeanother stone, leaning its back to the mountain for support. 

When she drew very close she knew that the light which glimmered atthe window must come from an open fire, and the thought of a firewarmed her. She hallooed, and receiving no answer, fastened the horsesand entered the house. The door swung to behind her, as if of its ownvolition it wished to make her a prisoner. 

The place consisted of one room, and not a spacious one at that, butarranged as a shelter, not a home. The cooking, apparently, was doneover the open hearth, for there was no sign of any stove, and, moreover, on the wall near the fireplace hung several soot-blackenedpans and the inevitable coffeepot. There were two bunks built onopposite sides of the room, and in the middle a table was made of along section split from the heart of a log by wedges, apparently, andstill rude and undressed, except for the preliminary smoothing offwhich had been done with a broad-ax. 

The great plank was supported at either end by a roughly constructedsawbuck. It was very low, and for this reason two fairly squareboulders of comfortable proportions were sufficiently high to serveas chairs. 

For the rest, the furniture was almost too meager to suggest humanhabitation, but from nails on the wall there hung a few shirts and apair of chaps, as well as a much-battered quirt. But a bucket ofwater in a corner suggested cleanliness, and a small, round, highlypolished steel plate, hanging on the wall in lieu of a mirror, furtherfortified her decision that the owner of this place must be a mansomewhat particular as to his appearance. 

Here she interrupted her observations to build up the fire, which wasflickering down and apparently on the verge of going out. She workedbusily for a few minutes, and a roaring blaze rewarded her; she tookoff her slicker to enjoy the warmth, and in doing so, turned, and sawthe owner of the place standing with folded arms just inside the door. 

"Making yourself to home?" asked the host, in a low, strangelypleasant voice. 

"Do you mind?" asked Mary Brown. "I couldn't find a place that woulddo for camping. "

And she summoned her most winning smile. It was wasted, she knew atonce, for the stranger hardened perceptibly, and his lip curledslightly in scorn or anger. In all her life Mary had never met a manso obdurate, and, moreover, she felt that he could not be wooed into agood humor. 

"If you'd gone farther up the gorge, " said the other, "you'd of foundthe best sort of a camping place--water and everything. "

"Then I'll go, " said Mary, shrinking at the thought of the strange, cold outdoors compared with this cheery fire. But she put on theslicker and started for the door. 

At the last moment the host was touched with compunction. He called:"Wait a minute. There ain't no call to hurry. If you can get alonghere just stick around. "

For a moment Mary hesitated, knowing that only the unwritten law ofWestern hospitality compelled that speech; it was the crackle andflare of the bright fire which overcame her pride. 

She laid off the slicker again, saying, with another smile: "For justa few minutes, if you don't mind. "

"Sure, " said the other gracelessly, and tossed his own slicker onto abunk. 

Covertly, but very earnestly, Mary was studying him. He was hardlymore than a boy--handsome, slender. 

Now that handsome face was under a cloud of gloom, a frown on theforehead and a sneer on the lips, but it was something more than theexpression which repelled Mary. For she felt that no matter how shewooed him, she could never win the sympathy of this darkly handsome, cruel youth; he was aloof from her, and the distance between themcould never be crossed. She knew at once that the mysterious bridgeswhich link men with women broke down in this case, and she wasstrongly tempted to leave the cabin to the sole possession of hersurly host. 

It was the warmth of the fire which once more decided against herreason, so she laid hands on one of the blocks of stone to roll itnearer to the hearth. She could not budge it. Then she caught thesneering laughter of the man, and strove again in a fury. It was nouse; for the stone merely rocked a little and settled back in itsplace with a bump. 

"Here, " said the boy, "I'll move it for you. " It was a hard lift forhim, but he set his teeth, raised the stone in his slender hands, andset it down again at a comfortable distance from the fire. 

"Thank you, " smiled Mary, but the boy stood panting against the wall, and for answer merely bestowed on her a rather malicious glance oftriumph, as though he gloried in his superior strength and despisedher weakness. 

Some conversation was absolutely necessary, for the silence began toweigh on her. She said: "My name is Mary Brown. "

"Is it?" said the boy, quite without interest. "You can call me Jack. "

He sat down on the other stone, his dark face swept by the shadows ofthe flames, and rolled a cigarette, not deftly, but like one who islearning the mastery of the art. It surprised Mary, watching hisfumbling fingers. She decided that Jack must be even younger thanhe looked. 

She noticed also that the boy cast, from time to time, a sharp, ratherworried glance of expectation toward the door, as if he feared itwould open and disclose some important arrival. Furthermore, those oldworn shirts hanging on the wall were much too large for the throat andshoulders of Jack. 

Apparently, he lived there with some companion, and a companion ofsuch a nature that he did not wish him to be seen by visitors. Thisexplained the lad's coldness in receiving a guest; it also stimulatedMary to linger about a few more minutes. 

CHAPTER 29

Not that she stayed there without a growing fear, but she still feltabout her, like the protection of some invisible cloak, the presenceof the strange guide who had followed her up the valley of theOld Crow. 

It seemed as if the boy were reading her mind. 

"See you got two horses. Come up alone?"

"Most of the way, " said Mary, and tingled with a rather felinepleasure to see that her curtness merely sharpened the interestof Jack. 

The boy puffed on his cigarette, not with long, slow breaths ofinhalation like a practiced smoker, but with a puckered face as thoughhe feared that the fumes might drift into his eyes. 

"Why, " thought Mary, "he's only a child!"

Her heart warmed a little as she adopted this view of her surly host. Being warmed, and having much to say, words came of themselves. Surelyit would do no harm to tell the story to this queer urchin, who mightbe able to throw some light on the nature of the invisible protector. 

"I started with a man for guide. " She fixed a searching gaze on theboy. "His name was Dick Wilbur. "

She could not tell whether it was a tremble of the boy's hand or ashort motion to knock off the cigarette ash. 

"Did you say 'was' Dick Wilbur?"

"Yes. Did you know him?"

"Heard of him, I think. Kind of a hard one, wasn't he?"

"No, no! A fine, brave, gentle fellow--poor Dick!" She stopped, her eyes filling with tears at many a memory. 

"Hm!" coughed the boy. "I thought he was one of old Boone's gang? Ifhe's dead, that made the last of 'em--except Red Pierre. "

It was like the sound of a trumpet call at her ear. Mary sat up with astart. 

"What do you know of Red Pierre?"

The boy flushed a little, and could not quite meet her eye. 

"Nothin'. "

"At least you know that he's still alive?"

"Sure. Anyone does. When he dies the whole range will know about it--damnquick. I know _that_ much about Red Pierre; but who doesn't?"

"I, for one. "

"You!"

Strangely enough, there was more of accusation than of surprise in theword. 

"Certainly, " repeated Mary. "I've only been in this part of thecountry for a short time. I really know almost nothing aboutthe--legends. "

"Legends?" said the boy, and laughed. "Legend? Say, lady, if RedPierre is just a legend the Civil War ain't no more'n a fable. Legend?You go anywhere on the range an' get 'em talking about that legend, and they'll make you think it's an honest-to-goodness fact, andno mistake. "

Mary queried earnestly: "Tell me about Red Pierre. It's almost as hardto learn anything of him as it is to find out anything about McGurk. "

"What you doing?" asked the boy, keen with suspicion. "Making a studyof them two for a book?"

He wiped a damp forehead. 

"Take it from me, lady, it ain't healthy to join up them two even intalk!" "Is there any harm in words?"

The boy was so upset for some unknown reason that he rose and paced upand down the room. 

"Lots of harm in fool words. "

He sat down again, and seemed a little anxious to explain his unusualconduct. 

"Ma'am, suppose you had a well plumb full of nitroglycerin in yourback yard; suppose there was a forest fire comin' your way from allsides; would you like to have people talk about nitroglycerin and thatforest fire meeting? Even the talk would give you chills. That's theway it is with Pierre and McGurk. When they meet there's going to be afight that'll stop the hearts of the people that have to look on. "

Mary smiled to cover her excitement. 

"But are they coming your way?"

The question seemed to infuriate young Jack, who cried: "Ain't that afool way of talkin'? Lady, they're coming everyone's way. You neverknow where they'll start from or where they'll land. If there's athunder-cloud all over the sky, do you know where the lightning'sgoing to strike?"

"Excuse me, " said Mary, but she was still eager with curiosity, "but Ishould think that a youngster like you wouldn't have anything to fearfrom even those desperadoes. "

"Youngster, eh?" snarled the boy, whose wrath seemed implacable. "Ican make my draw and start my gun as fast as any man--except them two, maybe"--he lowered his voice somewhat even to name them--"Pierre--McGurk!"

"It seems hopeless to find out anything about McGurk, " said Mary, "butat least you can tell me safely about Red Pierre. "

"Interested in him, eh?" said the boy dryly. 

"Well, he's a rather romantic figure, don't you think?" "Romantic?Lady, about a month ago I was talking with a lady that was a widowbecause of Red Pierre. She didn't think him none too romantic. "

"Red Pierre had killed the woman's husband?" repeated Mary, with palelips. 

"Yep. He was one of the gang that took a chance with Pierre and gotbumped off. Had three bullets in him and dropped without getting hisgun out of the leather. Pierre sure does a nice, artistic job. Heserves you a murder with all the trimmings. If I wanted to die niceand polite without making a mess, I don't know who I'd rather go tothan Red Pierre. "

"A murderer!" whispered Mary, with bowed head. 

The boy opened his lips to speak, but changed his mind and satregarding the girl with a somewhat sinister smile. 

"But might it not be, " said Mary, "that he killed one man inself-defense and then his destiny drove him, and bad luck forced himinto one bad position after another? There have been histories asstrange as that, you know. "

Jack laughed again, but most of the music was gone from the sound, andit was simply a low, ominous purr. 

