All this she pondered as they began the ride up the valley, but as the long journey continued, and the hours and the miles rolled past them, a racking weariness possessed her and numbed her mind. She began to wish desperately for morning, but even morning might not bring an end to the ride. That would be at the will of the outlaw beside her. Finally, only one picture remained to her. It stabbed across the darkness of her mind—the red hair and the keen eyes of Pierre.

The storm decreased as they went up the valley. Finally the wind fell off to a pleasant breeze, and the clouds of the rain broke in the center of the heavens and toppled west in great tumbling masses. In half an hour's time the sky was clear, and a cold moon looked down on the blue-black evergreens, shining faintly with the wet, and on the dead black of the mountains.

For the first time in all that ride her companion spoke: "In an hour the gray will begin in the east. Suppose we camp here, eat, get a bit 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 swept over her body and broke in hot, numbing waves on her brain.

"Whatever you say. I'm afraid I couldn't ride much further to-night."

"Look up at me."

She raised her head.

"No; you're all in. But you've made a game ride. I never dreamed there was so much iron in you. We'll make our fire just inside the trees and carry water up from the river, eh?"

A scanty growth of the evergreens walked over the hills and skirted along the valley, leaving a broad, sandy waste in the center where the river at times swelled with melted snow or sudden rains and rushed over the lower valley in a broad, muddy flood.

At the edge of the forest he picketed the horses in a little open space carpeted with wet, dead grass. It took him some time to find dry wood. 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, and vaguely she heard the crack of his hatchet. He had found a rotten stump and was tearing off the wet outer bark to get at the dry wood within.

After that it was only a moment before a fire sputtered feebly and smoked at her feet. She watched it, only half conscious, in her utter weariness, and seeing dimly the hollow-eyed face of the man who stooped above the blaze. Now it grew quickly, and increased to a sharp-pointed pyramid of red flame. The bright sparks showered up, crackling and snapping, and when she followed their flight she saw the darkly nodding tops of the evergreens above her.

With the fire well under way, he took the coffee-pot to get water from the river, and left her to fry the bacon. The fumes of the frying meat wakened her at once, 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 and crisped and curled at the edges. After that she removed the pan from the fire, and it was not until then that she began to wonder why Wilbur 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 rising sharp 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 out from the trees.

Everywhere was the bright moonlight—over the wet rocks, and sand, and glimmering on the slow tide of the river, but nowhere could she see Wilbur, or a form that looked like a man. Then the moonlight glinted on something at the edge of the river. She ran to it and found the coffee-can half in the water and partially filled with sand.

A wild temptation to scream came over her, but the tight muscles of her throat let out no sound. But if Wilbur were not here, where had he gone? He could not have vanished into thin air. The ripple of the water washing on the sand replied. Yes, that Current might have rolled his body away.

To shut out the grim sight of the river she turned. Stretched across the ground at her feet she saw clearly the impression of a body in the moist sand.



CHAPTER XXVIII

A HINT OF WHITE

The heels had left two deeply defined gouges in the ground; there was a sharp hollow where the head had lain, and a broad depression for the shoulders. It was the impression of the body of a man—a large man like Wilbur. Any hope, any doubt she might have had, slipped from her mind, and despair rolled into it with an even, sullen current, like the motion of the river.

It is strange what we do with our big moments of fear and sorrow and even of joy. Now Mary stooped and carefully washed out the coffee-pot, and filled it again with water higher up the bank; and turned back toward the edge of the trees.

It was all subconscious, this completing of the task which Wilbur had begun, and subconscious still was her careful rebuilding of the fire till it flamed high, as though she were setting a signal to recall the wanderer. But the flame, throwing warmth and red light across her eyes, recalled her sharply to reality, and she looked up and saw the dull dawn brightening beyond the dark evergreens.

Guilt, too, swept over her, for she remembered what big, handsome Dick Wilbur had said: He would meet his end through a woman. Now it had come to him, and through her.

She cringed at the thought, for what was she that a man should die in her service? She raised her hands with a moan to the nodding tops of the trees, to the vast, black sky above them, and the full knowledge of Wilbur's strength came to her, for had he not ridden calmly, defiantly, into the heart of this wilderness, confident in his power to care both for himself and for her? But she! What could she do wandering by herself? The image of Pierre le Rouge grew dim indeed and sad 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 in place behind the saddle. So she drew the blanket once more around her shoulders 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 her forever. She made a determination, sullen, like a child, to ride on and on into the wilderness, and let fate take care of her. The pack she could bundle together as best she might; she would live as she might; and for a guide there would be the hunger for Pierre.

So she ended her thoughts with a hope; her head nodded lower, and she slept the deep, deep sleep of the exhausted mind and the lifeless body. She woke hours later with a start, instantly alert, quivering with fear and life and energy, for she felt like one who has gone to sleep with voices in his ear.

While she slept some one had been near her; she could have sworn it before her startled eyes glanced around.

And though she kept whispering, with white lips, "No, no; it is impossible!" yet there was evidence which proved it. The fire should have burned out, but instead it flamed more brightly than ever, and there was a little heap of fuel laid conveniently close. Moreover, both horses were saddled, and the pack lashed on the saddle of her own mount.

Whatever man or demon had done this work evidently intended that she should ride Wilbur's beautiful bay. Yes, for when she went closer, drawn by her wonder, she found that the stirrups had been much shortened.

Nothing was forgotten by this invisible caretaker; he had even left out the cooking-tins, and she found a little batter of flapjack flour mixed.

The riddle was too great for solving. Perhaps Wilbur had disappeared merely to play a practical jest on her; but that supposition was too childish to be retained an instant. Perhaps—perhaps Pierre himself had discovered her, but having vowed never to see her again, he cared for her like the invisible hands in the old Greek fable.

This, again, an instinctive knowledge made her dismiss. If he were so close, 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 to be seen; not wholly evil, because it surrounded her with care.

At least this new emotion obscured somewhat the terror and the sorrow of Wilbur's disappearance. She cooked her breakfast as if obeying the order of the unseen, climbed into the saddle of Wilbur's horse, and started off up the valley, leading her own mount.

Every moment or so she turned in the saddle suddenly in the hope of getting a glimpse of the follower, but even when she surveyed the entire stretch of country from the crest of a low hill, she saw nothing—not the least sign of life.

She rode slowly, this day, for she was stiff and sore from the violent journey of the night before, but though she went slowly, she kept steadily at the trail. It was a broad and pleasant one, being the beaten sand of the river-bottom; and the horse she rode was the finest that ever pranced beneath her.

His trot was as smooth and springy as the gallop of most horses, and when she let him run over a few level stretches, it was as if she had suddenly been taken up from the earth on wings. There was something about the animal, too, which reminded her of its vanished owner; for it had strength and pride and gentleness at once. Unquestionably it took kindly to its new rider; for once when she dismounted the big horse walked up behind and nuzzled her shoulder.

The mountains were much plainer before the end of the day. They rose sheer up in wave upon frozen wave like water piled ragged by some terrific gale, with the tops of the waters torn and tossed and then frozen forever in that position, like a fantastic and gargantuan mask of dreaming terror. It overawed the heart of Mary Brown to look up to them, but there was growing in her a new impulse of friendly understanding with all this scalped, bald region of rocks, as if in entering the valley she had passed through the gate which closes out the gentler world, and now she was admitted as a denizen of the mountain-desert, that scarred and ugly asylum for crime and fear and grandeur.

