University of California Berkeley
THE PETER AND ROSELL HARVEY
MEMORIAL FUND
4
iw '
RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
Each one of them should have ridden* alone to be properly appreciated.
To see them together was like watching a flock of eagles.
RIDERS OF THE
SILENCES
BY
JOHN FREDERICK
ILLUSTRATED BY
PRANK TENNEY JOHNSON
If
New York
THE H. K. FLY COMPANY
Sheridan Square
COPYRIGHT, I Q20, BY
THE H. K. FLY CCMPA.sY
COPYRIGHT, IQ20,
THE MUNSEY CO.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. The Thunderbolt ..... 9
II. Irene 19
III. The Launching of The Bolt 26
IV. The Corner Plot 34
V. Hurley 42
VI. Fear 50
VII. The Voice in The Storm . . 57
VIII. Belief 63
IX. Riders of The Silences ... 72
X. The Guard 79
XI. Jack Grows Up 89
XII. The Burial 98
XIII. A Tale of The Sledge ... 105
XIV. McGurk 113
XV. Gold Hair 120
XVI. Ennui 127
XVII. Black Gandil 134
XVIII. Five Minutes' Silence . . . 142
XIX. Partners 149
XX. Full Dress 157
XXI. The Dance 166
XXII. The Overtone 173
XXIII. The Fear of The Living . . . 184
XXIV. The Luck of The Shipwrecked . 191
XXV. Jacqueline Waits 198
XXVI.
XXVII.
XXVIII.
XXIX.
XXX.
XXXL
XXXII.
XXXIII.
XXXIV.
XXXV.
XXXVI.
XXXVII.
XXXVIII.
XXXIX.
CONTENTS
PAGE
A Game of Suppose . . . . 211
The Trail 218
A Hint of White 225
Jack 232
The Whisper of The Knife . . 239
Laughter ... ... 247
A Tale of A Careless Man . . 255
A Count To Ten 262
Tiger-Heart 269
Jack Hears a Small Voice . . 277
A Voice in The Night . . . 284
A Man's Death 291
The Waiting 296
The Cross Goes Om .... 304
RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
CHAPTER I
THE THUNDERBOLT
IT seemed that Father Anthony gathered all the
warmth of the short northern summer and kept it
for winter use, for his good nature was an actual
physical force. From his ruddy face beamed such
an ardent kindliness that people literally reached out
towards him as they might extend their hands to-
ward a comfortable fire.
All the labors of his work as an inspector of Jesuit
institutions across the length and breadth of Canada
could not lessen the flame of the good father's enthu-
siasm; his smile was as indefatigable as his critical
eyes. The one looked sharply into every corner of
a room and every nook and hidden cranny of
thoughts and deeds; the other veiled the criticism
and soothed the wounds of vanity.
On this day, however, the sharp eyes grew a little
less keen and somewhat wider, while that smile was
fixed rather by habit than inclination. In fact, his
expression might be called a frozen kindliness as he
looked across the table to Father Victor.
It required a most indomitable geniality, indeed,
io RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
to outface the rigid piety of Jean Paul Victor. His
missionary work had carried him far north, where
the cold burns men thin. The eternal frost of the
Arctics lay on his hair, and his starved eyes looked
out from hollows shadowed with blue. He might
have posed for a painting of one of those damned
souls whom Dante placed in the frozen circle of the
"Inferno."
It was his own spirit which tortured him the
zeal which drove him north land north and north
over untracked regions, drove him until his body
failed, drove him even now, though his body was
crippled.
A mighty yearning, and a still mightier self-con-
tempt whipped him on, and the school over which
he was master groaned and suffered under his
regime, and the disciples caught his spirit and went
out like warriors in the name of God to spread the
faith.
He despised them as he despised himself, for he
said continually in his heart: "How great is the pur-
pose and how little is our labor I"
Some such thought as that curled his thin lip as
he stared across at Father Anthony like a wolf that
has not eaten for a fortnight. The good father sus-
tained the gaze, but he shivered a little and sighed.
There was awe, and pity, and even a touch of hor-
ror in his eyes.