"Sure, " he said. "You can take a bear-cub and keep him tame till hegets the taste of blood, but after that you got to keep him muzzled, you know. Pierre needs a muzzle, but there ain't enough gunfighters onthe range to put one on him. "

Something like pride crept into the boy's voice while he spoke, and heended with a ringing tone. Then, feeling the curious, judicial eyes ofMary upon him, he abruptly changed the subject. 

"You say Dick Wilbur is dead?"

"I don't know. I think he is. "

"But he started out with you. You ought to know. "

"It was like this: We had camped on the edge of the trees coming upthe Old Crow Valley, and Dick went off with the can to get water atthe river. He was gone a long time, and when I went out to look forhim I found the can at the margin of the river half filled with sand, and beside it there was the impression of the body of a big man. Thatwas all I found, and Dick never came back. "

They were both silent for a moment. 

"Could he have fallen into the river?"

"Sure. He was probably helped in. Did you look for the footprints?"

"I didn't think of that. "

Jack was speechless with scorn. 

"Sat down and cried, eh?"

"I was dazed; I couldn't think. But he couldn't have been killed bysome other man. There was no shot fired; I should have heard it. "

Jack moistened his lips. 

"Lady, a knife don't make much sound either going or coming out--notmuch more sound than a whisper, but that whisper means a lot. I got anidea that Dick heard it. Then the river covered him up. "

He stopped short and stared at Mary with squinted eyes. 

"D'you mean to tell me that you had the nerve to come all the way upthe Old Crow by yourself?"

"Every inch of the way. "

Jack leaned forward, sneering, savage. 

"Then I suppose you put the hitch that's on that pack outside?"

"No. "

Jack was dumbfounded. 

"Then you admit--"

"That first night when I went to sleep I felt as if there weresomething near me. When I woke up there was a bright fire burning infront of me and the pack had been lashed and placed on one of thehorses. At first I thought that it was Dick, who had come back. ButDick didn't appear all day. The next night--" "Wait!" said Jack. "This is gettin' sort of creepy. If you was the drinking kind I'd sayyou'd been hitting up the red-eye. "

"The next evening, " continued Mary steadily, "I came about dark on acamp-fire with a bed of twigs near it. I stayed by the fire, but noone appeared. Once I thought I heard a horse whinny far away, and onceI thought that I saw a streak of white disappear over the top ofa hill. "

The boy sprang up, shuddering with panic. 

"You saw what?"

"Nothing. I thought for a minute that it was a bit of something white, but it was gone all at once. "

"White--vanished at once--went into the dark as fast as a horse cangallop?"

"Something like that. Do you think it was someone?"

For answer the boy whipped out his revolver, examined it, and spun thecylinder with shaking hands. Then he said through set teeth: "So youcome up here trailin' him after you, eh?"

"Who?"

"McGurk!"

The name came like a rifle shot and Mary rose in turn and shrank backtoward the wall, for there was murder in the lighted black eyes whichstared after her and crumbling fear in her own heart at the thought ofMcGurk hovering near--of the peril that impended for Pierre. Of thenights in the valley of the Crow she refused to let herself think. Cold beads of perspiration stood out on her forehead. 

"You fool--you fool! Damn your pretty pink-and-white face--you've donefor us all! Get out!"

Mary moved readily enough toward the door, her teeth chattering withterror in the face of this fury. 

Jack continued wildly: "Done for us all; got us all as good as underthe sod. I wish you was in--Get out quick, or I'll forget--you're awoman!" He broke into hysterical laughter, which stopped short andfinished in a heartbroken whisper: "Pierre!"

CHAPTER 30

At that Mary, who stood with her hand on the latch, whirled and stoodwide-eyed, her astonishment greater than her fear, for that whispertold her a thousand things. 

Through her mind all the time that she stayed in the cabin there hadpassed a curious surmise that this very place might be the covert ofPierre le Rouge. There was a fatality about it, for the invisiblePower which had led her up the valley of the Old Crow surely would notmake mistakes. 

In her search for Pierre, Providence brought her to this place, andProvidence could not be wrong. This, a vague emotion stirring in hersomewhere between reason and the heart, grew to an almost certainknowledge as she heard the whisper, the faint, heartbrokenwhisper: "Pierre!"

And when she turned to the boy again, noting the shirts and the chapshanging at the wall, she knew they belonged to Pierre as surely as ifshe had seen him hang them there. 

The fingers of Jack were twisted around the butt of his revolver, white with the intensity of the pressure. 

Now he cried: "Get out! You've done your work; get out!"

But Mary stepped straight toward the murderous, pale face. "I'llstay, " she said, "and wait for Pierre. "

The boy blanched. 

"Stay?" he echoed. 

The heart of Mary went out to this trusted companion who feared forhis friend. 

She said gently: "Listen; I've come all this way looking for Pierre, but not to harm him or to betray him, I'm his friend. Can't youtrust me Jack?"

"Trust you? No more than I'll trust what came with you!"

And the fierce black eyes lingered on Mary and then fled past hertoward the door, as if the boy debated hotly and silently whether ornot it would be better to put an end to this intruder, but stayed hishand, fearing that Power which had followed her up the valley ofthe Old Crow. 

It was that same invisible guardian who made Mary strong now; it waslike the hand of a friend on her shoulder, like the voice of a friendwhispering reassuring words at her ear. She faced those blazing, blackeyes steadily. It would be better to be frank, wholly frank. 

"This is the house of Pierre. I know it as surely as if I saw himsitting here now. You can't deceive me. And I'll stay. I'll even tellyou why. Once he said that he loved me, Jack, but he left me becauseof a strange superstition; and so I've followed to tell him that Iwant to be near no matter what fate hangs over him. "

And the boy, whiter still, and whiter, looked at her with clearing, narrowing eyes. 

"So you're one of them, " said the boy softly; "you're one of the foolswho listen to Red Pierre. Well, I know you; I've known you from theminute I seen you crouched there at the fire. You're the one Pierremet at the dance at the Crittenden schoolhouse. Tell me!"

"Yes, " said Mary, marveling greatly. 

"And he told you he loved you?"

"Yes. " It was a fainter voice now, and the color was going up hercheeks. 

The lad fixed her with his cold scorn and then turned on his heel andslipped into an easy position on the bunk. 

"Then wait for him to come. He'll be here before morning. "

But Mary followed across the room and touched the shoulder of Jack. Itwas as if she touched a wild wolf, for the lad whirled and struck herhand away in an outburst of silent fury. 

"Why shouldn't I stay? He hasn't--he hasn't changed--Jack?"

The insolent black eyes looked up and scanned her slowly from head tofoot. Then he laughed in the same deliberate manner. 

"No, I guess he thinks as much of you now as he ever did. "

"You are lying to me, " said the girl faintly, but the terror in hereyes said another thing. 

"He thinks as much of you as he ever did. He thinks as much of you ashe does of the rest of the soft-handed, pretty-faced fools who listento him and believe him. I suppose--"

He broke off to laugh heartily again, with a jarring, forced notewhich escaped Mary. 

"I suppose that he made love to you one minute and the next told youthat bad luck--something about the cross--kept him away from you?"

Each slow word was like a blow of a fist. Mary closed her eyes to shutout the scorn of that handsome, boyish face; closed her eyes to summonout from the dark of her mind the picture of Pierre le Rouge as he hadtold her of his love; and then she heard the voice of Pierrerenouncing her. 

She opened her eyes again. She cried: "It is all a lie! If he is nottrue, there's no truth in the world. "

"If you come down to that, " said the boy coldly, "there ain't muchwasted this side of the Rockies. It's about as scarce as rain. "

He continued in an almost kindly tone: "What would you do with a wildman like Red Pierre? Run along; git out of here; grab your horse, andbeat it back to civilization; there ain't no place for you up here inthe wilderness. "

"What would I do with him?" cried the girl. "Love him!"

It seemed as though her words, like whips, lashed the boy back to hismurderous anger. He lay with blazing eyes, watching her for a moment, too moved to speak. At last he propped himself on one elbow, shook asmall, white-knuckled fist under the nose of Mary, and cried: "Thenwhat would he do with you?"

He went on: "Would he wear you around his neck like a watch charm?"

"I'd bring him back with me--back into the East, and he would be lostamong the crowds and never suspected of his past. "

"_You'd_ bring Pierre anywhere? Say, lady, that's like hearing thesheep talk about leading the wolf around by the nose. If all the menin the ranges can't catch him, or make him budge an inch out of theway he's picked, do you think you could stir him?"

Jeering laughter shook him; it seemed that he would never be done withhis laughter, yet there was a hint of the hysterically mirthless init. It came to a jarring stop. 

He said: "D'you think he's just bein' driven around by chance? Lady, d'you think he even _wants_ to get out of this life of his? No, heloves it! He loves the danger. D'you think a man that's used tobreathing in a whirlwind can get used to living in calm air? Itcan't be done!"

And the girl answered steadily: "For every man there is one woman, and for that woman the man will do strange things. "

"You poor, white-faced, whimpering fool, " snarled the boy, gripping athis gun again, "d'you dream that you're the one that's picked out forPierre? No, there's another!"

"Another? A woman who--"

"Who loves Pierre--a woman that's fit for him. She can ride like aman; she can shoot almost as straight and as fast as Pierre; she canhandle a knife; and she's been through hell for Pierre, and she'll gothrough it again. She can ride the trail all day with him and finishit less fagged than he is. She can chop down a tree as well as he can, and build a fire better. She can hold up a train with him or rob abank and slip through a town in the middle of the night and laugh withhim about it afterward around a campfire. I ask you, is that the sortof a woman that's meant for Pierre?"

And Mary answered, with bowed head: "She is. "

She cried instantly afterward, cutting short the look of wild triumphon the face of the boy: "But there's no such woman; there's no one whocould do these things! I know it!"

The boy sprang to his feet, flushing as red as the girl was white. 

"You fool, if you're blind and got to have your eyes open to see, lookat the woman!"