Feeling this new emotion, the old horizons of her mind gave way and widened; her gentle nature, which had known nothing but smiles, admitted the meaning of a frown. Did she not ride under the very shadow of that frown with her two horses? Was she not armed? She touched the holster at her hip, and smiled. To be sure, she could never hit a mark with that ponderous weapon, but at least the pistol gave the seeming of a dangerous lone rider, familiar with the wilds.

It was about dark, and she was on the verge of looking about for a suitable camping-place, when the bay halted sharply, tossed up his head, and whinnied. From the far distance she thought she heard the beginning of a whinny in reply. She could not be sure, but the possibility made her pulse quicken. In this region, she knew, no stranger could be a friend.

So she started the bay at a gallop and put a couple of swift miles between her and the point at which she had heard the sound; no living creature, she was sure, could have followed the pace the bay held during that distance. So, secure in her loneliness, she trotted the horse around a bend of the rocks and came on the sudden light of a camp-fire.

It was too late to wheel and gallop away; so she remained with her hand fumbling at the butt of the revolver, and her wide, blue eyes fixed on the flicker of the fire. Not a voice accosted her. As far as she could peer among the lithe trunks of the saplings, not a sign of a living thing was near.

Yet whoever built that fire must be near, for it was obviously, newly laid. Perhaps some fleeing outlaw had pitched his camp here and had been startled by her coming. In that case he lurked somewhere in the woods at that moment, his keen eyes fixed on her, and his gun gripped hard in his hand. Perhaps—and the thought thrilled her—this little camp had been prepared by the same power, human or unearthly, which had watched over her early that morning.

All reason and sane caution warned her to ride on and leave that camp unmolested, but an overwhelming, tingling curiosity besieged her. The thin column of smoke rose past the dark trees like a ghost, and reaching the unsheltered space above the trees, was smitten by a light wind and jerked away at a sharp angle.

She looked closer and saw a bed made of a great heap of the tips of limbs of spruce, a bed softer than down and more fragrant than any manufactured perfume, however costly.

Possibly it was the sight of this bed which tempted her down from the saddle, at last. With the reins over her arm, she stood close to the fire and warmed her hands, peering all the while on every side, like some wild and beautiful creature tempted by the bait of the trap, but shrinking from the scent of man.

As she stood there a broad, yellow moon edged its way above the hills and rolled up through the black trees and then floated through the sky. Beneath such a moon no harm could come to her. It was while she stared at it, letting her tensed alertness relax little by little, that she saw, or thought she saw, a hint of moving white pass over the top of the rise of ground and disappear among the trees.

She could not be sure, but her first impulse was to gather the reins with a jerk and place her foot in the stirrup; but then she looked back and saw the fire, burning low now and asking like a human voice to be replenished from the heap of small, broken fuel near by; and she saw also the softly piled bed of evergreens.

She removed her foot from the stirrup. What mattered that imaginary figure of moving white? She felt a strong power of protection lying all 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 XXIX

JACK

For many a minute she waited by that camp-fire, but there was never a sign of the builder of it, though she centered all her will in making her eyes and ears sharper to pierce through the darkness and to gather from the thousand obscure whispers of the forest any sounds of human origin. So she grew bold at length to take off the pack and the saddles; the camp was hers, built for her coming by the invisible power which surrounded her, which read her mind, it seemed, and chose beforehand the certain route which she must follow.

She resigned herself to that force without question, and the worry of her search disappeared. It seemed certain that this omnipotence, whatever it might be, was reading her wishes and acting with all its power to fulfill them, so that in the end it was merely a question of time before she should accomplish her mission—before she should meet Pierre le Rouge face to face.

That night her sleep was deep, indeed, and she only wakened when the slant light of the sun struck across her eyes. It was a bright day, crisp and chill, and through the clear air the mountains seemed leaning directly above her, and chief of all two peaks, almost exactly similar, black monsters which ruled the range. Toward the gorge between them the valley of the Old Crow aimed its course, and straight up that diminishing canon she rode all day.

The broad, sandy bottom changed and contracted until the channel was scarcely wide enough for the meager stream of water, and beside it she picked her way along a narrow bridle-path with banks on either side, which became with every mile more like cliffs, walling her in and dooming her to a single destination.

It was evening before she came to the headwaters of the Old Crow, and rode out into the gorge between the two mountains. The trail failed her here. There was no semblance of a ravine to follow, except the mighty gorge between the two peaks, and into the dark throat of this pass she ventured, like some maiden of medieval romance riding through a solemn gate with the guarding towers tall and black on either side.

The moment she was well started in it and the steep shadow of the evening fell across her almost like night from the west, her heart grew cold as the air of that lofty region. A sense of coming danger filled her, like a little child when it passes from a lighted room into one dark and still. Yet she kept on, holding a tight rein, throwing many a fearful glance at the vast rocks which might have concealed an entire army in every mile of their extent.

When she found the cabin she mistook it at first for merely another rock of singular shape. It was at this shape that she stared, and checked her horse, and not till then did she note the faint flicker of a light no brighter or more distinct than the phosphorescent glow of the eyes of a hunted beast.

All her impulse was to drive her spurs home and pass that place at a racing gallop, but she checked the impulse sharply and began to reason. In the first place, it was doubtless only the cabin of some prospector, such as she had often heard of. In the second place, night was almost upon her, and she saw no desirable camping-place, or at least any with the necessary water at hand.

What harm could come to her? Among Western men, she well knew a woman is safer than all the law and the police of the settled East can make her, so she nerved her courage and advanced toward the faint, changing light.

The cabin was hidden very cunningly. Crouched among the mighty boulders which earthquakes and storms of some wilder, earlier epoch had torn away from the side of the crags above, the house was like another stone, leaning its back to the mountain for support.

When she drew very close she knew that the light which glimmered at the window must come from an open fire, and the thought of a fire warmed her very heart. She hallooed, and receiving no answer, fastened the horses and entered the house. The door swung to behind her, as if of its own volition it wished to make her close prisoner.

The place consisted of one room, and not a spacious one at that, but arranged as a shelter, not a home. The cooking, apparently, was done over the open hearth, for there was no sign of any stove, and, moreover, on the wall near the fireplace hung several soot-blackened pans and the inevitable coffee-pot.

There were two bunks built on opposite sides of the room, and in the middle a table was made of a long section split from the heart of a log by wedges, apparently, and still rude and undressed, except for the preliminary smoothing off which had been done with a broad-ax.

The great plank was supported at either end by a roughly constructed saw-buck. It was very low, and for this reason two fairly square boulders of comfortable proportions were sufficiently high to serve as chairs.

For the rest, the furniture was almost too meager to suggest human habitation, but from nails on the wall there depended a few shirts and a pair of chaps, as well as a much-battered quirt. But a bucket of water in a corner suggested cleanliness, and a small, round, highly polished steel plate, hanging on the wall in lieu of a mirror, further fortified her decision that the owner of this place must be a man somewhat particular as to his appearance.

Here she interrupted her observations to build up the fire, which was flickering down and apparently on the verge of going out. She worked busily for a few minutes, and a roaring blaze rewarded her; she took off her slicker to enjoy the warmth, and in doing so, turned, and saw the owner of the place standing with folded arms just inside the door.

"Making yourself to home?" asked the host, in a low, strangely pleasant voice.

"Do you mind?" asked Mary Brown. "I couldn't find a place that would do for camping."

And she summoned her most winning smile. It was wasted, she knew at once, for the stranger hardened perceptibly, and his lip curled slightly in scorn or anger. In all her life Mary had never met a man so obdurate, and, moreover, she felt that he could not be wooed into a good humor.

"If you'd gone farther up the gorge," said the other, "you'd of found the best sort of a campin' 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 the slicker 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 along here just stick around."

