I've lost my boy, Hal.”
“Too bad, Jim. I knew Hal; at a distance, of course.”
“And Pierre is filling Hal's place in the family.”
“Is that your answer?”
“McGurk, are you going to pin me down in this?”
And here Jack whirled and cried: “Dad, you won't let Pierre go!”
“You see?” pleaded Boone.
It was uncanny and horrible to see the giant so unnerved before this stranger, but that part of it did not come to Pierre until later. Now he felt a peculiar emptiness of stomach and a certain jumping chill that traveled up and down his spine. Moreover, he could not move his eyes from the face of McGurk, and he knew at length that this was fear—the first real fear that he had ever known.
Shame made him hot, but fear made him cold again. He knew that if he rose his knees would buckle under him; that if he drew out his revolver it would slip from his palsied fingers. For the fear of death is a mighty fear, but it is nothing compared with the fear of man.
“I've asked you a question,” said McGurk. “What's your answer?”
There was a quiver in the black forest of Boone's beard, and if Pierre was cold before, he was sick at heart to see the big man cringe before McGurk.
He stammered: “Give me time.”
“Good,” said McGurk. “I'm afraid I know what your answer would be now, but if you take a couple of days you will think things over and come to a reasonable conclusion. I will be at Gaffney's place about fifteen miles from here. You know it? Send your answer there. In the meantime”—he stepped forward to the table and poured a small drink of whisky into a glass and raised it high—“here's to the long health and happiness of us all. Drink!”
There was a hasty pouring of liquor.
“And you also!”
Pierre jumped as if he had been struck, and obeyed the order hastily.
“So,” said the master, pleasant again, and Pierre wiped his forehead furtively and stared up with fascinated eyes. “An unwilling pledge is better than none at all. To you, gentlemen, much happiness; to you, Pierre le Rouge, bon voyage.”
They drank; the master placed his glass on the table again, smiled upon them, and was gone through the door. He turned his back in leaving. There was no fitter way in which he could have expressed his contempt.
CHAPTER 14
The mirth died and in its place came a long silence. Jim Boone stared upon Pierre with miserable eyes, and then rose and left the room. The others one by one followed his example. Dick Wilbur in passing dropped his hand on Pierre's shoulder. Jacqueline was silent.
As he sat there minute after minute and then hour after hour of the long night Pierre saw the meaning of it. If they sent word that they would not give up Pierre it was war, and war with McGurk had only one ending. If they sent word that Pierre was surrendered the shame would never leave Boone and his men.
Whatever they did there was ruin for them in the end. All this Pierre conned slowly in his mind, until he was cold. Then he looked up and saw that the lamp had burned out and that the wood in the fireplace was consumed to a few red embers.
He replenished the fire, and when the yellow flames began to mount he made his resolution and walked slowly up and down the floor with it. For he knew that he must go to meet McGurk.
The very thought of the man sent the old chill through his blood, yet he must go and face him and end the thing.
It came over him with a pang that he was very young; that life was barely a taste in his mouth, whether bitter or sweet he could not tell. He picked a flaming stick from the fire and went before a little round mirror on the wall.
Back at him stared the face of a boy. He had seen so much of the grim six in the last day that the contrast startled him. They were men, hardened to life and filled with knowledge of it. They were books written full. But he? He was a blank page with a scribbled word here and there. Nevertheless, he was chosen and he must go.
Having reached that decision he closed his mind on what would happen. There was a vague fear that when he faced McGurk he would be frozen with fear; that his spirit would be broken and he would become a thing too despicable for a man to kill.
One thing was certain: if he was to act a man's part and die a man's death he must not stand long before McGurk. It seemed to him then that he would die happy if he had the strength to fire one shot before the end.
Then he tiptoed from the house and went over the snow to the barn and saddled the horse of Hal Boone. It was already morning, and as he led the horse to the door of the barn a shadow, a faint shadow in that early light, fell across the snow before him.
He looked up and saw Jacqueline. She stepped close, and the horse nosed her shoulder affectionately.
She said: “Isn't there anything that will keep you from going?”
“It's just a little ride before breakfast. I'll be back in an hour.”
It was foolish to try to blind her, as he saw by her wan, unchildish smile.
“Is there no other way, Pierre?”
“I don't know of any, do you?”