And she tore the wide-brimmed sombrero from her head. Down past theshoulders flooded a mass of blue-black hair. The firelight flickeredand danced across the silken shimmer of it. It swept wildly past thewaist, a glorious, night-dark tide in which the heart of a strong mancould be tangled and lost. With quivering lips Jacqueline cried: "Lookat me! Am I worthy of him?"

Short step by step Mary went back, staring with fascinated eyes as onewho sees some devilish, midnight revelry, and shrinks away from itlest the sight should blast her. She covered her eyes with her handsbut instantly strong grips fell on her wrists and her hands werejerked down from her face. She looked up into the eyes of abeautiful tigress. 

"Answer me--your yellow hair against mine--your child fingers againstmy grip--are you equal with me?"

But the strength of Jacqueline faded and grew small; her arms fell toher side; she stepped back, with a rising pallor taking the place ofthe red. For Mary, brushing her hands, one gloved and one bare, beforeher eyes, returned the stare of the mountain girl with equal scorn. Amighty loathing filled up her veins in place of strength. 

"Tell me, " she said, "was--was this man living with you when he cameto me and--and made speeches--about love?"

"Bah! He was living with me. I tell you, he came back and laughed withme about it, and told me about your baby-blue eyes when they filledwith tears; laughed and laughed and laughed, I tell you, as I couldlaugh now. "

The other twisted her hands together, moaning: "And I have followedhim, even to the place where he keeps his--woman? Ah, how I hatemyself: how I despise myself. I'm unclean--unclean in my own eyes!"

"Wait!" called Jacqueline. "You are leaving too soon. The night iscold. "

"I am going. There is no need to gibe at me. "

"But wait--he will want to see you! I will tell him that you have beenhere--that you came clear up the valley of the Old Crow to see him andbeg him on your knees to love you--he'll be angry to have missedthe scene!"

But the door closed on Mary as she fled with her hands pressed againsther ears. 

CHAPTER 31

Jacqueline ran to the door and threw it open. 

"Ride down the valley!" she cried. "That's right. He's coming up, andhe'll meet you on the way. He'll be glad--to see you!"

She saw the rider swing sharply about, and the clatter of thegalloping hoofs died out up the valley; then she closed the door, dropped the latch, and, running to the middle of the room, threw upher arms and cried out, a wild, shrill yell of triumph like the callof the old Indian brave when he rises with the scalp of his murderedenemy dripping in his hand. 

The extended arms she caught back to her breast, and stood there withhead tilted back, crushing her delight closer to her heart. 

And she whispered: "Pierre! Mine, mine! Pierre!"

Next she went to the steel mirror on the wall and looked long at theflushed, triumphant image. At length she started, like one awakeningfrom a happy dream, and hurriedly coiled the thick, soft tresses abouther head. Never before had she lingered so over a toilet, patting eachlock into place, twisting her head from side to side like a peacockadmiring its image. 

Now she looked about hungrily for a touch of color and uttered alittle moan of vexation when she saw nothing, till her eyes, piercingthrough the gloom of a dim corner, saw a spray of autumn leaves, longleft there and still stained with beauty. She fastened them at thebreast of her shirt, and so arrayed began to cook. Never was there amerrier cook, not even some jolly French chef with a heart made warmwith good red wine, for she sang as she worked, and whenever she hadto cross the room it was with a dancing step. Spring was in her blood, warm spring that sets men smiling for no cause except that they areliving, and rejoicing with the whole awakening world. 

So it was with Jacqueline. Ever and anon as she leaned over the pansand stirred the fire she raised her head and remained a momentmotionless, waiting for a sound, yearning to hear, and each time shehad to look down again with a sigh. 

As it was, he took her by surprise, for he entered with the soft footof the hunted and remained an instant searching the room with acareful glance. Not that he suspected, not that he had not relaxed hisguard and his vigilance the moment he caught sight of the flicker oflight through the mass of great boulders, but the lifelong habit ofwatchfulness remained with him. 

Even when he spoke face to face with a man, he never seemed to begiving more than half his attention, for might not someone elseapproach if he lost himself in order to listen to any one voice? Hehad covered half the length of the room with that soundless stepbefore she heard, and rose with a glad cry: "Pierre!"

Meeting that calm blue eye, she checked herself mightily. 

"A hard ride?" she asked. 

"Nothing much. "

He took the rock nearest the fire and then raised a glance of inquiry. 

"I got cold, " she said, "and rolled it over. "

He considered her and then the rock, not with suspicion, but as if heheld the matter in abeyance for further consideration; a hunted manand a hunter must keep an eye for little things, must carry an armedhand and an armed heart even among friends. As for Jacqueline, hercolor had risen, and she leaned hurriedly over a pan in which meatwas frying. 

"Any results?" she asked. 

"Some. "

She waited, knowing that the story would come at length. 

He added after a moment: "Strange how careless some people get to be. "

"Yes?" she queried. 

"Yes. "

Another pause, during which he casually drummed his fingers on hisknee. She saw that he must receive more encouragement before he wouldtell, and she gave it, smiling to herself. Women are old in certainways of understanding in which men remain children forever. 

"I suppose we're still broke, Pierre?"

"Broke? Well, not entirely. I got some results. "

"Good. "

"As a matter of fact, it was a pretty fair haul. Watch that meat, Jack; I think it's burning. "

It was hardly beginning to cook, but she turned it obediently and hidanother slow smile. Rising, she passed behind his chair, and pretendedto busy herself with something near the wall. This was the environmentand attitude which would make him talk most freely, she knew. 

"Speaking of careless men, " said Pierre, "I could tell you a yarn, Jack. "

She stood close behind him and made about his unconscious head agesture of caress, the overflow of an infinite tenderness. 

"I'd sure like to hear it, Pierre. "

"Well, it was like this: I knew a fellow who started on the range witha small stock of cattle. He wasn't a very good worker, and he didn'tunderstand cattle any too well, so he didn't prosper for quite awhile. Then his affairs took a sudden turn for the better; his herdbegan to increase. Nobody understood the reason, though a good manysuspected, but one man fell onto the reason: our friend was simplyrunning in a few doggies on the side, and he'd arranged a veryingenious way of changing the brands. "

"Pierre--"

"Well?"

"What does 'ingenious' mean?"

"Why, I should say it means 'skillful, clever, ' and it carries with itthe connotation of 'novel. '"

"It carries the con-conno--what's that word, Pierre?"

"I'm going to get some books for you, Jack, and we'll do a bit ofreading on the side, shall we?"

"I'd love that!"

He turned and looked up to her sharply. 

He said: "Sometimes, Jack, you talk just like a girl. "

"Do I? That's queer, isn't it? But go on with the story. "

"He changed the brands very skillfully, and no one got the dope on himexcept this one man I mentioned; and that man kept his face shut. He waited. 

"So it went on for a good many years. The herd of our friend grew veryrapidly. He sold just enough cattle to keep himself and his wifealive; he was bent on making one big haul, you see. So when hisdoggies got to the right age and condition for the market, he'd tradethem off, one fat doggie for two or three skinny yearlings. Butfinally he had a really big herd together, and shipped it off to themarket on a year when the price was sky-high. "

"Like this year?"

"Don't interrupt me, Jack!"

From the shadow behind him she smiled again. 

"They went at a corking price, and our friend cleared up a good manythousand--I won't say just how much. He sank part of it in a rubybrooch for his wife, and shoved the rest into a satchel. 

"You see how careful he'd been all those years while he was piling uphis fortune? Well, he began to get careless the moment he cashed in, which was rather odd. He depended on his fighting power to keep thatmoney safe, but he forgot that while he'd been making a business ofrustling doggies and watching cattle markets, other men had beenmaking a business of shooting fast and straight. 

"Among others there was the silent man who'd watched and waited for solong. But this silent man hove alongside while our rich friend wasbound home in a buckboard. 

"'Good evening!' he called. 

"The rich chap turned and heard; it all seemed all right, but he'ddone a good deal of shady business in his day, and that made himsuspicious of the silent man now. So he reached for his gun and got itout just in time to be shot cleanly through the hand. 

"The silent man tied up that hand and sympathized with the rich chap;then he took that satchel and divided the paper money into twobundles. One was twice the size of the other, and the silent man tookthe smaller one. There was only twelve thousand dollars in it. Also, he took the ruby brooch for a friend--and as a sort of keepsake, youknow. And he delivered a short lecture to the rich man on the subjectof carelessness and rode away. The rich man picked up his gun with hisleft hand and opened fire, but he'd never learned to shoot very wellwith that hand, so the silent man came through safe. "

"That's a bully story, " said Jack. "Who was the silent man?"

"I think you've seen him a few times, at that. "

She concealed another smile, and said in the most businesslike manner:"Chow-time, Pierre, " and set out the pans on the table. "By theway, " he said easily, "I've got a little present for you, Jack. "

And he took out a gold pin flaming with three great rubies. 

CHAPTER 32

She merely stared, like a child which may either burst into tears orlaughter, no one can prophesy which. 

He explained, rather worried: "You see, you _are_ a girl, Jack, and Iremembered that you were pleased about those clothes that you wore tothe dance in the Crittenden schoolhouse, and so when I saw that pinI--well--"

"Oh, Pierre!" said a stifled voice. "Oh, Pierre!"

"Jack, you aren't angry, are you? See, when you put it at the throatit doesn't look half bad!"

And to try it, he pinned it on her shirt. She caught both his hands, kissed them again and again, and then buried her face against them asshe sobbed. If the heavens had opened and a cloudburst crashed on theroof of the house, he would have been less astounded. 

"What is it?" he cried. "Damn it all--Jack--you see--I meant--"

But she tore herself away and flung herself face down on the bunk, sobbing more bitterly than ever. He followed, awestricken--terrified. 

He touched her shoulder, but she shrank away and seemed moredistressed than ever. It was not the crying of a weak woman: thesewere heartrending sounds, like the sobbing of a man who has neverbefore known tears. 