For a moment Mary hesitated, knowing that only the unwritten law of Western hospitality compelled that speech; it was the crackle and flare of the bright fire which overcame her pride.

She laid off the slicker again, saying, with another smile: "For just a few minutes, if you don't mind."

"Sure," said the other gracelessly, and tossed his own slicker onto a bunk.

Covertly, but very earnestly, Mary was studying him. He was hardly more than a boy—handsome, slender.

Now that handsome face was under a cloud of gloom, a frown on the forehead and a sneer on the lips, but it was something more than the expression which repelled Mary. For she felt that no matter how she wooed him, she could never win the sympathy of this darkly handsome, cruel youth; he was aloof from her, and the distance between them could never be crossed. She knew at once that the mysterious bridges which link men with women broke down in this case, and she was strongly tempted to leave the cabin to the sole possession of her surly host.

It was the warmth of the fire which once more decided against her reason, so she laid hands on one of the blocks of stone to roll it nearer to the hearth. She could not budge it. Then she caught the sneering laughter of the man, and strove again in a fury. It was no use; for the stone merely rocked a little and settled back in its place with a bump.

"Here," said the boy, "I'll move it for you."

It was a hard lift for him, but he set his teeth, raised the stone in his slender hands, and set 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 of triumph, as though he gloried in his superior strength and despised her weakness.

Some conversation was absolutely necessary, for the silence began to weigh 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 of the flames, and rolled a cigarette, not deftly, but like one who is learning the mastery of the art. It surprised Mary, watching his fumbling fingers. She decided that Jack must be even younger than he looked.

She noticed also that the boy cast, from time to time, a sharp, rather worried glance of expectation toward the door, as if he feared it would open and disclose some important arrival. Furthermore, those old worn shirts hanging on the wall were much too large for the throat and shoulders of Jack.

Apparently, he lived there with some companion, and a companion of such a nature that he did not wish him to be seen by visitors. This explained the lad's coldness in receiving a guest; it also stimulated Mary to linger about a few more minutes.



CHAPTER XXX

THE WHISPER OF THE KNIFE

Not that she stayed there without a growing fear, but she still felt about her, like the protection of some invisible cloak, the presence of the strange guide who had followed her up the valley of the Old 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 feline pleasure to see that her curtness merely sharpened the interest of Jack.

The boy puffed on his cigarette, not with long, slow breaths of inhalation like a practised smoker, but with a puckered face as though he 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-point of her surly host. Being warmed, and having much to say, words came of themselves. Surely it would do no harm to tell the story to this queer urchin, who might be 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 the boy. "His name was Dick Wilbur."

She could not tell whether it was a tremble of the boy's hand or a short 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.

"H-m!" coughed the boy. "I thought he was one of old Boone's gang? If he'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 a start.

"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. Any one does. When he dies the whole range will know about it—damn quick. 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 the word.

"Certainly," repeated Mary. "I've only been in this part of the country for a short time. I really know almost nothing about the—the legends."

"Legends?" said the boy, and laughed with a voice of such rich, light music that it took the breath from Mary. "Legend? Say, lady, if Red Pierre 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, and no mistake."

Mary queried earnestly: "Tell me about Red Pierre. It's almost as hard to learn anything of him as it is to find out anything about McGurk."

"What you doing?" asked the boy, keen with suspicion. "Making a study of 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 in talk!"

"Is there any harm in words?"

The boy was so upset for some unknown reason that he rose and paced up and down the room in a nervous tremor.

"Lots of harm in fool words."

He sat down again, and seemed a little anxious to explain his unusual conduct.

"Ma'am, suppose you had a well plumb full of nitroglycerin in your back yard; suppose there was a forest fire comin' your way from all sides; would you like to have people talk about the nitroglycerin and that forest fire meeting? Even the talk would give you chills. That's the way it is with Pierre and McGurk. When they meet there's going to be a fight 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 a fool way of talkin'? Lady, they're coming every one's way. You never know where they'll start from or where they'll land. If there's a thunder-cloud all over the sky, do you know where the lightning's going to strike?"

"Excuse me,", said Mary, but she was still eager with curiosity, "but I should think that a youngster like you wouldn't have anything to fear from even those desperadoes."

"Youngster, eh?" snarled the boy, whose wrath seemed Implacable. "I can 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, "but at 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 widow because of Red Pierre. She didn't think him none too romantic."

"Red Pierre had killed the woman's husband?" repeated Mary, with pale lips.

"Yep. He was one of the gang that took a chance with Pierre and got bumped off. Had three bullets in him and dropped without getting his gun out of the leather. Pierre sure does a nice, artistic job. He serves you a murder with all the trimmings. If I wanted to die nice and polite without making a mess, I don't know who I'd rather go to than Red Pierre."

"A murderer!" mused Mary, with bowed head.

The boy opened his lips to speak, but changed his mind and sat regarding the girl with a somewhat sinister smile.

"But might it not be," said Mary, "that he killed one man in self-defense and then his destiny drove him, and bad luck forced him into one bad position after another? There have been histories as strange as that, you know."

Jack laughed again, but most of the music was gone from the sound, and it was simply a low, ominous purr.

"Sure," he said. "You can take a bear-cub and keep him tame till he gets the taste of blood, but after that you got to keep him muzzled, you know. Pierre needs a muzzle, but there ain't enough gun-fighters on the range to put one on him."

Something like pride crept into the boy's voice while he spoke, and he ended with a ringing tone. Then, feeling the curious, judicial eyes of Mary 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 up the Old Crow Valley, and Dick went off with the can to get water at the river. He was gone a long time, and when I went out to look for him 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. That was 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 by some 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—not much more sound than a whisper, but that whisper means a lot. I got an idea 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 up the 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 dumfounded.

"Then you admit—"

"That first night when I went to sleep I felt as if there were something near me. When I woke up there was a bright fire burning in front of me and the pack had been lashed and placed on one of the horses. At first I thought that it was Dick, who had come back. But Dick 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 say you'd been hitting up the red-eye."

"The next evening," continued Mary steadily, "I came about dark on a camp-fire with a bed of twigs near it. I stayed by the fire, but no one appeared. Once I thought I heard a horse whinny far away, and once I thought that I saw a streak of white disappear over the top of a 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 can gallop?"

"Something like that. Do you think it was some one?"

For answer the boy whipped out his revolver, examined it, and spun the cylinder with shaking hands. Then he said through set teeth: "So you come up here trailin' him after you, eh?"

"Who?"

"McGurk!"

The name came like a rifle shot and Mary rose in turn and shrank back toward the wall, for there was murder in the lighted black eyes which stared after her and crumbling fear in her own heart at the thought of McGurk hovering near,—of the peril that impended for Pierre. Of the nights 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 done for us all! Get out!"

Mary moved readily enough toward the door, her teeth chattering with terror in the face of this fury.

Jack continued wildly: "Done for us all; got us all as good as under the sod. I wish you was in— Get out quick, or I'll forget—you're a woman!"

He broke into a shrill, hysterical laughter, which stopped short and finished in a heart-broken whisper: "Pierre!"



CHAPTER XXXI

LAUGHTER

At that Mary, who stood with her hand on the latch, whirled and stood wide-eyed, her astonishment greater than her fear, for that whisper told her a thousand things.

Through her mind all the time that she stayed in the cabin there had passed a curious surmise that this very place might be the covert of Pierre le Rouge—he of the dark red hair and the keen blue eyes. There was a fatality about it, for the invisible Power which had led her up the valley of the Old Crow surely would not make mistakes.