He said gently: "Are there none among all your
lads, dear Father Victor, whom you find something
more than imperfect machines ?"
The man of the north drew from a pocket of his
THE THUNDERBOLT n
robe a letter. His marvelously lean fingers touched
it almost with a caress, and when he spoke the
softening which could not appear in the rigid fea-
tures came into his voice and made it lower and
deeper.
"One,"
Father Anthony started in astonishment, as one
might start to hear a divine prophet admit a mistake,
but being wise he remained silent, waiting. Jean
Paul Victor peered into space.
"Pierre Ryder. He is like a pleasant summer,
and I" he clasped his colorless hands "am frozen
frozen to the heart."
^ Still Father Anthony waited, but his eyes were
like diamonds for brightness.
"He shall carry on my mission in the north. I,
who am silent, have done much; but Pierre sings,
and he will do more. I had to fight my first battle
to conquer my own stubborn soul, and the battle left
me weak for the great work in the snows, but Pierre
will not fight that battle, for I have trained him."
He repeated after a pause : "For those who sing
forget themselves and their weariness. I, Jean Paul
Victor, have never sung."
He bowed his head, submitting to the judgment
of God.
"This letter is for him. Shall we not carry it to
him? For two days I have not seen Pierre."
Father Anthony winced.
He said : "Do you deny yourself even the pleasure
of the lad's company? Alas, Father Victor, you
forge your own spurs and goad yourself with your
12 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
own hands. What harm is there in being often with
the lad ?"
The sneer returned to the lips of Jean Paul Vic-
tor.
"The purpose would be lost lost to my eyes and
lost to his the purpose for which I have lived and
for which he shall live the purpose to which you
are dedicated, Gabrielle Antoine Anthony."
He relented in his fierceness, and continued with
the strange gentle note in his voice: "Our love for
the young, it is like a vine that climbs through the
branches of a strong tree. When the vine is young
it may be taken away in safety and both the tree
and the vine will live, but if it grows old it will kill
the tree when the vine is torn away.
"I am the strong tree, and Pierre has grown into
my heart. It is time that he be torn away. He is
almost ready. The work is prepared. He must
start forth."
Even while he announced his purpose the sweat
poured out on his forehead. He rose and paced
noiselessly up and down the bare room, his black
robe catching around the long, bony legs. Father
Anthony drew a great breath. At last Jean Paul
Victor could speak again.
"In all the history of our order, there is hardly
one man who will go out armed like Pierre Ryder.
He is young, he is strong, he is fearless, he is pure
of heart and single of mind. He has never tasted
wine; he has never looked wrongly on a woman."
"A prodigy but it is your work."
"Mine all mine!"
THE THUNDERBOLT 13
The whole soul of the man stood up in his eyes
in a. fierce triumph.
"Hear how I worked. When I first saw him he
was a child, a baby, but he came to me and took
one finger of my hand in his small fist and looked up
to me. Ah, Gabrielle the smile of an infant goes
to the heart swifter than the thrust of a knife! I
looked down upon him and thought many things,
and I knew that I was chosen to teach the child.
There was a voice that spoke in me. You will smile,
but even now I think I can hear it."
"I swear to you that I believe," said Father An-
thony, and his voice trembled.
"Another man would have given Pierre a Bible
and a Latin grammar and a cell. I gave him the
testament and the grammar; I gave him also the
wild north country to say his prayers in and patter
his Latin. I taught his mind, but I did not forget
his body.
"He is to go out among wild men. He must have
strength of the spirit. He must also have a strength
of the body that they will understand and respect.
How else can he translate for them the truths of
the Holy Spirit? Every day of his life I have made
him handle firearms. Other men think, and aim,
and, fire; Pierre thinks and shoots, and has forgotten
how to miss.
"He goes among wild men. These lessons must
be learned. He is a soldier of God. He can ride
a horse standing; he can run a hundred miles in a
day behind a dog-team. He can wrestle and fight
with his hands, for I have brought skilled men to
14 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
teach him. I have made him a thunderbolt to hurl
among the ignorant and the unenlightened; and this
is the hand which shall wield it. Ha!"
