My heart is filled like a miser's hands
With the red-gold of her hair.
The sky I ride beneath all day
Is the blue of her dear eyes;
The only heaven I desire
Is the blue of her dear eyes.”
And here Dick Wilbur rode about the shoulder of a hill, broke off his song at the sight of Pierre le Rouge, and shouted a welcome. They came together and continued their journey side by side. The half-dozen years had hardly altered the blond, handsome face of Wilbur, and now, with the gladness of his singing still flushing his face, he seemed hardly more than a boy—younger, in fact, than Red Pierre, into whose eyes there came now and then a grave sternness.
“After hearing that song,” said Pierre smiling, “I feel as if I'd listened to a portrait.” “Right!” said Wilbur, with unabated enthusiasm. “It's the bare and unadorned truth, Prince Pierre. My fine Galahad, if you came within eye- shot of her there'd be a small-sized hell raised.”
“No. I'm immune there, you know.”
“Nonsense. The beauty of a really lovely woman is like a fine perfume. It strikes right to a man's heart; there's no possibility of resistance. I know. You, Pierre, act like a man already in love or a boy who has never known a woman. Which is it, Pierre?”
The other made a familiar gesture with those who knew him, a touching of his left hand against his throat where the cross lay.
He said: “I suppose it seems like that to you.”
“Like what? Dodging me, eh? Well, I never press the point, but I'd give the worth of your horse, Pierre, to see you and Mary together.”
Red Pierre started, and then frowned.
“Irritates you a little, eh? Well, a woman is like a spur to most men.”
He added, with a momentary gloom: “God knows, I bear the marks of 'em.”
He raised his head, as if he looked up in response to his thought.
“But there's a difference with this girl. I've named the quality of her before—it disarms a man.”
Pierre looked to his friend with some alarm, for there was a saying among the followers of Boone that a woman would be the downfall of big Dick Wilbur again, as a woman had been his downfall before. The difference would be that this fall must be his last.
And Wilbur went on: “She's Eastern, Pierre, and out here visiting the daughter of old Barnes who owns about a thousand miles of range, you know. How long will she be here? That's the question I'm trying to answer for her. I met her riding over the hills—she was galloping along a ridge, and she rode her way right into my heart. Well, I'm a fool, of course, but about this girl I can't be wrong. Tonight I'm taking her to a masquerade.”
He pulled his horse to a full stop.
“Pierre, you have to come with me.”
CHAPTER 16
Pierre stared at his companion with almost open-mouthed astonishment.
“I? A dance?”
And then his head tilted back and he laughed.
“My good times, Dick, come out of the hills and the skyline, and the gallop of Mary. But as for women, they bore me, Dick.”
“Even Jack?”
“She's more man than woman.”
It was the turn of Wilbur to laugh, and he responded uproariously until Pierre frowned and flushed a little.
“When I see you out here on your horse with your rifle in the boot and your six-gun swinging low in the scabbard, and riding the fastest bit of horseflesh on the ranges,” explained Wilbur, “I get to thinking that you're pretty much king of the mountains; but in certain respects, Pierre, you're a child.”
Pierre stirred uneasily in his saddle. A man must be well over thirty before he can withstand ridicule.
He said dryly: “I've an idea that I know Jack's about as well as the next man.” “Let it drop,” said Wilbur, sober again, for he shared with all of Boone's crew a deep-rooted unwillingness to press Red Pierre beyond a certain point. “The one subject I won't quarrel about is Jack, God bless her.”
“She's the best pal,” said Pierre soberly, “and the nearest to a man I've ever met.”
“Nearest to a man?” queried Wilbur, and smiled, but so furtively that even the sharp eye of Red Pierre did not perceive the mockery. He went on: “But the dance, what of that? It's a masquerade. There'd be no fear of being recognized.”
Pierre was silent a moment more. Then he said: “This girl—what did you call her?”
“Mary.”
“And about her hair—I think you said it was black?”