In her search for Pierre, Providence brought her to this place, and Providence could not be wrong. This, a vague emotion stirring in her somewhere between reason and the heart, grew to an almost certain knowledge as she heard the whisper, the faint, heartbroken whisper: "Pierre!"

And when she turned to the boy again, noting the shirts and the chaps hanging at the wall, she knew they belonged to Pierre as surely as if she 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'll stay," she said, "and wait for Pierre."

The boy blanched.

"Stay?" he echoed.

The heart of Mary went out to this trusty companion who feared for his 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 you trust 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 her toward the door, as if the boy debated hotly and silently whether or not it would be better to put an end to this intruder, but stayed his hand, fearing that Power which had followed her up the valley of the Old Crow.

It was that same invisible guardian who made Mary strong now; it was like the hand of a friend on her shoulder, like the voice of a friend whispering reassuring words at her ear. She faced those blazing, black eyes 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 him sitting here now. You can't deceive me. And I'll stay. I'll even tell you why. Once he said that he loved me, Jack, but he left me because of a strange superstition; and so I've followed to tell him that I want 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 fools who listen to Red Pierre. Well, I know you; I've known you from the minute I seen you crouched there at the fire. You're the one Pierre met 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 her cheeks.

The lad fixed her with his cold scorn and then turned on his heel and slipped 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. It was as if she touched a wild wolf, for the lad whirled and struck her hand 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 to foot. Then he laughed in the same deliberate manner. It was to Mary as if her clothes had been torn from her body and she were exposed to the bold eyes of a crowd, like a slave put up for sale.

"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 her eyes said another thing.

"He thinks as much of you as he ever did. He thinks as much of you as he does of the rest of the soft-handed, pretty-faced fools who listen to him and believe him. I suppose——"

He broke off to laugh heartily again, with a jarring, forced note which escaped Mary.

"I suppose that he made love to you one minute and the next told you that bad luck—something about the cross—kept him away from you?"

Each slow word, like a blow of a fist, drove the girl quivering back. She closed her eyes to shut out the scorn of that handsome, boyish face; closed her eyes to summon out from the dark of her mind the picture of Pierre le Rouge as he had knelt before her and told her of his love; of Pierre le Rouge as he had lain beside her with the small, shining cross held high above his head, and waited for death to come over them both. She saw all this, and then she heard the voice of Pierre renouncing her.

She opened her eyes again. She cried:

"It is all a lie! If he is not true, there's no truth in the world."

"If you come down to that," said the boy coldly, "there ain't much wasted 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 wild man like Red Pierre? Run along; git out of here; grab your horse, and beat it back to civilization; there ain't no place for you up here in the 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 his murderous anger. He lay with blazing eyes, watching her for a moment, too moved to speak. At last he propped himself on one elbow, shook a small, white-knuckled fist under the nose of Mary, and cried: "Then what 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 lost among the crowds and never suspected of his past."

"You'd bring Pierre anywhere? Say, lady, that's like hearing the sheep talk about leading the wolf around by the nose. If all the men in the ranges can't catch him, or make him budge an inch out of the way he's picked, do you think you could stir him?"

Jeering laughter shook him; it seemed that he would never be done with his laughter, yet there was a hint of the hysterically mirthless in it. 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, he loves it! He loves the danger. D'you think a man that's used to breathing in a whirlwind can get used to living in calm air? It can'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-raced, whimpering fool," snarled the boy, gripping at his gun again, "d'you dream that you're the one that's picked out for Pierre? No, there's another!"

"Another? A woman who——"

"Who loves Pierre—a woman that's fit for him. She can ride like a man; she can shoot almost as straight and as fast as Pierre; she can handle a knife; and she's been through hell for Pierre, and she'll go through it again. She can ride the trail all day with him and finish it 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 a bank and slip through a town in the middle of the night and laugh with him about it afterward around a camp-fire. I ask you, is that the sort of a woman that's meant for Pierre?"

And the girl answered, with bowed head: "She is."

She cried instantly afterward, cutting short the look of wild triumph on the face of the boy: "But there's no such woman; there's no one who could 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, look at the woman!"

And she tore the wide-brimmed sombrero from her head. Down past the shoulders flooded a mass of blue-black hair. The firelight flickered and danced across the silken shimmer of it. It swept wildly past the waist, a glorious, night-dark tide in which the heart of a strong man could be tangled and lost. With quivering lips Jacqueline cried: "Look at me! Am I worthy of him?"

Short step by step Mary went back, staring with fascinated eyes as one who sees some devilish, midnight revelry, and shrinks away from it lest the sight should blast her. She covered her eyes with her hands but instantly strong grips fell on her wrists and her hands were jerked down from her face. She looked up into the eyes of a beautiful tigress.

"Answer me—your yellow hair against mine—your child fingers against my grip—are you equal with me?"

But the strength of Jacqueline faded and grew small; her arms fell to her side; she stepped back, with a rising pallor taking the place of the red. For Mary, brushing her hands, one gloved and one bare, before her eyes, returned the stare of the mountain girl with a calm and equal scorn. Her heart was breaking, but a mighty loathing filled up her veins in place of strength.

"Tell me," she said, "was—was this man living with you when he came to me and—and made speeches—about love?"

"Bah! He was living with me. I tell you, he came back and laughed with me about it, and told me about your baby-blue eyes when they filled with tears; laughed and laughed and laughed, I tell you, as I could laugh now."

The other twisted her hands together, moaning: "And I have followed him, even to the place where he keeps his—woman? Ah, how I hate myself; how I despise myself. I'm unclean—unclean in my own eyes!"

"Wait!" called Jacqueline. "You are leaving too soon. The night is cold."

"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 been here—that you came clear up the valley of the Old Crow to see him and beg him on your knees to love you—he'll be angry to have missed the scene!"

But the door closed on Mary as she fled with her hands pressed against her ears.



CHAPTER XXXII

A TALE OF A CARELESS MAN

Jacqueline ran to the door and threw it open.

"Ride down the valley!" she cried. "That's right. He's coming up, and he'll meet you on the way. He'll be glad—to see you!"

She saw the rider swing sharply about, and the clatter of the galloping hoofs died out up the valley; then she closed the door, dropped the latch, and, running to the middle of the room, threw up her arms and cried out, a wild, shrill yell of triumph like the call of the old Indian brave when he rises with the scalp of his murdered enemy dripping in his hand.

The extended arms she caught back to her breast, and stood there with head 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 the flushed, triumphant image. At length she started, like one awakening from a happy dream, and hurriedly coiled the thick, soft tresses about her head. Never before had she lingered so over a toilet, patting each lock into place, twisting her head from side to side like a peacock admiring its image.

Now she looked about hungrily for a touch of color and uttered a little moan of vexation when she saw nothing, till her eyes, piercing through the gloom of a dim corner, saw a spray of autumn leaves, long left there and still stained with beauty. She fastened them at the breast of her shirt, and so arrayed began to cook.

Never was there a merrier cook, not even some jolly French chef with a heart made warm with good red wine, for she sang as she worked, and whenever she had to cross the room it was with a dancing step. Spring was in her blood, warm spring that loosens the muscles about the heart and makes the eyes of girls dim and sets men smiling for no cause except that they are living, and rejoicing with the whole awakening world.

So it was with Jacqueline. Ever and anon as she leaned over the pans and stirred the fire she raised her head and remained a moment motionless, waiting for a sound, yearning to hear, and each time she had to look down again with a sigh.

As it was, he took her by surprise, for he entered with the soft foot of the hunted and remained an instant searching the room with a careful glance. Not that he suspected, not that he had not relaxed his guard and his vigilance the moment he caught sight of the flicker of light through the mass of great boulders, but the lifelong habit of watchfulness remained with him.