A flash of cold fire came for a single instant in his
eyes as he stood with upturned face. He changed.
"Yet he is gentle as a woman. He goes out
through the villages and comes back unharmed, and
after him come letters from girls and old men and
dames. Even strong men come many miles to see
him and they write to him. He is known. It is
now hardly a six month since he saved a trapper
from a bobcat and killed the animal with a knife."
His heart failed him at the thought, and he mur-
mured: "It must have been my prayers which saved
him from the teeth and the claws."
Good Father Anthony rose.
"You have described a young David. I am
eager to see him. Let us go."
"Wait. Before you go you must know that he
does not suspect that he differs from other youths.
Women have looked lewdly upon him and written
him letters with singing words, but Pierre being of a
simple nature, he answers them briefly and com-
mends them to God. In fact, the flattery of wo-
men he does not understand, and the flattery of
men he thinks is mere kindliness. Are you prepared
to meet him, father?"
Father Anthony nodded, and the two went out
together. The chill of the open was hardly more
than the bitter cold inside the building, but there was
a wind that drove the cold through the blood and
bones of a man.
THE THUNDERBOLT 15
They staggered along against it until they came
to a small outhouse, long and low. On the sheltered
side of it they paused to take breath, and Father
Victor explained: "This is his hour in the gymna-
sium. To make the body strong required thought
and care. Mere riding and running and swinging of
the ax will not develop every muscle. So I made
this gymnasium, and here Pierre works every day.
His teachers of boxing and wrestling have aban-
doned him."
There was almost a smile on the lean face.
"The last man left with a swollen jaw and limp-
ing on one leg."
Conscience-stricken, he stopped short, crossed
himself, and then went on : "So I give him for part-
ners men who have committed small sins. Their
penance is to stand before Pierre and box each
day for a few minutes and then to wrestle against
him. They are fierce men, these woodsmen and
trappers, and big of body; but little Pierre, they
dread him like a whip of fire. One and all, they
come to me within a fortnight and beg for an easier
penance."
Here he opened the door, and they slipped inside.
The air was warmed by a big stove, and the room
for the afternoon was dark lighted by two swing-
ing lanterns suspended from the low roof. By that
illumination Father Anthony saw two men stripped
naked, save for a loin-cloth, and circling each other
slowly in the center of a ring which was fenced in
with ropes and floored with a padded mat. Cer-
16 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
tainly Father Victor had spared nothing in expense
to make the fittings of the gymnasium perfect.
Of the two wrestlers, one was a veritable giant
of a Canuck, swarthy of skin, hairy-chested. His
great hands were extended to grasp or to parry
his head lowered with a ferocious scowl and across
his forehead swayed a tuft of black, shaggy hair.
He might have stood for one of those northern bar-
barians whom the Romans loved to pit against their
native champions in the arena. He was the greater
because of the opponent he faced, and it was upon
this opponent that the eyes of Father Anthony cen-
tered.
Like Father Victor, he was caught first by the
bright hair. It was a dark red, and where the light
struck it strongly there were places like fire. Down
from this hair the light slipped like running water
over a lithe body, slender at the hips, strong-
chested, round and smooth of limb, with long
muscles everywhere leaping and trembling at every
move.
He, like the big Canuck, circled cautiously about,
but the impression he gave was as different from the
other as day is from night. His head was carried
high; in place of a scowl, he smiled with a sort of
boyish eagerness, and a light which was partly ex-
ultation and partly mischief sparkled in his eyes.
Once or twice the giant caught at the other, but
David slipped from under the grip of Goliath easily.
It seemed as if his skin were oiled. The big man
snarled with anger, and lunged more eagerly at
THE THUNDERBOLT 17
Pierre. Father Anthony caught the shoulder of
his friend.
"Quick!" he whispered anxiously. "Stop them,
for if the black fellow sets his fingers on the boy he
will break him like a willow wand, and in the name
of God, Jean Paul I"
For the two, abandoning their feints, suddenly
rushed together, and the swarthy arms of the mon-
ster slipped around the white body of Pierre. For
a moment they whirled, twisting and struggling.