"Jack--perhaps I've done something wrong--"

He stammered again: "I didn't dream I was hurting you--"

Then light broke upon him. 

He said: "It's because you don't want to be treated like a silly girl;eh, Jack?"

But to complete his astonishment she moaned: "N-n-no! It's b-b-becauseyou--you n-n-never _do_ t-treat me like a g-g-girl, P-P-Pierre!"

He groaned heartily: "Well, I'll be damned!"

And because he was thoughtful he strode away, staring at the floor. Itwas then that he saw it, small and crumpled on the floor. He picked itup--a glove of the softest leather. He carried it back to Jacqueline. 

"What's this?"

"Wh-wh-what?"

"This glove I found on the floor?"

The sobs decreased at once--broke out more violently--and then shesprang up from the bunk. 

"Pierre, I've acted a regular chump. Are you out with me?"

"Not a bit, old-timer. But about this glove?"

"Oh, that's one of mine. "

She took it and slipped it into the bosom of her shirt--the calm blueeye of Pierre noted. 

He said: "We'll eat and forget the rest of this, if you want, Jack. "

"And you ain't mad at me, Pierre?"

"Not a bit. "

There was just a trace of coldness in his tone, and she knew perfectlywhy it was there, but she chose to ascribe it to another cause. 

She explained: "You see, a woman is just about nine tenths fool, Pierre, and has to bust out like that once in a while. "

"Oh!" said Pierre, and his eyes wandered past her as though he foundfood for thought on the wall. 

She ventured cautiously, after seeing that he was eating withappetite: "How does the pin look?"

"Why, fine. "

And the silence began again. 

She dared not question him in that mood, so she ventured again: "Theold boy shooting left-handed--didn't he even fan the wind near you?"

"That was another bit of carelessness, " said Pierre, but his smileheld little of life. "He might have known that if he _had_ shotclose--by accident--I might have turned around and shot him dead--onpurpose. But when a man stops thinking for a minute, he's apt to go onfor a long time making a fool of himself. "

"Right, " she said, brightening as she felt the crisis pass away, "andthat reminds me of a story about--"

"By the way, Jack, I'll wager there's a more interesting story thanthat you could tell me. "

"What?"

"About how that glove happened to be on the floor. "

"Why, partner, it's just a glove of my own. "

"Didn't know you wore gloves with a leather as soft as that. "

"No? Well, that story I was speaking about runs something like this--"

And she told him a gay narrative, throwing all her spirit into it, forshe was an admirable mimic. He met her spirit more than half-way, laughing gaily; and so they reached the end of the story and the endof the meal at the same time. She cleared away the pans with a fewmotions and tossed them clattering into a corner. Neat housekeepingwas not numbered among the many virtues of Jacqueline. "Now, " saidPierre, leaning back against the wall, "we'll hear about that glove. "

"Damn the glove!" broke from her. 

"Steady, pal!"

"Pierre, are you going to nag me about a little thing like that?"

"Why, Jack, you're red and white in patches. I'm interested. "

He sat up. 

"I'm more than interested. The story, Jack. "

"Well, I suppose I have to tell you. I did a fool thing today. Took alittle gallop down the trail, and on my way back I met a girl sittingin her saddle with her face in her hands, crying her heart out. Poorkid! She'd come up in a hunting party and got separated from the rest. 

"So I got sympathetic--"

"About the first time on record that you've been sympathetic withanother girl, eh?"

"Shut up, Pierre! And I brought her in here--right into your cabin, without thinking what I was doing, and gave her a cup of coffee. Ofcourse it was a pretty greenhorn trick, but I guess no harm will comeof it. The girl thinks it's a prospector's cabin--which it was once. She went on her way, happy, because I told her of the right trail toget back with her gang. That's all there is to it. Are you mad at mefor letting anyone come into this place?"

"Mad?" He smiled. "No, I think that's one of the best lies you evertold me, Jack. "

Their eyes met, hers very wide, and his keen and steady. Then shegripped at the butt of her gun, an habitual trick when she was veryangry, and cried: "Do I have to sit here and let you call me--that?Pierre, pull a few more tricks like that and I'll call for a newdeal. Get me?"

She rose, whirled, and threw herself sullenly on her bunk. "Comeback, " said Pierre. "You're more scared than angry. Why are youafraid, Jack?"

"It's a lie--I'm not afraid!"

"Let me see that glove again. "

"You've seen it once--that's enough. "

He whistled carelessly, rolling a cigarette. After he lighted it hesaid: "Ready to talk yet, partner?"

She maintained an obstinate silence, but that sharp eye saw that shewas trembling. He set his teeth and then drew several long puffs onhis cigarette. 

"I'm going to count to ten, pal, and when I finish you're going totell me everything straight. In the meantime don't stay there thinkingup a new lie. I know you too well, and if you try the same thing onme again--"

"Well?" she snarled, all the tiger coming back in her voice. 

"You'll talk, all right. Here goes the count: One--two--three--four--"

As he counted, leaving a long drag of two or three seconds betweennumbers, there was not a change in the figure of the girl. She stilllay with her back turned on him, and the only expressive part thatshowed was her hand. First it lay limp against her hip, but as themonotonous count proceeded it gathered to a fist. 

"Five--six--seven--"

It seemed that he had been counting for hours, his will against herwill, the man in him against the woman in her, and during the pausesbetween the sound of his voice the very air grew charged with waiting. To the girl the wait for every count was like the wait of the doomedtraitor when he stands facing the firing-squad, watching the glimmerof light go down the aimed rifles. 

For she knew the face of the man who sat there counting; she knew howthe firelight flared in the dark red of his hair and made it seem likeanother fire beneath which the blue of the eyes was strangely cold. Her hand had gathered to a hard-balled fist. 

"Eight--nine--"

She sprang up, screaming: "No, no, Pierre!" And threw out her arms tohim. 

"Ten. "

She whispered: "It was the girl with yellow hair--Mary Brown. "

CHAPTER 33

It was as if she had said: "Good morning!" in the calmest of voices. There was no answer in him, neither word nor expression, and out often sharp-eyed men, nine would have passed him by without noting thedifference; but the girl knew him as the monk knows his prayers or theArab his horse, and a solemn, deep despair came over her. She feltlike the drowning, when the water closes over their heads for thelast time. 

He puffed twice again at the cigarette and then flicked the butt intothe fire. When he spoke it was only to say: "Did she stay long?"

But his eyes avoided her. She moved a little so as to read his face, but when he turned again and answered her stare she winced. "Not verylong, Pierre. "

"Ah, " he said. "I see! It was because she didn't dream that this wasthe place I lived in. "

It was the sort of heartless, torturing questioning which was once thecrudest weapon of the inquisition. With all her heart she fought toraise her voice above the whisper whose very sound accused her, butcould not. She was condemned to that voice as the man bound innightmare is condemned to walk slowly, slowly, though the terribledanger is racing toward him, and the safety which he must reach liesonly a dozen steps, a dozen mortal steps away. 

She said in that voice: "No; of course she didn't dream it. "

"And you, Jack, had her interests at heart--her best interests, poorgirl, and didn't tell her?"

Her hands went out to him in mute appeal. 

"Please, Pierre--don't!"

"Is something troubling you, Jack?"

"You are breaking my heart. "

"Why, by no means! Let's sit here calmly and chat about the girl withthe yellow hair. To begin with--she's rather pleasant to look at, don't you think?"

"I suppose she is. "

"Hm! Rather poor taste not to be sure of it. Well, let it go. You'vealways had rather queer taste in women, Jack; but, of course, being along-rider, you haven't seen much of them. At least her name isdelightful--Mary Brown! You've no idea how often I've repeated italoud to myself--Mary Brown!"

"I hate her!"

"You two didn't have a very agreeable time of it? By the way, she musthave left in rather a hurry to forget her glove, eh?"

"Yes, she ran--like a coward. "

"Ah?" "Like a trembling coward. How can you care for a white-facedlittle fool like that? Is she your match? Is she your mate?"

He considered a moment, as though to make sure that he did notexaggerate. 

"I love her, Jack, as men love water when they've ridden all day overhot sand without a drop on their lips--you know when the tongue getsthick and the mouth fills with cotton--and then you see clear, brightwater, and taste it?

"She is like that to me. She feeds every sense; and when I look in hereyes, Jack, I feel like the starved man on the desert, as I wassaying, drinking that priceless water. You knew something of the way Ifeel, Jack. Isn't it a little odd that you didn't keep her here?"

She had stood literally shuddering during this speech, and now sheburst out, far beyond all control: "Because she loathes you; becauseshe hates herself for ever having loved you; because she despisesherself for having ridden up here after you. Does that fill your cupof water, Pierre, eh?"

His forehead was shining with sweat, but he set his teeth, and, aftera moment, he was able to say in the same hard, calm voice: "I supposethere was no real reason for her change. She can be persuaded back tome in a moment. In that case just tell me where she has gone and I'llride after her. "

He made as if to rise, but she cried in a panic, and yet with a wildexultation: "No, she's done with you forever, and the more you makelove to her now the more she'll hate you. Because she knows that whenyou kissed her before--when you kissed her--you were living witha woman. "

"I--living with a woman?"

Her voice had risen out of the whisper for the outbreak. Now it sankback into it. 

"Yes--with me!" "With you? I see. Naturally it must have gone hardwith her--Mary! And she wouldn't see reason even when you explainedthat you and I are like brothers?"

He leaned a little toward her and just a shade of emotion came in hisvoice. 

"When you carefully explained, Jack, with all the eloquence you couldcommand, that you and I have ridden and fought and camped togetherlike brothers for six years? And how I gave you your first gun? Andhow I've stayed between you and danger a thousand times? And how I'venever treated you otherwise than as a man? And how I've given you thelove of a blood-brother to take the place of the brother who died? Andhow I've kept you in a clean and pure respect such as a man can onlygive once in his life--and then only to his dearest friend? Shewouldn't listen--even when you talked to her like this?"