Even when he spoke face to face with a man, he never seemed to be giving more than half his attention, for might not some one else approach if he lost himself in order to listen to any one voice? He had covered half the length of the room with that soundless step before 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 he held the matter in abeyance for further consideration; a hunted man and a hunter must keep an eye for little things, must carry an armed hand and an armed heart even among friends. As for Jacqueline, her color had risen, and she leaned hurriedly over a pan in which meat was 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 his knee. She saw that he must receive more encouragement before he would tell, and she gave it, smiling to herself. Women are old in certain ways 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 hid another slow smile. Rising, she passed behind his chair, and pretended to busy herself with something near the wall. This was the environment and 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 a gesture 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 with a small stock of cattle. He wasn't a very good worker, and he didn't understand cattle any too well, so he didn't prosper for quite a while. Then his affairs took a sudden turn for the better; his herd began to increase. Nobody understood the reason, though a good many suspected, but one man fell onto the reason: our friend was simply running in a few doggies on the side, and he'd arranged a very ingenious way of changing the brands."

"Pierre—"

"Well?"

"What does 'ingenious' mean?"

"Why, I should say it means 'skilful, clever,' and it carries with it the 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 of reading 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 skilfully, and no one got the dope on him except 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 very rapidly. He sold just enough cattle to keep himself and his wife alive; he was bent on making one big haul, you see. So when his doggies got to the right age and condition for the market, he'd trade them off, one fat doggie for two or three skinny yearlings. But finally he had a really big herd together, and shipped it off to the market 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 many thousand—I won't say just how much. He sank part of it in a ruby brooch for his wife, and shoved the rest into a satchel.

"You see how careful he'd been all those years while he was piling up his fortune? Well, he began to get careless the moment he cashed in, which was rather odd. He depended on his fighting power to keep that money safe, but he forgot that while he'd been making a business of rustling doggies and watching cattle markets, other men had been making a business of shooting fast and straight.

"Among others there was the silent man who'd watched and waited for so long. But this silent man hove alongside while our rich friend was bound home in a buckboard.

"'Good evening!' he called.

"The rich chap turned and heard; it all seemed all right, but he'd done a good deal of shady business in his day, and that made him suspicious of the silent man now. So he reached for his gun and got it out 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 two bundles. One was twice the size of the other, and the silent man took the 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, you know. And he delivered a short lecture to the rich man on the subject of carelessness and rode away. The rich man picked up his gun with his left hand and opened fire, but he'd never learned to shoot very well with 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 the way," 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 XXXIII

A COUNT TO TEN

She merely stared, like a child which may either burst into tears or laughter, no one can prophesy which.

He explained, rather worried: "You see, you are a girl, Jack, and I remembered that you were pleased about those clothes that you wore to the dance in Crittenden Schoolhouse, and so when I saw that pin I—well—"

"Oh, Pierre!" said a stifled voice, "Oh, Pierre!"

"By Jove, Jack, aren't angry, are you? See, when you put it at the throat it 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 as she sobbed. If the heavens had opened and a cloudburst crashed on the roof 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 more distressed than ever. It was not the crying of a weak woman: these were heart-rending sounds, like the sobbing of a man who has never before 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-because you—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. It was then that he saw it, small and crumpled on the floor. He picked it up—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 she sprang up from the bunk, face suffused, and eyes timidly seeking his with upward glances.

"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 blue eye 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 perfectly why 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 found food for thought on the wall.

She ventured cautiously, after seeing that he was eating with appetite: "How does the pin look?"

"Why, fine."

And the silence began again.

She dared not question him in that mood, so she ventured again: "The old boy shooting left-handed—didn't he even fan the wind near you?"

"That was another bit of carelessness," said Pierre, but his smile held little of life. "He might have known that if he had shot close—by accident—I might have turned around and shot him dead—on purpose. But when a man stops thinking for a minute, he's apt to go on for a long time making a fool of himself."

"Right," she said, brightening as she felt the crisis pass away, "and that reminds me of a story about—"

"By the way, Jack, I'll wager there's a more interesting story than that 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, for she 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 end of the meal at the same time. She cleared away the pans with a few motions and tossed them clattering into a corner. Neat housekeeping was not numbered among the many virtues of Jacqueline.

"Now," said Pierre, 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 to-day. Took a little gallop down the trail, and on my way back I met a girl sitting in her saddle with her face in her hands, crying her heart out. Poor kid! 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 with another 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. Of course it was a pretty greenhorn trick, but I guess no harm will come of 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 to get back with her gang. That's all there is to it. Are you mad at me for letting any one come into this place?"

"Mad?" he smiled. "No, I think that's one of the best lies you ever told me, Jack."

Their eyes met, hers very wide, and his keen and steady. The she gripped at the butt of her gun, an habitual trick when she was very angry, 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 new deal. Get me?"

She rose, whirled, and threw herself sullenly on her bunk.

"Come back," said Pierre. "You're more scared than angry. Why are you afraid, 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 he said: "Ready to talk yet, partner?"

She maintained an obstinate silence, but that sharp eye saw that she was trembling. He set his teeth and then drew several long puffs on his cigarette.

"I'm going to count to ten, pal, and when I finish you're going to tell me everything straight. In the mean time don't stay there thinking up a new lie. I know you too well, and if you try the same thing on me 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 between numbers, there was not a change in the figure of the girl. She still lay with her back turned on him, and the only expressive part that showed was her hand. First it lay limp against her hip, but as the monotonous count proceeded it gathered to a fist.

"Five—six—seven—"

It seemed that he had been counting for hours, his will against her will, the man in him against the woman in her, and during the pauses between 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 doomed traitor when he stands facing the firing-squad, watching the glimmer of light go down the aimed rifles.

For she knew the face of the man who sat there counting; she knew how the firelight flared in the dark-red of his hair and made it seem like another fire beneath which the blue of the eyes was strangely cold and keen. Her hand had gathered to a hard-balled fist.

"Eight—nine—"

She sprang up, screaming: "No, no, Pierre!"

And threw out her arms to him.

"Ten."

She whispered: "It was the girl with yellow hair—Mary Brown."



CHAPTER XXXIV

TIGER-HEART

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 of ten sharp-eyed men, nine would have passed him by without noting the difference; but the girl knew him as the monk knows his prayers or the Arab his horse, and a solemn, deep despair came over her. She felt like the drowning, when the water closes over their heads for the last time.

He puffed twice again at the cigarette and then flicked the butt into the 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 very long, Pierre."

"Ah," he said, "I see! It was because she didn't dream that this was the place I lived in."

It was the sort of heartless, torturing questioning which was once the crudest weapon of the inquisition. With all her heart she fought to raise her voice above the whisper whose very sound accused her, but could not. She was condemned to that voice as the man bound in nightmare is condemned to walk slowly, slowly, though the terrible danger is racing toward him, and the safety which he must reach lies only 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, poor girl, 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 with the yellow hair. To begin with—she's rather pleasant to look at, don't you think?"

"I suppose she is."

"H-m! rather poor taste not to be sure of it. Well, let it go. You've always had rather queer taste in women, Jack; but, of course, being a long-rider, you haven't seen much of them. At least her name is delightful—Mary Brown! You've no idea how often I've repeated it aloud to myself and relished the sound—Mary Brown!"

"I hate her!"

"You two didn't have a very agreeable time of it? By the way, she must have 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-faced little fool like that? Is she your match? Is she your mate?"

He considered a moment, as though to make sure that he did not exaggerate.

"I love her, Jack, as men love water when they've ridden all day over hot sand without a drop on their lips—you know when the tongue gets thick and the mouth fills with cotton—and then you see clear, bright water, and taste it."