"Now!" murmured Father Victor; and as if in
answer to a command, Pierre slipped down,
whipped his hands to a new grip, and the two
crashed to the mat, with Pierre above.
"Open your eyes, Father Anthony. The lad is
safe. How Goliath grunts!"
The boy had not cared to follow his advantage,
but rose and danced away, laughing softly. The
Canuck floundered up and rushed like a furious bull.
His downfall was only the swifter. The impact of
the two bodies sounded like hands clapped together,
and then Goliath rose into the air, struggling
mightily, and pitched with a thud to the mat.
He writhed there, for the wind was knocked from
his body by the fall. At length he struggled to a
sitting posture and glared up at the conqueror. The
boy reached out a hand to his fallen foe.
"You would have thrown me that way the first
time," he said, "but you let me change grips on you.
In another week you will be too much for me, bon
ami."
The other accepted the hand after an instant of
1 8 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
hesitation and was dragged to his feet. He stood
resting one elbow on the gleaming shoulder of Pierre
and looking down into the boy's face with a singular
grin. But there was no triumph in the eye of Pierre
only a good-natured interest.
"In another week," answered the giant, "there
will not be a sound bone in my body. This very
night I shall go to Father Victor. I had rather
starve for three days in the forest than stand up
to you for three minutes, little brother."
CHAPTER II
IRENE
"You have seen him," murmured the tall priest.
"Now let us go back and wait for him. I will leave
word."
He touched one of the two or three men who were
watching the athletes, and whispered his message in
the other's ear. Then he went back with Father
Anthony.
"You have seen him/' he repeated, when they sat
once more in the cheerless room. "Now pro-
nounce on him."
The other answered: "I have seen a wonderful
body but the mind, Father Victor?"
"It is as simple as that of a child his thoughts
run as clear as spring water."
"Ah, but they are swift thoughts. Suppose the
spring water gathers up a few stones and rushes on
down the side of the mountain. Very soon it is
wearing a deeper channel then but a little space,
and it is a raging torrent and tears down great trees
from its banks and goes shouting and leaping out
toward the sea.
"Suppose a strange thought came in the mind of
your Pierre. It would be like the pebbles in the
swift-running spring water. He would carry it on,
19
20 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
rushing. It would tear away the old boundaries of
his mind it might wipe out the banks you have set
down for him it might tear away the choicest
teachings."
Father Victor sat straight and stiff with stern,
set lips.
He said dryly: "Father Anthony has been much
in the world."
"I speak from the best intention, good father.
Look you, now, I have seen that same red hair and
those same lighted blue eyes before, and wherever
I have seen them has been war and trouble and un-
rest. I have seen that same whimsical smile which
stirs the heart of a woman and makes a man reach
for his revolver. This boy whose mind is so clear
arm him with a single wrong thought, with a single
doubt of the eternal goodness of God's plans, and
he will be a thunderbolt indeed, dear Father, but one
which even your strong hand could not control."
"I have heard you," said the priest; "but you
will see. He is coming now."
There was a knock at the door; then it opened
and showed a modest novice in a simple gown of
black serge girt at the waist with the flat encircling
band. His head was downward; it was not till the
blue eyes flashed inquisitively up that Father An-
thony recognized Pierre.
The hard voice of Jean Paul Victor pronounced :
"This is that Father Anthony of whom I have
spoken."
The novice slipped to his knees and folded his
hands. The two priests exchanged glances, one of
IRENE 21
triumph and one of wonder, while the plump fingers
of Father Anthony poised over that dark red hair,
pressed smooth on top where the skull-cap rested,
and curling somewhat at the sides. The blessing
which he spoke was Latin, and Father Victor looked
somewhat anxiously toward his protege till the latter
answered in a diction so pure that Cicero himself
would have smiled to hear it:
"Father, I thank thee, and if my mind were as
old as thine I might be able to wish blessings as great
as these in return."
"Stand up!" cried Father Anthony. "By Heav-
ens, Jean Paul, it is the purest Latin I have heard
this twelvemonth."
And the lad answered: "It must be pure Latin;
Father Victor has taught me."