"For God's sake--Pierre!"

"Ah, but you talked well enough to pave the way for me. You talked soeloquently that with a little more persuasion from me she will knowand understand. Come, I must be gone after her. Which way did sheride--up or down the valley?"

"You could talk to her forever and she'd never listen. Pierre, I toldher that I was--your woman--that you'd told me of your scenes withher--and that we'd laughed at them together. "

She covered her eyes and crouched, waiting for the wrath that wouldfall on her, but he only smiled bitterly on the bowed head, saying:"Why have I waited so long to hear you say what I knew already? Isuppose because I wouldn't believe until I heard the whole abominabletruth from your own lips. Jack, why did you do it?"

"Won't you see? Because I've loved you always, Pierre!"

"Love--you--your tiger-heart? No, but you were like a cruel, selfishchild. You were jealous because you didn't want the toy taken away. Iknew it. I knew that even if I rode after her it would be hopeless. Oh, God, how terribly you've hurt me, partner!"

It wrung a little moan from her. He said after a moment: "It's onlythe ghost of a chance, but I'll have to take it. Tell me which way sherode? No? Then I'll try to find her. "

She leaped between him and the door, flinging her shoulders against itwith a crash and standing with outspread arms to bar the way. 

"You must not go!"

He turned his head somewhat. 

"Don't stand in front of me, Jack. You know I'll do what I say, andjust now it's a bit hard for me to face you. "

"Pierre, I feel as if there were a hand squeezing my heart small, andsmall, and small. Pierre, I'd die for you!"

"I know you would. I know you would, partner. It was only a mistake, and you acted the way any cold-hearted boy would act if--if someonewere to try to steal his horse, for instance. But just now it's hardfor me to look at you and be calm. "

"Don't try to be! Swear at me--curse--rave--beat me; I'd be glad ofthe blows, Pierre. I'd hold out my arms to 'em. But don't go outthat door!"

"Why?"

"Because--if you found her--she's not alone. "

"Say that slowly. I don't understand. She's not alone?"

"I'll try to tell you from the first. She started out for you withDick Wilbur for a guide. "

"Good old Dick, God bless him! I'll fill all his pockets with gold forthat; and he loves her, you know. "

"You'll never see Dick Wilbur again. On the first night they campedshe missed him when he went for water. She went down after a while andsaw the mark of his body on the sand. He never appeared again. "

"Who was it?"

"Listen. The next morning she woke up and found that someone hadtaken care of the fire while she slept, and her pack was lashed on oneof the saddles. She rode on that day and came at night to a camp-firewith a bed of boughs near it and no one in sight. She took that campfor herself and no one showed up. 

"Don't you see? Someone was following her up the valley and takingcare of the poor baby on the way. Someone who was afraid to lethimself be seen. Perhaps it was the man who killed Dick Wilbur withouta sound there beside the river; perhaps as Dick died he told the manwho killed him about the lonely girl and this other man was whiteenough to help Mary. 

"But all Mary ever saw of him was that second night when she thoughtshe saw a streak of white, traveling like a galloping horse, thatdisappeared over a hill and into the trees--"

"A streak of white--"

"Yes, yes! The white horse--McGurk!"

"McGurk!" repeated Pierre stupidly; then: "And you knew she would begoing out to him when she left this house?"

"I knew--Pierre--don't look at me like that--I knew that it would bemurder to let you cross with McGurk. You're the last of seven--he's adevil--no man--"

"And you let her go out into the night--to him. "

She clung to a last thread of hope: "If you met him and killed himwith the luck of the cross it would bring equal bad luck on someoneyou love--on the girl, Pierre!"

He was merely repeating stupidly: "You let her go out--to him--in thenight! She's in his arms now--you devil--you tiger--"

She threw herself down and clung about his knees with hystericalstrength. 

He tore the little cross from his neck and flung it into her upturnedface. 

"Don't make me put my hands on you, Jack. Let me go!" There was noneed to tear her grasp away. She crumpled and slipped sidewise to thefloor. He leaned over and shook her violently by the shoulder. 

"Which way did she ride? Which way did they ride?"

She whispered: "Down the valley, Pierre; down the valley; I swear theyrode that way. "

And as she lay in a half swoon she heard the faint clatter ofgalloping hoofs over the rocks and a wild voice yelling, fainter andfainter with distance: "McGurk!"

CHAPTER 34

It came back to her like a threat; it beat at her ears and roused her, that continually diminishing cry: "McGurk!" It went down the valley, and Mary Brown, and McGurk with her, perhaps, had gone up the gorge, but it would be a matter of a short time before Pierre le Rougediscovered that there was no camp-fire to be sighted in the lowervalley and whirled to storm back up the canyon with that battle-cry:"McGurk!" still on his lips. 

And if the two met she knew the result. Seven strong men had riddentogether, fought together, and one by one they had fallen, disappearedlike the white smoke of the camp-fire, jerked off into thin air by thewind, until only one remained. 

How clearly she could see them all! Bud Mansie, meager, lean, with ashifting eye; Garry Patterson, of the red, good-natured face; PhilBranch, stolid and short and muscled like a giant; Handsome DickWilbur on his racing bay; Black Gandil, with his villainies from theSouth Seas like an invisible mantle of awe about him; and her father, the stalwart, gray Boone. 

All these had gone, and there remained only Pierre le Rouge to followin the steps of the six who had gone before. 

She crawled to the door, feeble in mind and shuddering of body like arunner who has spent his last energy in a long race, and drew it open. The wind blew up the valley from the Old Crow, but no sound came backto her, no calling from Pierre; and over her rose the black pyramid ofthe western peak of the Twin Bears like a monstrous nose pointingstiffly toward the stars. 

She closed the door, dragged herself back to her feet, and stood withher shoulders leaning against the wall. Her weakness was notweariness--it was as if something had been taken from her. Shewondered at herself somewhat vaguely. Surely she had never been likethis before, with the singular coldness about her heart and thefeeling of loss, of infinite loss. 

What had she lost? She began to search her mind for an answer. Thenshe smiled uncertainly, a wan, small smile. It was very clear; whatshe had lost was all interest in life and all hope for the bravetomorrow. Nothing remained of all those lovely dreams which she hadbuilt up by day and night about the figure of Pierre le Rouge. He wasgone, and the bright-colored bubble she had blown vanished at once. 

She felt a slight pain at her forehead and then remembered the crosswhich Pierre had thrown into her face. Casting that away he had thrownhis faintest chance of victory with it; it would be a slaughter, not abattle, and red-handed McGurk would leave one more foe behind him. 

But looking down she found the cross and picked up the shining bitof metal; it seemed as if she held the greater part of Pierre le Rougein her hands. She raised the cross to her lips. 

When she fastened the cross about her throat it was with noexultation, but like one who places over his heart a last memorial ofthe dead; a consecration, like the red sign or the white which thecrusaders wore on the covers of their shields. 

Then she took from her breast the spray of autumn leaves. He had notnoticed them, yet perhaps they had helped to make him happy when hecame into the cabin that night, so she placed the spray on the table. Next she unpinned the great rubies from her throat and let her eyelinger over them for a moment. They were chosen stones, a lure and achallenge at once. 

The first thought of what she must do came to Jacqueline then, but notin an overwhelming tide--it was rather a small voice that whispered inher heart. 

Last, she took from her bosom the glove of the yellow-haired girl. Compared with her stanch riding gloves, how small was this! Yet, whenshe tried it, it slipped easily on her hand. This she laid in thatlittle pile, for these were the things which Pierre would wish to findif by some miracle he came back from the battle. The spray, perhaps, he would not understand; and yet he might. She pressed both hands toher breast and drew a long breath, for her heart was breaking. Throughher misted eyes she could barely see the shimmer of the cross. 

She dropped to her knees, and twisted her hands together in agony. Itwas prayer. There were no words to it, but it was prayer, a wildappeal for aid. 

That aid came in the form of a calm that swept on her like the floodof a clear moonlight over a storm-beaten landscape. The whisper whichhad come to her before was now a solemn-speaking voice, and she knewwhat she must do. She could not keep the two men apart, but shemight reach McGurk before and strike him down by stealth, by craft, any way to kill that man as terrible as a devil, as invulnerable asa ghost. 

This she might do in the heart of the night, and afterward she mighthave the courage left to tell the girl the truth and then creep offsomewhere and let this steady pain burn its way out of her heart. 

Once she had reached a decision, it was characteristic that she movedswiftly. Also, there was cause for haste, for by this time Pierre musthave discovered that there was no one in the lower reaches of thegorge and would be galloping back with all the speed of thecream-colored mare which even McGurk's white horse could not match. 

She ran from the cabin and into the little lean-to behind it where thehorses were tethered. There she swung her saddle with expert hands, whipped up the cinch, and pulled it with the strength of a man, mounted, and was off up the gorge. 

For the first few minutes she let the long-limbed black race on atfull speed, a breathless course, because the beat of the wind in herface raised her courage, gave her a certain impulse which was almosthappiness, just as the martyrs rejoiced and held out their hands tothe fire that was to consume them; but after the first burst ofheadlong galloping, she drew down the speed to a hand-canter, and thisin turn to a fast trot, for she dared not risk the far-echoed sound ofthe clattering hoofs over the rock. 

And as she rode she saw at last the winking eye of red which shelonged for and dreaded. She pulled her black to an instant halt andswung from the saddle, tossing the reins over the head of the horse tokeep him standing there. 

Yet, after she had made half a dozen hurried paces something forcedher to turn and look again at the handsome head of the horse. Hestood quite motionless, with his ears pricking after her, and now asshe stopped he whinnied softly, hardly louder than the whisper of aman. So she ran back again and threw the reins over the horn of thesaddle; he should be free to wander where he chose through the freemountains, but as for her, she knew very certainly now that she wouldnever mount that saddle again, or control that triumphant steed withthe touch of her hands on the reins. She put her arms around his neckand drew his head down close. 