"She is like that to me. She feeds every sense; and when I look in her eyes, Jack, I feel like the starved man on the desert, as I was saying, drinking that priceless water. You knew something of the way I feel, Jack. Isn't it a little odd that you didn't keep her here?"

She had stood literally shuddering during this speech, and now she burst out, far beyond all control: "Because she loathes you; because she hates herself for ever having loved you; because she despises herself for having ridden up here after you. Does that fill your cup of water, Pierre, eh?"

His forehead was shining with sweat, but he set his teeth, and, after a moment, he was able to say in the same hard, calm voice: "I suppose there was no real reason for her change. She can be persuaded back to me in a moment. In that case just tell me where she has gone and I'll ride after her."

He made as if to rise, but she cried in a panic, and yet with a wild exultation: "No, she's done with you forever, and the more you make love to her now the more she'll hate you. Because she knows that when you kissed her before—when you kissed her—you were living with a woman."

"I—living with a woman?"

Her voice had risen out of the whisper for the outbreak. Now it sank back into it.

"Yes—with me!"

"With you? I see. Naturally it must have gone hard with her—Mary! And she wouldn't see reason even when you explained that you and I are like brothers?"

He leaned a little toward her and just a shade of emotion came in his voice.

"When you carefully explained, Jack, with all the eloquence you could command, that you and I have ridden and fought and camped together like brothers for six years? And how I gave you your first gun? And how I've stayed between you and danger a thousand times? And how I've never treated you otherwise than as a man? And how I've given you the love of a blood-brother to take the place of the brother who died? And how I've kept you in a clean and pure respect such as a man can only give once in his life—and then only to his dearest friend? She wouldn'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 so eloquently that with a little more persuasion from me she will know and understand. Come, I must be gone after her. Which way did she ride—up or down the valley?"

"You could talk to her forever and she'd never listen. Pierre, I told her that I was—your woman—that you'd told me of your scenes with her—and that we'd laughed at them together."

She covered her eyes and crouched, waiting for the wrath that would fall 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? I suppose because I wouldn't believe until I heard the whole abominable truth 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, selfish child. You were jealous because you didn't want the toy taken away. I knew 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 only the ghost of a chance, but I'll have to take it. Tell me which way she rode? No? Then I'll try to find her."

She leaped between him and the door, flinging her shoulders against it with 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, and just now it's a bit hard for me to face you."

"Pierre, I feel as if there were a hand squeezing my heart small, and small, 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 some one were to try to steal his horse, for instance. But just now it's hard for me to look at you and be calm."

"Don't try to be! Swear at me—curse—rave—beat me; I'd be glad of the blows, Pierre. I'd hold out my arms to 'em. But don't go out that 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 with Dick Wilbur for a guide."

"Good old Dick, God bless him! I'll fill all his pockets with gold for that; and he loves her, you know."

"You'll never see Dick Wilbur again. On the first night they camped she missed him when he went for water. She went down after a while and saw 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 some one had taken care of the fire while she slept, and her pack was lashed on one of the saddles. She rode on that day and came at night to a camp-fire with a bed of boughs near it and no one in sight. She took that camp for herself and no one showed up.

"Don't you see? Some one was following her up the valley and taking care of the poor baby on the way. Some one who was afraid to let himself be seen. Perhaps it was the man who killed Dick Wilbur without a sound there beside the river; perhaps as Dick died he told the man who killed him about the lonely girl and this other man was white enough to help Mary.

"But all Mary ever saw of him was that second night when she thought that she saw a streak of white, traveling like a galloping horse, that disappeared 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 be going out to him when she left this house?"

"I knew—Pierre—don't look at me like that—I knew that it would be murder to let you cross with McGurk. You're the last of seven—he's a devil—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 him with the luck of the cross it would bring equal bad luck on some one you love—on the girl, Pierre!"

He was merely repeating stupidly: "You let her go out—to him—in the night! She's in his arms now—you devil—you tiger—"

She threw herself down and clung about his knees with hysterical strength.

"Pierre, you shall not go. Pierre, you walk on my heart if you go!"

He tore the little cross from his neck and flung it into her upturned face.

"Don't make me put my hands on you, Jack. Let me go!"

There was no need to tear her grasp away. She crumpled and slipped sidewise to the floor. 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 they rode that way."

And as she lay in a half swoon she heard the faint clatter of galloping hoofs over the rooks and a wild voice yelling, fainter and fainter with distance:

"McGurk!"



CHAPTER XXXV

JACK HEARS A SMALL VOICE

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 Rouge discovered that there was no camp-fire to be sighted in the lower valley and whirled to storm back up the canon with that battle-cry: "McGurk!" still on his lips.

And if the two met she knew the result. Seven strong men had ridden together, fought together, and one by one they had fallen, disappeared like the white smoke of the camp-fire, jerked off into thin air by the wind, until only one remained.

How clearly she could see them all! Bud Mansie, meager, lean, with a shifting eye; Garry Patterson, of the red, good-natured face; Phil Branch, stolid and short and muscled like a giant; Handsome Dick Wilbur on his racing bay; Black Gandil, with his villainies from the South 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 follow in the steps of the six who had gone before.

She crawled to the door, feeble in mind and shuddering of body like a runner 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 back to her, no calling from Pierre; and over her rose the black pyramid of the western peak of the Twin Bears like a monstrous nose pointing stiffly toward the stars.

She closed the door, dragged herself back to her feet, and stood with her shoulders leaning against the wall. Her weakness was not weariness—it was as if something had been taken from her. She wondered at herself somewhat vaguely. Surely she had never been like this before, with the singular coldness about her heart and the feeling of loss, of infinite loss.

What had she lost? She began to search her mind for an answer. Then she smiled uncertainly, a wan, small smile. It was very clear; what she had lost was all interest in life and all hope for the brave to-morrow. Nothing remained of all those lovely dreams which she had built up by day and night about the figure of Pierre le Rouge. He was gone, and the bright-colored bubble she had blown vanished at once.

She felt a slight pain at her forehead and then remembered the cross which Pierre had thrown into her face. Casting that away he had thrown his faintest chance of victory with it; it would be a slaughter, not a battle, and red-handed McGurk would leave one more foe behind him.

But looking down she found the cross and picked up the shining bit of metal; it seemed as if she held the greater part of Pierre le Rouge in her hands. She raised the cross to her lips.

When she fastened the cross about her throat it was with no exultation, but like one who places over his heart a last memorial of the dead; a consecration, like the red sign or the white which the crusaders wore on the covers of their shields.

Then she took from her breast the spray of autumn leaves. He had not noticed them, yet perhaps they had helped to make him gay when he came 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 eye linger over them for a moment. They were chosen stones, each as deeply lighted as an eye, if there ever were eyes of this blood-red, and they looked up at her with a lure and a challenge at once.

The first thought of what she must do came to Jacqueline then, but not in an overwhelming tide—it was rather a small voice that whispered in her 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, when she tried it, it slipped easily on her hand. This she laid in that little pile, for these were the things which Pierre would wish to find if by some miracle he came back from the battle. The spray, perhaps, he would not understand; and yet he might. She pressed both hands to her breast and drew a long breath, for her heart was breaking. Through her misted eyes she could barely see the shimmer of the cross.

That sight made her look up, searching for a superhuman aid in her woe, and for the first time in her life a conception of God dawned on her wild, gay mind. She made a picture of him like a vast cloud looming over the Twin Bear peaks and breathing an infinite calm over the mountains. The cloud took a faintly human shape—a shape somewhat like that of her father when he lived, for he could be both stern and gentle, as she well knew, and such gray Boone had been.