Gabrielle Anthony stared, and to save him from
too obvious confusion the other priest interrupted:
("I have a letter for you, my son."
And he passed the envelope to Pierre. The latter
examined it with interest.
"The writing sprawls like the knees of a boy of
ten. What old man has written to you, Pierre?"
"No man that I know. This comes from the
south. It is marked from the United States."
"So far!" exclaimed the tall priest. "Give me
the letter, lad."
But here he caught the whimsical eyes of Father
Anthony, and he allowed his outstretched hand to
fall. Yet he scowled as he said: "No; keep it and
read it, Pierre."
"I have no great wish to keep it," answered
22 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
Pierre, studying anxiously the dark brow of the
priest.
"It is yours. Open it and read."
The lad obeyed instantly. He shook out the
folded paper and moved a little nearer the light.
Then he read aloud, as if it had never entered his
mind that what was addressed to him might be
meant for his eyes alone. And as he read he re-
minded Father Anthony of some childish chorister
pronouncing words beyond his understanding. The
tears came to the eyes of the good father.
And he said in his heart: "Alas ! I have been too
much in the world of men, and now a child can teach
me."
The musical voice of the boy began :
"Morgantown,
"R. F. D. No. 4.
"SON PIERRE:
"Here I lie with a chunk of lead from the gun of Bob McGurk
resting somewheres in the insides of me, and there ain't no way
of doubting that I'm about to go out. Now, I ain't complaining
none. I've had my fling. I've eat my meat to order, well done
and rare mostly rare. Maybe some folks will be saying that
I've got what I've been asking for, and I know that Bob McGurk
got me fair and square, shooting from the hip. That don't help
me none, lying here with a through ticket to some place that's
farther south than Texas."
Pierre lowered the letter and looked gravely upon
Father Victor.
"There are blasphemies coming. Shall I read
on?"
"Yes."
He began again, a little spot of red coming into
either cheek:
IRENE 23
"Hell ain't none too bad for me, I know. I ain't whining
none. I just lie here and watch the world getting dimmer until
I begin to be seeing things out of my past. That shows the
devil ain't losing no time with me. But the thing that comes
back oftenest and hits me the hardest is the sight of your
mother, lying with you in the hollow of her arm and looking
up at me and whispering, 'Dad,' just before she went out"
The hand of the boy fell, and his wide eyes sought
the face of Father Victor. The latter was stand-
ing.
"You told me I had no father "
An imperious arm stretched toward him.
"Give me the letter."
He moved to obey, and then checked himself.
"This is my father's writing, is it not?"
"No, no I It's a lie, Pierre!"
But Pierre stood with the letter held behind his
back, and the first doubt in his life stood up darkly
in his eyes. Father Victor sank slowly back into his
chair. All his gaunt frame was trembling.
"Read on," he commanded.
And Pierre, white of face, read on :
"So I got a idea that I had to write to you, Pierre. There
ain't nothing I can make up to you, but knowing the truth may
help some. Poor kid, you ain't got no father in the eyes of
the law, and neither did you have no mother, and there ain't no
name that belong* to you by rights."
Father Anthony veiled his eyes, but the bright
starved eyes of Jean Paul Victor stared on at the
reader. His voice was lower now, and the lips moved
slowly, as though numb with cold:
"I wn a man in them days, and your mother wat a woman
that brought your heart into your throat and set it singing. She
24 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
and me, we were too busy being just plain happy to care much
what was right or wrong; so you just sort of happened along,
Pierre. Me being so close to hell, I remember her eyes that
was blue'r than heaven looking up to me, and her hair, that
was copper with gold lights in it, ran down across the white of
her shoulder, and even past her side and around you, Pierre,
till it seemed like you was lying in a red river. She being about
all in, she got hold of my hand and looked up to me with them
blue eyes I been talking about, and said 'Dad,' and went out.
And I damned near followed her.
"I buried Irene on the side of the mountain under a big, rough
rock, and I didn't carve nothing on the rock. Then I took you,
Pierre, and I knew I wasn't no sort of a man to raise up the
son of Irene; so I brought you to Father Victor on a winter
night and left you in his arms. That was after I'd done my
best to raise you and you was just about old enough to chatter
a bit. There wasn't nothing else to do. My wife, she went
pretty near crazy when I brought you home. And she'd of killed
you, Pierre, if I hadn't took you away.