There was a dignity in that parting, for it was the burning of herbridges behind her. She drew back, the horse followed her a pace, butshe raised a silent hand in the night and halted him; a moment latershe was lost among the boulders. 

It was rather slow work to stalk that camp-fire, for the big boulderscut off the sight of the red eye time and again, and she had to makelittle, cautious detours before she found it again, but she keptsteadily at her work. Once she stopped, her blood running cold, forshe thought that she heard a faint voice blown up the canyon on thewind: "McGurk!"

For half a minute she stood frozen, listening, but the sound was notrepeated, and she went on again with greater haste. So she came atlast in view of a hollow in the side of the gorge. Here there were afew trees, growing in the cove, and here, she knew, there was a smallspring of clear water. Many a time she had made a cup of her hands anddrunk here. 

Now she made out the fire clearly, the trees throwing out great spokesof shadow on all sides, spokes of shadows that wavered and shook withthe flare of the small fire beyond them. She dropped to her hands andknees and, parting the dense underbrush, began the last stealthyapproach. 

CHAPTER 35

Up the same course which Jacqueline followed, Mary Brown had fledearlier that night with the triumphant laughter of Jack still ringingin her ears and following her like a remorseless, pointed handof shame. 

There is no power like shame to disarm the spirit. A dog will fight ifa man laughs at him; a coward will challenge the devil himself if heis whipped on by scorn; and this proud girl shrank and moaned on thesaddle. She had not progressed far enough to hate Pierre. That wouldcome later, but now all her heart had room for was a consumingloathing of herself. 

Some of that torture went into the spurs with which she punished theside of the bay, and the tall horse responded with a high-tossed headand a burst of whirlwind speed. The result was finally a stumble overa loose rock that almost flung Mary over the pommel of the saddle andforced her to draw rein. 

Having slowed the pace she became aware that she was very tired fromthe trip of the day, and utterly exhausted by the wild scene withJacqueline, so that she began to look about for a place where shecould stop for even an hour or so and rest her aching body. 

Thought of McGurk sent her hand trembling to her holster. Still sheknew she must have little to fear from him. He had been kind to her. Why had this scourge of the mountain-desert spared her? Was it totrack down Pierre?

It was at this time that she heard the purl and whisper of runningwater, a sound dear to the hearts of all travelers. She veered to theleft and found the little grove of trees with a thick shrubberygrowing between, fed by the water of that diminutive brook. Shedismounted and tethered the horses. 

By this time she had seen enough of camping out to know how to makeherself fairly comfortable, and she set about it methodically, eagerly. It was something to occupy her mind and keep out a little ofthat burning sense of shame. One picture it could not obliterate, andthat was the scene of Jacqueline and Pierre le Rouge laughing togetherover the love affair with the silly girl of the yellow hair. 

That was the meaning, then, of those silences that had come betweenthem? He had been thinking, remembering, careful lest he should forgeta single scruple of the whole ludicrous affair. She shuddered, remembering how she had fairly flung herself into his arms. 

On that she brooded, after starting the little fire. It was not thatshe was cold, but the fire, at least, in the heart of the black night, was a friend incapable of human treachery. She had not been there longwhen the tall bay, Wilbur's horse, stiffened, raised his head, archedhis tail, and then whinnied. 

She started to her feet, stirred by a thousand fears, and heard, faraway, an answering neigh. At once all thought of shame and of Pierrele Rouge vanished from her mind, for she remembered the man who hadfollowed her up the valley of the Old Crow. Perhaps he was coming nowout of the night; perhaps she would even see him. 

And the excitement grew in her pulse by pulse, as the excitement growsin a man waiting for a friend at a station; he sees first the faintsmoke like a cloud on the skyline, and then a black speck beneath thesmoke, and next the engine draws up on him with a humming of the railswhich grows at length to a thunder. 

The heart of Mary Brown beat faster, though she could not see, butonly felt the coming of the stranger. 

The only sign she saw was in the horses, which showed an increasinguneasiness. Her own mare now shared the restlessness of the tall bay, and the two were footing it nervously here and there, tugging at thetethers, and tossing up their heads, with many a start, as if theyfeared and sought to flee from some approaching catastrophe--some vastand preternatural change--some forest fire which came galloping fasterthan even their fleet limbs could carry them. 

Yet all beyond the pale of her camp-fire's light was silence, utterand complete silence. It seemed as if a muscular energy went into theintensity of her listening, but not a sound reached her except a faintwhispering of the wind in the dark trees above her. 

But at last she knew that the thing was upon her. The horses ceasedtheir prancing and stared in a fixed direction through the thicket ofshrubbery; the very wind grew hushed above her; she could feel the newpresence as one feels the silence when a door closes and shuts awaythe sound of the street below. 

It came on her with a shock, thrilling, terrible, yet not altogetherunpleasant. She rose, her hands clenched at her sides and her eyesabnormally wide as they stared in the same direction as the eyes ofthe two horses held. Yet for all her preparation she nearly faintedwhen a voice sounded directly behind her, a pleasantly modulatedvoice: "Look this way. I am here, in front of the fire. "

She turned about and the two horses, quivering, whirled toward thatsound. 

She stepped back, back until the embers of the fire lay between herand that side of the little clearing. In spite of herself theexclamation escaped her--"McGurk!"

The voice spoke again: "Do not be afraid. You are safe, absolutely. "

"What are you?" "Your friend. "

"Is it you who followed me up the valley?"

"Yes. "

"Come into the light. I must see you. " A faint laughter reached herfrom the dark. 

"I cannot let you do that. If that had been possible I should havecome to you before. "

"But I feel--I feel almost as if you are a ghost and no man of fleshand blood. "

"It is better for you to feel that way about it, " said the voicesolemnly, "than to know me. "

"At least, tell me why you have followed me, why you have cared forme. "

"You will hate me if I tell you, and fear me. "

"No, whatever you are, trust me. Tell me at least what came to DickWilbur?"

"That's easy enough. I met him at the river, a little by surprise, andcaught him before he could even shout. Then I took his guns andlet him go. "

"But he didn't come back to me?"

"No. He knew that I would be there. I might have finished him withoutgiving him a chance to speak, girl, but I'd seen him with you and Iwas curious. So I found out where you were going and why, and letWilbur go. I came back and looked at you and found you asleep. "

She grew cold at the thought of him leaning over her. 

"I watched you a long time, and I suppose I'll remember you always asI saw you then. You were very beautiful with the shadow of your lashesagainst your cheek--almost as beautiful as you are now as you standover there, fearing and loathing me. I dared not let you see me, but Idecided to take care of you--for a while. "

"And now?"

"I have come to say farewell to you. "

"Let me see you once before you go. "

"No! You see, I fear you even more than you fear me. " "Then I'llfollow you. "

"It would be useless--utterly useless. There are ways of becominginvisible in the mountains. But before I go, tell me one thing: Haveyou left the cabin to search for Pierre le Rouge in another place?"

"No. I do not search for him. "

There was an instant of pause. Then the voice said sharply: "DidWilbur lie to me?"

"No. I started up the valley to find him. "

"But you've given him up?"

"I hate him--I hate him as much as I loathe myself for evercondescending to follow him. "

She heard a quick breath drawn in the dark, and then a murmur: "I amfree, then, to hunt him down!"

"Why?"

"Listen: I had given him up for your sake; I gave him up when I stoodbeside you that first night and watched you trembling with the cold inyour sleep. It was a weak thing for me to do, but since I saw you, Mary, I am not as strong as I once was. "

"Now you go back on his trail? It is death for Pierre?"

"You say you hate him?"

"Ah, but as deeply as that?" she questioned herself. 

"It may not be death for Pierre. I have ridden the ranges many yearsand met them all in time, but never one like him. Listen: six yearsago I met him first and then he wounded me--the first time any man hastouched me. And afterward I was afraid, Mary, for the first time in mylife, for the charm was broken. For six years I could not return, butnow I am at his heels. Six are gone; he will be the last to go. "

"What are you?" she cried. "Some bloodhound reincarnated?"

He said: "That is the mildest name I have ever been called. "

CHAPTER 36

"Give up the trail of Pierre. "

And there, brought face to face with the mortal question, even herfear burned low in her, and once more she remembered the youth whowould not leave her in the snow, but held her in his arms with thestrange cross above them. 

She said simply: "I still love him. "

A faint glimmer came to her through the dark and she could see deeperinto the shrubbery, for now the moon stood up on the top of the greatpeak above them and flung a faint light into the hollow. That glimmershe saw, but no face of a man. 

And then the silence held; every second of it was more than a hundredspoken words. 

Then the calm voice said: "I cannot give him up. "

"For the sake of God!"

"God and I have been strangers for a good many years. "

"For my sake. "

"But you see, I have been lying to myself. I told myself that I wascoming merely to see you once--for the last time. But after I saw youI had to speak, and now that I have spoken it is hard to leave you, and now that I am with you I cannot give you up to Pierre le Rouge. "

She cried: "What will you have of me?"

He answered with a ring of melancholy: "Friendship? No, I can't takethose white hands--mine are so red. All I can do is to lurk about youlike a shadow--a shadow with a sting that strikes down all other menwho come near you. "

She said: "For all men have told me about you, I know you could not dothat. "

"Mary, I tell you there are things about me, and possibilities, aboutwhich I don't dare to question myself. "

"You have guarded me like a brother. Be one to me still; I have neverneeded one so deeply!"

"A brother? Mary, if your eyes were less blue or your hair less goldenI might be; but you are too beautiful to be only that to me. "

"Listen to me--"

But she stopped in the midst of her speech, because a white headloomed beside the dim form. It was the head of a horse, with prickingears, which now nosed the shoulder of its master, and she saw thefirelight glimmering in the great eyes. 