Perhaps it was because of this that another picture came out of her infancy of a soft voice, of a tender-touching hand, of brooding, infinitely loving eyes. She smiled the wan smile again because for the first time it came to her that she, too, even she, the wild, the "tiger-heart," as Pierre himself had called her, might one day have been the mother of a child, his child.

But the ache within her grew so keen that she dropped, writhing, to her knees, and twisted her hands together in agony. It was prayer. There were no words to it, but it was prayer, a wild appeal for aid.

That aid came in the form of a calm that swept on her like the flood of a clear moonlight over a storm-beaten landscape. The whisper which had come to her before was now a solemn-speaking voice, and she knew what she must do. She could not keep the two men apart, but she might reach McGurk before and strike him down by stealth, by craft, any way to kill that man as terrible as a devil, as invulnerable as a ghost.

This she might do in the heart of the night, and afterward she might have the courage left to tell the girl the truth and then creep off somewhere and let this steady pain burn its way out of her heart.

Once she had reached a decision, it was characteristic that she moved swiftly. Also, there was cause for haste, for by this time Pierre must have discovered that there was no one in the lower reaches of the gorge and would be galloping back with all the speed of the cream-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 the horses 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 at full speed, a breathless course, because the beat of the wind in her face raised her courage, gave her a certain impulse which was almost happiness, just as the martyrs rejoiced and held out their hands to the fire that was to consume them; but after the first burst of headlong galloping, she drew down the speed to a hand-canter, and this in turn to a fast trot, for she dared not risk the far-echoed sound of the clattering hoofs over the rock.

And as she rode she saw at last the winking eye of red which she longed for and dreaded. She pulled her black to an instant halt and swung from the saddle, tossing the reins over the head of the horse to keep him standing there.

Yet, after she had made half a dozen hurried paces something forced her to turn and look again at the handsome head of the horse. He stood quite motionless, with his ears pricking after her, and now as she stopped he whinnied softly, hardly louder than the whisper of a man. So she ran back again and threw the reins over the horn of the saddle; he should be free to wander where he chose through the free mountains, but as for her, she knew very certainly now that she would never mount that saddle again, or control that triumphant steed with the touch of her hands on the reins. She put her arms around his neck and drew his head down close.

There was a dignity in that parting, for it was the burning of her bridges behind her. When "King-Maker" Richard of Warwick, betrayed and beaten on the field, came to his last stand by the forest, he dismounted and stabbed his favorite charger. Very different was this wild mountain girl from the armored earl who put kings up and pulled them down again at pleasure, but her heart swelled as great as the heart of famous Warwick; he gave up a kingdom, and she gave up her love.

When she drew back the horse followed her a pace, but she raised a silent hand in the night and halted him; a moment later she was lost among the boulders.

It was rather slow work to stalk that camp-fire, for the big boulders cut off the sight of the red eye time and again, and she had to make little, cautious detours before she found it again, but she kept steadily at her work. Once she stopped, her blood running cold, for she thought that she heard a faint voice blown up the canon on the wind: "McGurk!"

For half a minute she stood frozen, listening, but the sound was not repeated, and she went on again with greater haste. So she came at last in view of a hollow in the side of the gorge. Here there were a few trees, growing in the cove, and here, she knew, there was a small spring of clear water. Many a time she had made a cup of her hands and drunk here.

Now she made out the fire clearly, the trees throwing out great spokes of shadow on all sides, spokes of shadows that wavered and shook with the flare of the small fire beyond them. She dropped to her hands and knees and, parting the dense underbrush, began the last stealthy approach.



CHAPTER XXXVI

A VOICE IN THE NIGHT

Up the same course which Jacqueline followed, Mary Brown had fled earlier that night with the triumphant laughter of Jack still ringing in her ears and following her like a remorseless, pointed hand of shame.

There is no power like shame to disarm the spirit. A dog will fight if a man laughs at him; a coward will challenge the devil himself if he is whipped on by scorn; and this proud girl shrank and moaned on the saddle. She had not progressed far enough to hate Pierre. That would come later, but now all her heart had room for was a consuming loathing of herself.

Some of that torture went into the spurs with which she punished the side of the bay, and the tall horse responded with a high-tossed head and a burst of whirlwind speed. The result was finally a stumble over a loose rock that almost flung Mary over the pommel of the saddle and forced her to draw rein.

Having slowed the pace she became aware that she was very tired from the trip of the day, and utterly exhausted by the wild scene with Jacqueline, so that she began to look about for a place where she could stop for even an hour or so and rest her aching body.

Thought of McGurk sent her hand trembling to her holster. Still she knew 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 to track down Pierre?

It was at this time that she heard the purl and whisper of running water, a sound dear to the hearts of all travelers. She veered to the left and found the little grove of trees with a thick shrubbery growing between, fed by the water of that diminutive brook. She dismounted and tethered the horses.

By this time she had seen enough of camping out to know how to make herself fairly comfortable, and she set about it methodically, eagerly. It was something to occupy her mind and keep out a little of that burning sense of shame. One picture it could not obliterate, and that was the scene of Jacqueline and Pierre le Rouge laughing together over the love affair with the silly girl of the yellow hair.

That was the meaning, then, of those silences that had come between them? He had been thinking, remembering, careful lest he should forget a 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 that she 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 long when the tall bay, Wilbur's horse, stiffened, raised his head, arched his tail, and then whinnied.

She started to her feet, stirred by a thousand fears, and heard, far away, an answering neigh. At once all thought of shame and of Pierre le Rouge vanished from her mind, for she remembered the man who had followed her up the valley of the Old Crow. Perhaps he was coming now out of the night; perhaps she would even see him.

And the excitement grew in her pulse by pulse, as the excitement grows in a man waiting for a friend at a station; he sees first the faint smoke like a cloud on the skyline, and then a black speck beneath the smoke, and next the engine draws up on him with a humming of the rails which grows at length to a thunder.

All the while his heart beats faster and faster and rocks with the sway of the approaching engine; so the heart of Mary Brown beat, though she could not see, but only felt the coming of the stranger.

The only sign she saw was in the horses, which showed an increasing uneasiness. Her own mare now shared the restlessness of the tall bay, and the two were footing it nervously here and there, tugging at the tethers, and tossing up their heads, with many a start, as if they feared and sought to flee from some approaching catastrophe—some vast and preternatural change—some forest fire which came galloping faster than even their fleet limbs could carry them.

Yet all beyond the pale of her campfire's light was silence, utter and complete silence. It seemed as if a veritable muscular energy went into the intensity of her listening, but not a sound reached her except a faint whispering of the wind in the dark trees above her.

But at last she knew that the thing was upon her. The horses ceased their prancing and stared in a fixed direction through the thicket of shrubbery; the very wind grew hushed above her; she could feel the new presence as one feels the silence when a door closes and shuts away the sound of the street below.

It came on her with a shock, thrilling, terrible, yet not altogether unpleasant. She rose, her hands clenched at her sides and the great blue eyes abnormally wide as they stared in the same direction as the eyes of the two horses held. Yet for all her preparation she nearly fainted and a blackness came across her mind when a voice sounded directly behind her, a pleasantly modulated voice: "Look this way. I am here, in front of the fire."

She turned about and the two horses, quivering, whirled toward that sound.

She stepped back, back until the embers of the fire lay between her and that side of the little clearing. In spite of herself the exclamation 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 her from the dark.

"I cannot let you do that. If that had been possible I should have come to you before."

"But I feel—I feel almost, as if you are a ghost and no man of flesh and blood."