"You see, I was married before I met Irene. So there ain't
no alibi for me. I just acted the hound. But me being so close
to hell now, I look back to that time, and somehow I see no
wrong in it still.
"And if I done wrong then, I've got my share of hell-fire for
it Here I lie, with my boys, Bill and Bert, sitting around in
the corner of the room waiting for me to go out. They ain't men,
Pierre. They're wolves in the skins of men. They're the right
sons of their mother. When I go out they'll grab the coin I've
saved up, and leave me to lie here and rot, maybe.
"Lad, it's a fearful thing to die without having no one around
that cares, and to know that even after I've gone out I'm going
to lie here and have my dead eyes looking up at the ceiling. So
I'm writing to you, Pierre, part to tell you what you ought to
know; part because I got a sort of crazy idea that maybe you
could get down here to me before I go out.
"You don't owe me nothing but hard words, Pierre; but if you
don't try to come to me, the ghost of your mother will follow
you all your life, lad, and you'll be seeing her blue eyes and the
red-gold of her hair in the dark of the night as I see it now.
Me, I'm a hard man, but it breaks my heart, that ghost of Irene.
So here I'll lie, waiting for you, Pierre, and lingering out the
days with whisky, and fighting the wolf eyes of them there sons
IRENE 25
of mine. If I weaken If they find they can look me square
in the eye they'll finish me quick, and make off with the coin.
Pierre, come quick.
'MARTIN RYDER."
The hand of Pierre dropped slowly to his side,
and the letter fluttered with a crisp rustling to the
floor.
CHAPTER III
THE LAUNCHING OF THE BOLT
THEN came a voice that startled the two priests,
for it seemed that a fourth man had entered the
room, so changed was it from the musical voice of
Pierre.
"Father Victor, the roan is a strong horse. May
I take him?"
"Pierre!" and the priest reached out his bony
hands.
But the boy did not seem to notice or to under-
stand.
"It is a long journey, and I will need a strong
horse. It must be eight hundred miles to that
town."
"Pierre, what claim has he upon you? What debt
have you to repay?"
And Pierre le Rouge answered: "He loved my
mother."
He raised his face a little higher and smiled upon
them.
"It is a beautiful name, is it not Irene?"
There was no voice from Jean Paul Victor, so
he turned to Father Anthony.
"It is a charming name, Pierre."
"I would give my revolver with the pearl handle,
26
THE LAUNCHING OF THE BOLT 27
and my skates, and the engraven knife of old Canole
just for one glimpse of her."
"You are going ?"
The boy asked in astonishment : "Would you not
have me go, Father?"
And Jean Paul Victor could not meet the sorrow-
ful blue eyes.
He bowed his head and answered: "My child,
I would have you go. But promise with your hand
in mine that you will come back to me when your
father is buried."
The lean fingers caught the extended hand of
Pierre and froze about it.
"But first I have a second duty in the southland."
"A second?"
"You taught me to shoot and to use a knife. Once
you said: 'An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a
tooth.' Father Victor, my father was killed by an-
other man."
"Pierre, dear lad, swear to me here on this cross
that you will not raise your hands against the mur-
derer. 'Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord.' '
"He must have an instrument for his wrath. He
shall work through me in this."
"Pierre, you blaspheme."
" 'An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. 1 '
"It was a demon in me that quoted that in your
hearing, and not myself."
"The horse, Father Victor may I have the
roan?"
"Pierre, I command you "
28 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
The light in the blue eyes was as cold and steady
as that in the starved eyes of Jean Paul Victor.
"Hush!" he said calmly. "For the sake of the
love that I bear for you, do not command me."
"Pierre, I have prayed God for you night and
morning, and for the sake of those prayers which
are dearer than gold in heaven, stay with me !"
"Dear Father Victor, you also hope for hands
that love you to close your eyes at the end."
And the stern priest dropped his head. He said
at last: "I have nothing saving one great and ter-
rible treasure which I see was predestined to you.