"Your horse, " she said in a trembling voice, "loves you and trustsyou. "

"It is the only thing which has not feared me. When it was a colt itcame out of the herd and nosed my hand. It is the only thing which hasnot fought me, as all men have done--as you are doing now, Mary. "

The wind that blew up the gorge came in gusts, not any steady current, but fitful rushes of air, and on one of these brief blasts it seemedto Mary that she caught the sound of a voice blown to whistlingmurmur. It was a vague thing of which she could not be sure, as faintas a thought. Yet the head of the white horse disappeared, and theglimmer of the man's face went out. 

She called: "Whatever you are, wait! Let me speak!"

But no answer came, and she knew that the form was gone forever. 

She cried again: "Who's there?"

"It is I, " said a voice at her elbow, and she turned to look into thedark eyes of Jacqueline. "So he's gone?" asked Jack bitterly. 

She fingered the butt of her gun. 

"I thought--well, my chance at him is gone. "

"But what--"

"Bah, if you knew you'd die of fear. Listen to what I have to say. Allthe things I told you in the cabin were lies. "

"Lies?" said Mary evenly. "No, they proved themselves. "

"Be still till I've finished, because if you talk you may make meforget--"

The gesture which finished the sentence was so eloquent of hate thatMary shrank away and put the embers of the fire between them. 

"I tell you, it was all a lie, and Pierre le Rouge has never lovedanything but you, you milk-faced--"

She stopped again, fighting against her passion. The pride of Maryheld her stiff and straight, though her voice shook. 

"Has he sent you after me with mockery?"

"No, he's given up the hope of you. "

"The hope?"

"Don't you see? Are you going to make me crawl to explain? It alwaysseemed to me that God meant Pierre for me. It always seemed to me thata girl like me was what he needed. But Pierre had never seen it. Maybe, if my hair was yellow an' my eyes blue, he might have feltdifferent; but the way it is, he's always treated me like a kidbrother--"

"And lived with you?" said the other sternly. 

"Like two men! D'you understand how a woman could be the bunky of aman an' yet be no more to him than--than a man would be. You don't?Neither do I, but that's what I've been to Pierre le Rouge. What's that?"

She lifted her head and stood poised as if for flight. Once more thevague sound blew up to them upon the wind. Mary ran to her and graspedboth of her hands in her own. "If it's true--"

But Jack snatched her hands away and looked on the other with a mightyhatred and a mightier contempt. 

"True? Why, it damn near finished Pierre with me to think he'd take upwith--a thing like you. But it's true. If somebody else had told meI'd of laughed at 'em. But it's true. Tell me: what'll you dowith him?"

"Take him back--if I can reach him--take him back to the East. "

"Yes--maybe he'd be happy there. But when the spring comes to thecity, Mary, wait till the wind blows in the night and the rain comestappin' on the roof. Then hold him if you can. D'ye hear? Hold himif you can!"

"If he cares it will not be hard. Tell me again, if--"

"Shut up. What's that again?"

The sound was closer now and unmistakably something other than themoan of the wind. 

Jacqueline turned in great excitement to Mary:

"Did McGurk hear that sound down the gorge?"

"Yes. I think so. And then he--"

"My God!"

"What is it?"

"Pierre, and he's calling for--d'you hear?"

Clear and loud, though from a great distance, the wind carried up thesound and the echo preserved it: "McGurk!"

"McGurk!" repeated Mary. 

"Yes! And you brought him up here with you, and brought his death toPierre. What'll you do to save him now? Pierre!"

She turned and fled out among the trees, and after her ran Mary, calling, like the other: "Pierre!"

CHAPTER 37

After that call first reached him, clear to his ears though vague as amurmur at the ear of Mary, McGurk swung to the saddle of his whitehorse, and galloped down the gorge like a veritable angel of death. 

The end was very near, he felt, yet the chances were at least ten toone that he would miss Pierre in the throat of the gorge, for amongthe great boulders, tall as houses, which littered it, a thousand menmight have passed and repassed and never seen each other. Only thecalling of Pierre could guide him surely. 

The calling had ceased for some moments, and he began to fear that hehad overrun his mark and missed Pierre in the heart of the pass, when, as he rounded a mighty boulder, the shout ran ringing in his veryears: "McGurk!" and a horseman swung into view. 

"Here!" he called in answer, and stood with his right hand lifted, bringing his horse to a sharp halt, like some ancient cavalierstopping in the middle of the battle to exchange greetings with afriendly foe. 

The other rider whirled alongside, his sombrero's brim flaring backfrom his forehead, so that McGurk caught the glare of the eyes beneaththe shadow. 

"So for the third time, my friend--" said McGurk. 

"Which is the fatal one, " answered Pierre. "How will you die, McGurk?On foot or on horseback?"

"On the ground, Pierre, for my horse might stir and make my workmessy. I love a neat job, you know. " "Good. "

They swung from the saddles and stood facing each other. 

"Begin!" commanded McGurk. "I've no time to waste. "

"I've very little time to look at the living McGurk. Let me look myfill before the end. "

"Then look, and be done. I've a lady coming to meet me. "

The other grew marvelously calm. 

"She is with you, McGurk?"

"My dear Pierre, I've been with her ever since she started up the OldCrow. "

"It will be easier to forget her. Are you ready?"

"So soon? Come, man, there's much for us to say. Many old times tochat over. "

"I only wonder, " said Pierre, "how one death can pay back what you'vedone. Think of it! I've actually run away from you and hidden myselfamong the hills. I've feared you, McGurk!"

He said it with a deep astonishment, as a grown man will speak of theway he feared darkness when he was a child. McGurk moistened his whitelips. The white horse pawed the rocks as though impatient to be gone. 

"Listen, " said Pierre, "your horse grows restive. Suppose we standhere--it's a convenient distance apart--and wait with our arms foldedfor the next time the white horse paws the rocks, because when I killyou, McGurk, I want you to die knowing that another man was faster onthe draw and straighter with his bullets than you are. D'you see?"

He could not have spoken with a more formal politeness if he had beenasking the other to pass first through the door of a dining-room. Thewonder of McGurk grew and the sweat on his forehead seemed to bespreading a chill through his entire body. He said: "I see. Youtrust all to the cross, eh, Pierre? The little cross under your neck?"

"It's gone, " said Pierre le Rouge. "Why should I use it against anight rider, McGurk? Are you ready?"

And McGurk, not trusting his voice for some strange reason, nodded. The two folded their arms. 

But the white horse which had been pawing the stones only a momentbefore was now unusually quiet. The very postures of the men seemed toturn him to stone, a beautiful, marble statue with the moonlightglistening on the muscles of his perfect shoulders. 

At length he stirred. At once a quiver jerked through the tense bodiesof the waiting men, but the white horse had merely stiffened andraised his head high. Now, with arched neck and flaunting tail heneighed loudly, as if he asked a question. How could he know, dumbbrute, that what he asked only death could answer?

And as they waited an itching came at the palm of McGurk's hand. Itwas not much, just a tingle of the blood. To ease it, he closed hisfingers and found that his hand was moist with cold perspiration. 

He began to wonder if his fingers would be slippery on the butt of thegun. Then he tried covertly to dry them against his shirt. But heceased this again, knowing that he must be of hair-trigger alertnessto watch for the stamp of the white horse. 

It occurred to him, also, that he was standing on a loose stone whichmight wobble when he pulled his gun, and he cursed himself silentlyfor his hasty folly. Pierre, doubtless, had noticed that stone, andtherefore he had made the suggestion that they stand where they were. Otherwise, how could there be that singular calm in the steady eyeswhich looked across at him?

Also, how explain the hunger of that stare? Was not he McGurk, and wasnot this man whom he had already once shot down? God, what a fool hehad been not to linger an instant longer in that saloon in the olddays and place the final shot in the prostrate body! In all his lifehe had made only one such mistake, and now that folly was pursuinghim. And now--

The foot of the white horse lifted--struck the rock. The sound of itsfall was lost in the explosion of two guns, and a ring of metal onmetal. The revolver snapped from the hand of McGurk, whirled in aflashing circle, and clanged on the rocks at his feet. The bullet ofPierre had struck the barrel and knocked it cleanly from his hand. 

It was luck, only luck, that placed that shot, and his own bullet, which had started first, had traveled wild, for there stood Pierre leRouge, smiling faintly, alert, calm. For the first time in his lifeMcGurk had missed. He set his teeth and waited for death. 

But that steady voice of Pierre said: "To shoot you would be apleasure, but there wouldn't be any lasting satisfaction in it. Sothere lies your gun at your feet. Well, here lies mine. "

He dropped his own weapon to a position corresponding with that ofMcGurk's. 

"We were both very wild that time. We must do better now. We'll stoopfor our guns, McGurk. The signal? No, we won't wait for the horse tostamp. The signal will be when you stoop for your gun. You shall haveevery advantage, you see? Start for that gun, McGurk, when you'reready for the end. "

The hand of McGurk stretched out and his arm stiffened but it seemedas though all the muscles of his back had grown stiff. He could notbend. It was strange. It was both ludicrous and incomprehensible. Perhaps he had grown stiff with cold in that position. 

But he heard the voice of Pierre explaining gently: "You can't move, my friend. I understand. It's fear that stiffened your back. It's fear that sends the chill up and down your blood. It's fear thatmakes you think back to your murders, one by one. McGurk, you're donefor. You're through. You're ready for the discard. I'm not going tokill you. I've thought of a finer hell than death, and that is to liveas you shall live. I've beaten you, McGurk, beaten you fairly on thedraw, and I've broken your heart by doing it. The next time you face aman you'll begin to think--you'll begin to remember how one other manbeat you at the draw. And that wonder, McGurk, will make your handfreeze to your side, as you've made the hands of other men before mefreeze. D'you understand?"

The lips of McGurk parted. The whisper of his dry panting reachedPierre, and the devil in him smiled. 

"In six weeks, McGurk, you'll be finished. Now get out!"

And pace by pace McGurk drew back, with his face still toward Pierre. 

The latter cried: "Wait. Are you going to leave your gun?"

