finest fellowship that ever mocked at law on the ranges. Oh, Jack, the heart in me's broken. I wish to God that I lay where Gandil lies. What's the use of fighting any longer? No man can stand up against McGurk!”
And the cold which had come in the blood of Pierre agreed with him. He was a slayer of men, but McGurk was a devil incarnate. His father had died at the hand of this lone rider; it was fitting, it was fate that he himself should die in the same way. The girl looked from face to face, and sensed their despondency. It seemed that their fear gave her the greater courage. Her face flushed as she stood glaring her scorn.
“The yellow streak took a long time in showin', but it's in you, all right, Pierre le Rouge.”
“You've hated me ever since the dance, Jack. Why?”
“Because I knew you were yellow—like this!”
He shrugged his shoulders like one who gives up the fight against a woman, and seeing it, she changed suddenly and made a gesture with both hands toward him, a sudden gesture filled with grace and a queer tenderness.
She said: “Pierre, have you forgotten that when you were only a boy you stood up to McGurk and drew blood from him? Are you afraid of him now?”
“I'll take my chance with any man—but McGurk—”
“He has no cross to bring him luck.”
“Aye, and he has no friends for that luck to ruin. Look at Gandil, Jack, and then speak to me of the cross.”
“Pierre, that first time you met you almost beat him to the draw. Oh, if I were a man, I'd—Pierre, it was to get McGurk that you rode out to the range. You've been here six years, and McGurk is still alive, and now you're ready to run from his shadow.”
“Run?” he said hotly. “I swear to God that as I stand here I've no fear of death and no hope for the life ahead.”
She sneered: “You're white while you say it. Your will may be brave, but your blood's a coward, Pierre. It deserts you.”
“Jack, you devil—”
“Aye, you can threaten me safely. But if McGurk were here—”
“Let him come.”
“Then give me one promise.”
“A thousand of 'em.”
“Let me hunt him with you.”
He stared at her with wonder.
“Jack, what a heart you have! If you were a man we could rule the mountains, you and I.”
“Even as I am, what prevents us, Pierre?”
And looking at her he forgot the sorrow which had been his ever since he looked up to the face framed with red-gold hair and the dark tree behind and the cold stars steady above it. It would come to him again, but now it was gone, and he murmured, smiling: “I wonder?”
They made their plans that night, sitting all three together. It was better to go out and hunt the hunter than to wait there and be tracked down. Jack, for she insisted on it, would ride out with Pierre the next morning and hunt through the hills for the hiding-place of McGurk.
Some covert he must have, so as to be near his victims. Nothing else could explain the ease with which he kept on their track. They would take the trail, and Jim Boone, no longer agile enough to be effective on the trail, would guard the house and the body of Gandil in it.
There was little danger that even McGurk would try to rush a hostile house, but they took no chances. The guns of Jim Boone were given a thorough overhauling, and he wore as usual at his belt the heavy-handled hunting knife, a deadly weapon in a hand-to-hand fight. Thus equipped, they left him and took the trail.
They had not ridden a hundred yards when a whistle followed them, the familiar whistle of the gang. They reined short and saw big Dick Wilbur riding his bay after them, but at some distance he halted and shouted: “Pierre!”
“He's come back to us!” cried Jack.
“No. It's only some message.”
“Do you know?”
“Yes. Stay here. This is for me alone.”
And he rode back to Wilbur, who swung his horse close alongside. However hard he had followed in the pursuit of happiness, his face was drawn with lines of age and his eyes circled with shadows.
He said: “I've kept close on her trail, Pierre, and the nearest she has come to kindness has been to send me back with a message to you.”
He laughed without mirth, and the sound stopped abruptly.
“This is the message in her own words: 'I love him, Dick, and there's nothing in the world for me without him. Bring him back to me. I don't care how; but bring him back.' So tell Jack to ride the trail alone today and go back with me. I give her up, not freely, but because I know there's no hope for me.”
But Pierre answered: “Wherever I've gone there's been luck for me and hell for everyone around me. I lived with a priest, Dick, and left him when I was nearly old enough to begin repaying his care. I came South and found a father and lost him the same day. I gambled for money with which to bury him, and a man died that night and