"It is better for you to feel that way about it," said the voice solemnly, "than to know me."

"At least, tell me why you have followed me, why you have cared for me."

"You will hate me if I tell you, and fear me."

"No, whatever you are, trust me. Tell me at least what came to Dick Wilbur?"

"That's easy enough. I met him at the river, a little by surprise, and caught him before he could even shout. Then I took his guns and let him go."

"But he didn't come back to me?"

"No. He knew that I would be there. I might have finished him without giving him a chance to speak, girl, but I'd seen him with you and I was curious. So I found out where you were going and why, and let Wilbur 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 as I saw you then. You were very beautiful with the shadow of the lashes against your cheek—almost as beautiful as you are now as you stand over there, fearing and loathing me. I dared not let you see me, but I decided 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'll follow you."

"It would be useless—utterly useless. There are ways of becoming invisible in the mountains. But before I go, tell me one thing: Have you 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: "Did Wilbur 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 ever condescending to follow him."

She heard a quick breath drawn in the dark, and then a murmur; "I am free, then, to hunt him down!"

"Why?"

"Listen: I had given him up for your sake; I gave him up when I stood beside you that first night and watched you trembling with the cold in your 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 years and met them all in time, but never one like him. Listen: six years ago I met him first and then he wounded me—the first time any man has touched me. And afterward I was afraid, Mary, for the first time in my life, for the charm was broken. For six years I could not return, but now 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 XXXVII

A MAN'S DEATH

"Give up the trail of Pierre."

And there, brought face to face with the mortal question, even her fear burned low in her, and once more she remembered the youth who would not leave her in the snow, but held her in his arms with the strange cross above them.

She said simply: "I still love him."

A faint glimmer came to her through the dark and she could see deeper into the shrubbery, for now the moon stood up on the top of the great peak above them and flung a faint radiance into the hollow. That glimmer she saw, but no face of a man.

And then the silence held; every second of it was more than a hundred spoken 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 was coming merely to see you once—for the last time. But after I saw you I 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 take those white hands—mine are so red. All I can do is to lurk about you like a shadow—a shadow with a sting that strikes down all other men who come near you."

She said: "For all men have told me about you, I know you could not do that."

"Mary, I tell you there are things about me, and possibilities, about which I don't dare to question myself."

"You have guarded me like a brother. Be one to me still; I have never needed one so deeply!"

"A brother? Mary, if your eyes were less blue or your hair less golden I 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 head loomed beside the dim form. It was the head of a horse, with pricking ears, which now nosed the shoulder of its master, and she saw the firelight glimmering in the great eyes.

"Your horse," she said in a trembling voice, "loves you and trusts you."

"It is the only thing which has not feared me. When it was a colt it came out of the herd and nosed my hand. It is the only thing which has not 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 seemed to Mary that she caught the sound of a voice blown to whistling murmur. It was a vague thing of which she could not be sure, as faint as a thought. Yet the head of the white horse disappeared, and the glimmer 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 the dark 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. All the 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 me forget—"

The gesture which finished the sentence was so eloquent of hate that Mary 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 loved anything but you, you milk-faced, yellow-livered—"

She stopped again, fighting against her passion.

The pride of Mary held 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 always seemed to me that God meant Pierre for me. It always seemed to me that a 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 felt different; but the way it is, he's always treated me like a kid brother—"

"And lived with you?" said the other sternly.

"Like two men! D'you understand how a woman could be the bunky of a man 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 the vague sound blew up to them upon the wind. Mary ran to her and grasped both of her hands in her own.

"If it's true—"

But Jack snatched her hands away and looked on the other with a mighty hatred and a mightier contempt.

"True? Why, it damn near finishes Pierre with me to think he'd take up with—a thing like you. But it's true. If somebody else had told me I'd of laughed at 'em. But it's true. Tell me: what'll you do with him?"

"Take him back—if I can reach him—take him back to the East and to God's country."

"Yes—maybe he'd be happy there. But when the spring comes to the city, Mary, wait till the wind blows in the night and the rain comes tappin' on the roof. Then hold him if you can. D'ye hear? Hold him if 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 the moan 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 the sound and the echo preserved it: "McGurk!"

"McGurk!" repeated Mary.

"Yes! And you brought him up here with you, and brought his death to Pierre. 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 XXXVIII

THE WAITING

After that call first reached him, clear to his ears though vague as a murmur at the ear of Mary, McGurk swung to the saddle of his white horse, 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 to one that he would miss Pierre in the throat of the gorge, for among the great boulders, tall as houses, which littered it, a thousand men might have passed and repassed and never seen each other. Only the calling of Pierre could guide him surely.

The calling had ceased for some moments, and he began to fear that he had 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 very ears: "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 cavalier stopping in the middle of the battle to exchange greetings with a friendly foe.

The other rider whirled alongside, his sombrero's brim flaring back from his forehead, so that McGurk caught the glare of the eyes beneath the 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 work messy. 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 my fill 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 Old Crow."

"It will be easier to forget her. Are you ready?"

"So soon? Come, man, there's much for us to say. Many old times to chat over."

"I only wonder," said Pierre, "how one death can pay back what you've done. Think of it! I've actually run away from you and hidden myself away among the hills. I've feared you, McGurk!"

He said it with a deep astonishment, as a grown man will speak of the way he feared darkness when he was a child. McGurk moistened his white lips. The white horse pawed the rocks as though impatient to be gone.

"Listen," said Pierre, "your horse grows restive. Suppose we stand here—it's a convenient distance apart, you see, and wait with our arms folded for the next time the white horse paws the rocks, because when I kill you, McGurk, I want you to die knowing that another man was faster on the 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 been asking the other to pass first through the door of a dining-room. The wonder of McGurk grew and the sweat on his forehead seemed to be spreading a chill through his entire body.

He said: "I see. You trust all to the cross, eh, Pierre? The little cross under your neck?"

"The cross is gone," said Pierre le Rouge. "Why should I use it against a night 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 so eagerly a moment before was now unusually quiet. The very postures of the men seemed to have frozen him to stone, a beautiful, marble statue, with the moonlight glistening on the muscles of his perfect shoulders.

At length he stirred. At once a quiver jerked through the tense bodies of the waiting men, but the white horse had merely stiffened and raised his head high. Now, with arched neck and flaunting tail he neighed loudly, as if he asked a question. How could he know, dumb brute, that what he asked only death could answer?

And as they waited an itching came at the palm of McGurk's hand. It was not much, just a tingle of the blood. To ease it, he closed his fingers and found that his hand was moist with cold perspiration.

He began to wonder if his fingers would be slippery on the butt of the gun. Then he tried covertly to dry them against his shirt. But he ceased this again, knowing that he must be of hair-trigger alertness to watch for the stamp of the white horse.

It occurred to him, also, that he was standing on a loose stone which might wabble when he pulled his gun, and he cursed himself silently for his hasty folly. Pierre, doubtless, had noticed that stone, and therefore he had made the suggestion that they stand where they were. Otherwise, how could there be that singular calm in the steady eyes which looked across at him?

Also, how explain the hunger of that stare? Was not he McGurk, and was not this a man whom he had already once shot down? God, what a fool he had been not to linger an instant longer in that saloon in the old days and place the final shot in the prostrate body! In all his life he had made only one such mistake, and now that folly was pursuing him. And now—

The foot of the white horse lifted—struck the rock. The sound of its fall was lost in the explosion of two guns, and a ring of metal on metal. The revolver snapped from the hand of McGurk, whirled in a flashing circle, and clanged on the rocks at his feet. The bullet of Pierre had struck the barrel and knocked it cleanly from his hand.