It is the cross of Father Meilan. You have worn
it before. You shall wear it hereafter as your
own."
He took from his own neck a silver cross sus-
pended by a slender silver chain, and the boy, with
startled eyes, dropped to his knees and received the
gift
"It has brought good to all who possessed it, but
for every good thing that it works for you it will
work evil on some other. Great is its blessing and
great is its burden. I, alas, know; but you also have
heard of its history. Do you accept it, Pierre?"
"Dear Father, with all my heart."
The colorless hands touched the dark-red hair,
and the prophet eyes of the priest went up.
"God pardon the sins you shall commit."
Pierre crushed the hand of Jean Paul Victor
against his lips and rushed from the room, while
the tall priest, staring down at the fingers which had
been kissed, pronounced:
THE LAUNCHING OF THE BOLT 29
"It is better that he should commit murder with
his hands than to slay in his evil thoughts."
"Can you resign him like this?"
"I have forged a thunderbolt. Father Gabrielle r
you are a prophet. It is too great for my hand.
Listen!"
And they heard clearly the sharp clang of a
horse's hoofs on the hard-packed snow, loud at first,
but fading rapidly away. The wind, increasing sud-
denly, shook the house furiously about them.
It was a north wind, and traveled south before
the rider of the strong roan. Over a thousand miles
of plain and hills it passed, and down into the cattle
country of the mountain-desert which the Rockies
hem on one side and the tall Sierras on the other.
It was a trail to try even the endurance of Pierre
and the strong roan, but the boy clung to it doggedly.
On a trail that led down from the edges of the
northern mountain the roan crashed to the ground
in a plunging fall, hitting heavily on his knees. He
was dead before the boy had freed his feet from the
stirrups.
Pierre threw the saddle over his shoulder and
walked eight miles to the nearest ranchhouse, where
he spent practically the last cent of his money on an-
other horse, and drove on south once more.
There was little hope in him as day after day
slipped past. Only the ghost of a chance remained
that Martin Ryder could fight away death for an-
other fortnight; yet Pierre had seen many a man
from the mountain-desert stave off the end through
weeks and weeks of the bitterest suffering. His
30 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
father must be a man of the same hard durable
metal, and upon that Pierre staked all his hopes.
And always he carried the picture of the dying
man alone with his two wolf-eyed sons who waited
for his eyes to weaken. Whenever he thought of
that he touched his horse with the spurs and rode
fiercely for a time. They were his flesh and blood,
the man, and even the two wolf-eyed sons.
So he came at last to a gap in the hills and looked
down on Morgantown in the hollow, twoscore un-
painted houses sprawling along a single street. The
snow was everywhere white and pure, and the town
was like a stain on the landscape with wisps of smoke
rising and trailing across the hilltops.
Down to the edge of the town he rode, left his
cow-pony standing with hanging head outsdde a
saloon, strode through the swinging doors, and
asked of the bartender the way to the house of Mar-
tin Ryder.
The bartender stopped in his labor of rubbing
down the surface of his bar and stared at the black-
serge robe of the stranger, with curiosity rather than
criticism, for women, madmen, and clergymen have
the right-of-way in the mountain-desert.
He said: "Well, I'll be damned ! askin' your
pardon. So old Mart Ryder has come down to this,
eh? Partner, you're sure going to have a rough
ride getting Mart to heaven. Better send a posse
along with him, because some first-class angels are
going to get considerable riled when they sight him
coming. Ha, ha, ha ! Sure I'll show you the way.
Take the northwest road out of town and go five
THE LAUNCHING OF THE BOLT 31
miles till you see a broken-backed shack lyin' over to
the right. That's Mart Ryder's place."
Out to the broken-backed shack rode Pierre le
Rouge, Pierre the Red, as every one in the north
country knew him. His second horse, staunch cow-
pony that it was, stumbled on with sagging knees
and hanging head, but Pierre rode upright, at ease,
for his mind was untired.