Only the steady retreat continued. 

"And go unarmed through the mountains? What will men say when they seeMcGurk with an empty holster?"

But the outlaw had passed out of view beyond the corner of one of themonster boulders. After him went the white horse, slowly, picking hissteps, as if he were treading on dangerous and unknown ground andwould not trust his leader. Pierre was left to the loneliness ofthe gorge. 

The moonlight only served to make more visible its rocky nakedness, and like that nakedness was the life of Pierre under his hopelessinward eye. Over him loomed from either side the gleaming pinnacles ofthe Twin Bears, and he remembered many a time when he had looked uptoward them from the crests of lesser mountains--looked up toward themas a man looks to a great and unattainable ideal. Here he was cometo the crest of all the ranges; here he was come to the height andlimit of his life, and what had he attained? Only a cruel, coldisolation. It had been a steep ascent; the declivity of the fartherside led him down to a steep and certain ruin and the dark nightbelow. But he stiffened suddenly and threw his head high as if hefaced his fate; and behind him the cream-colored mare raised her headwith a toss and whinnied softly. 

It seemed to him that he had heard something calling, for the soundwas lost against the sweep of wind coming up the gorge. Somethingcalling there in the night of the mountains as he himself had calledwhen he rode so wildly in the quest for McGurk. How long ago hadthat been?

But it came once more, clear beyond all doubt. He recognized the voicein spite of the panting which shook it; a wild wail like that of aheartbroken child, coming closer to him like someone running: "Pierre!Oh, Pierre!"

And all at once he knew that the moon was broad and bright and fair, and the heavens clear and shining with gold points of light. Once morethe cry. He raised his arms and waited. 

CHAPTER 38

So Mary, running through the wilderness of boulders, was guidedstraight and found Pierre, and before the morning came, they werejourneying east side by side, east and down to the cities and a newlife; but Jacqueline, a thousand times quicker of foot and surerof eye and ear, missed her goal, went past it, and still on and on, running finally at a steady trot. 

Until at last she knew that she had far overstepped her mark and sankdown against one of the rocks to rest and think out what next she mustdo. There seemed nothing left. Even the sound of a gun fired she mightnot hear, for that sharp call would not travel far against the wind. 

It was while she sat there, burying Pierre in her thoughts, a whiteshape came glimmering down to her through the moonlight. She was onher feet at once, alert and gun in hand. It could only be one horse, only one rider, McGurk coming down from his last killing with thesneer on his pale lips. Well, he would complete his work this nightand kill her fighting face to face. 

A man's death; that was all she craved. She rose; she stepped boldlyout into the center of the trail between the rocks. 

There she saw the greatest wonder she had ever looked on. It wasMcGurk walking with bare, bowed head, and after him, like a dog afterthe master, followed the white horse. She shoved the revolver backinto the holster. This should be a fair fight. 

"McGurk!"

Very slowly the head went up and back, and there he stood, not tenpaces from her, with the white moon full on his face. The sneer wasstill there; the eyelid fluttered in scornful derision. And the heartof Jacqueline came thundering in her throat. 

But she cried in a strong voice: "McGurk, d'you know me?"

He did not answer. 

"You murderer, you night rider! Look again: it's the last of theBoones!"

The sneer, it seemed to her, grew bitterer, but still the man didnot speak. Then the thought of Pierre, lying dead somewhere among therocks, burned across her mind. Her hand leaped for the revolver, andwhipped it out in a blinding flash to cover him, but with her fingercurling on the trigger she checked herself in the nick of time. McGurkhad made no move to protect himself. 

A strange feeling came to her that perhaps the man would not waragainst women; the case of Mary was almost proof enough of that. Butas she stepped forward, wondering, she looked at the holster at hisside and saw that it was empty. Then she understood. 

Understood in a daze that Pierre had met the man and conquered him andsent him out through the mountains disarmed. The white horse raisedhis head and whinnied, and the sound gave a thought to her. She couldnot kill this man, unarmed as he was; she could do a moreshameful thing. 

"The bluff you ran was a strong one, McGurk, " she said bitterly, "andyou had these parts pretty well at a standstill; but Pierre was a bittoo much for you, eh?"

The white face had not altered, and still it did not change, but thesneer was turned steadily on her. 

She cried: "Go on! Go on down the gorge!"

Like an automaton the man stepped forward, and after him paced thewhite horse. She stepped between, caught the reins, and swung up tothe saddle, and sat there, controlling between her stirrups thebest-known mount in all the mountain-desert. A thrill of wildexultation came to her. She cried: "Look back, McGurk! Your gun isgone, your horse is gone; you're weaker than a woman in themountains!"

Yet he went on without turning, not with the hurried step of a coward, but still as one stunned. Then, sitting quietly in the saddle, sheforgot McGurk and remembered Pierre. He was happy by this time withthe girl of the yellow hair; there was nothing remaining to her fromhim except the ominous cross which touched cold against her breast. That he had abandoned as he had abandoned her. 

What, then, was left for her? The horse of an outlaw for her to ride;the heart of an outlaw in her breast. 

She touched the white horse with the spurs and went at a recklessgallop, weaving back and forth among the boulders down the forge. Forshe was riding away from the past. 

The dawn came as she trotted out into a widening valley of the OldCrow. To maintain even that pace she had to use the spurs continually, for the white horse was deadly weary, and his head fell more and more. She decided to make a brief halt, at last, and in order to make a firethat would take the chill of the cold morning from her, she swung upto the edge of the woods. There, before she could dismount, she saw aman turn the shoulder of the slope. She drew the horse back deeperamong the trees and waited. 

He came with a halting step, reeling now and again, a big man, hatless, coatless, apparently at the last verge of exhaustion. Now hisfoot apparently struck a small rock, and he pitched to his face. Itrequired a long struggle before he could regain his feet; and now hecontinued his journey at the same gait, only more uncertainly thanever, close and closer. There was something familiar now about thefellow's size, and something in the turn of his head. Suddenly sherode out, crying: "Wilbur!"

He swerved, saw the white horse, threw up his hands high above hishead, and went backward, reeling, with a hoarse scream whichJacqueline would never forget. She galloped to him and swung tothe ground. 

"It's me--Jack. D'you hear?"

He would not lower those arms, and his eyes stared wildly at her. Onhis forehead the blood had caked over a cut; his shirt was torn torags, and the hair matted over his eyes. She caught his hands andpulled them down. 

"It's not McGurk! Don't you hear me? It's Jack!"

He reached out, like a blind man who has to see by the sense of touch, and stroked her face. 

"Jack!" he whispered at last. "Thank God!"

"What's happened?"

"McGurk--"

A violent palsy shook him, and he could not go on. 

"I know--I understand. He took your guns and left you to wander inthis hell! Damn him! I wish--"

She stopped. 

"How long since you've eaten?"

"Years!"

"We'll eat--McGurk's food!"

But she had to assist him up the slope to the trees, and there sheleft him propped against a trunk, his arms fallen weakly at his sides, while she built the fire and cooked the food. Afterward she couldhardly eat, watching him devour what she placed before him; and itthrilled all the woman in her to a strange warmth to take care of thelong-rider. Then, except for the disfigured face and the bloodshoteyes, he was himself. 

"Up there? What happened?"

He pointed up the valley. 

"The girl and Pierre. They're together. "

"She found him?"

"Yes. "

He bowed his head and sighed. 

"And the horse, Jack?" He said it with awe. 

"I took the horse from McGurk. "

"You!"

She nodded. After all, it was not a lie. "You killed McGurk?"

She said coolly: "I let him go the way he let you, Dick. He's on footin the mountains without a horse or a gun. "

"It isn't possible!"

"There's the horse for proof. "

He looked at her as if she were something more than human. 

"Our Jack--did this?"

"We've got to start on. Can you walk, Dick?"

"A thousand miles now. "

Yet he staggered when he tried to rise, and she made him climb up tothe saddle. The white horse walked on, and she kept her place close atthe stirrup of the rider. He would have stopped and dismounted for hera hundred times, but she made him keep his place. 

"What's ahead of us, Jack? We're the last of the gang?"

"The last of Boone's gang. We are. "

"The old life over again?"

"What else?"

"Yes; what else?"

"Are you afraid, Dick?"

"Not with you for a pal. Seven was too many; with two we can rule therange. "

"Partners, Dick?"

How could he tell that her voice was gone so gentle because she wasseeing in her mind's eye another face than his? He leaned toward her. 

"Why not something more than partners, after a while, Jack?"

She smiled strangely up to him. 

"Because of this, Dick. "

And fumbling at her throat, she showed him the glittering metal of thecross. 

"The cross goes on, but what of you, Jack?" A long silence fellbetween them. Words died in the making. 

The great weight pressing down on that slender throat was like theiron hand of a giant, but slowly, one by one, the sounds marshalledthemselves:

"... God knows... " It was the passing of Judgment. "God knows... Not I. "

Epilogue

But what of the legendary gunfighter, McGurk? How could the spirit ofany man survive that terrible defeat at the hands of Red Pierre?

After that night, when he had walked from the dark heart of themountain without horse or gun, head bowed, eyes glazed, it seemed thatthe life of Bob McGurk had burned down to black ash. 

Indeed, no one heard of him for five long years. Then, phoenix-like, he was reborn in fire, emerging in the raw border country of Texas. His rebirth was spectacular. No longer the lone phantom fighter ofpast days, he led a gang of coldhearted thieves and killers thatbecame the scourge of the Rio Grande. 

But McGurk never returned to the mountain-desert country of his shameand defeat. And only he knew that the face of Red Pierre never lefthim; it blazed in his mind by day and haunted his nights. 

Then, as suddenly as he had reappeared, after proving his skill andcourage afresh in a score of wild, bullet-filled encounters, the greatgunfighter vanished from the world of civilized men. His gangdispersed and the border country saw no more of him. 

McGurk was finally gone. 

Only the legend remained.