Broken-backed indeed was the house before which
he dismounted. The roof sagged from end to end,
and the stove pipe chimney leaned at a drunken
angle. Nature itself was withered beside that
house; before the door stood a great cottonwood,
gashed and scarred by lightning, with the limbs al-
most entirely stripped away from one side. Under
this broken monster Pierre stepped and through the
door. Two growls like the snarls of watch-dogs
greeted him, and two tall, unshaven men barred his
way.
Behind them, from the bed in the corner, a feeble
voice called: "Who's there?"
"In the name of God," said the boy gravely, for
he saw a hollow-eyed specter staring toward him
from the bed in the corner, "let me pass! I am his
son!'
It was not that which made them give back, but
a shrill, faint cry of triumph from the sick man to-
ward which they turned. Pierre slipped past
them and stood above Martin Ryder. He was
wasted beyond belief only the monster hand
showed what he had been.
32 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
"Son?" he queried with yearning and uncer-
tainty.
"Pierre, your son."
And he slipped to his knees beside the bed. The
heavy hand fell upon his hair and stroked it.
"There ain't no ways of doubting it. It's red silk,
like the hair of Irene. Seein' you, boy, it ain't so
hard to die. Look up ! So ! Pierre, my son ! Are
you seared of me, boy?"
"I'm not afraid."
"Not with them eyes you ain't. Now that you're
here, pay the coyotes and let 'em go off to gnaw the
bones."
He dragged out a small canvas bag from beneath
the blankets and gestured toward the two lurkers
in the corner.
"Take it, and be damned to you!"
A dirty, yellow hand seized the bag; there was
a chortle of exultation, and the two scurried out of
the room.
"Three weeks they've watched an' waited for me
to go out, Pierre. Three weeks they've waited an'
sneaked up to my bed an' sneaked away agin, seein'
my eyes open."
Looking into their fierce fever brightness, Pierre
understood why they had quailed. For the man,
though wrecked beyond hope of living, was terrible
still. The thick, gray stubble on his face could not
hide altogether the hard lines of mouth and jaw,
and on the wasted arm the hand was grotesquely
huge. It was horror that widened the eyes of Pierre
THE LAUNCHING OF THE BOLT 33
as he looked at Martin Ryder; it was a grim hap-
piness that made his lips almost smile.
"You've taken holy orders, lad?"
"No."
"But the black dress?"
"I'm only a novice. I've sworn no vows.*'
"And you don't hate me you hold no grudge
against me for the sake of your mother, Pierre?"
He took the heavy hand.
"Are you not my father? And my mother was
happy with you. For her sake I love you."
"The good Father Victor. He sent you to me."
"I came of my own will. He would not have let
me go."
"He he would have kept my flesh and blood
away from me?"
"Do not reproach him. He would have kept me
from a sin."
"Sin? By God, boy, no matter what I've done,
is it sin for my son to come to me? What sin?'*
"The sin of murder!"
"Ha!"
"I have come to find McGurk."
CHAPTER IV
THE CORNER PLOT
LIKE some old father-bear watching his cub flash
teeth against a stalking lynx, half proud and half
fearful of such courage, so the dying cattleman
looked at his son. Excitement set a high and dan-
gerous color in his cheek. His eyes were too bright.
"Pierre brave boy! Look at me. I ain't no
imitation-man, even now, but I ain't a ghost of what
I was. There wasn't no man I wouldn't of met fair
and square with bare hands or with a gun. Maybe
my hands was big, but they were fast on the draw.
I've lived all my life with iron on the hip, and my
six-gun has seven notches.
"But McGurk downed me fair and square. There
wasn't no murder. I was out for his hide, and he
knew it. I done the provokin', an' he jest done the
finishin', that was all. It hurts me a lot to say it,
but he's a better man than I was. A kid like you,
why, he'd jest eat you, Pierre."
Pierre le Rouge smiled again. He felt a stern
and aching pride to be the son of this man.
"So that's settled," went on Martin Ryder, "an 1
a damned good thing it is. Son, you didn't come
none too soon. I'm goin' out fast. There ain't
enough light left in me so's I can see my own way.
34
THE CORNER PLOT 35
Here's all I ask: When I die touch my eyelids soft
an' draw 'em shut I've seen the look in a dead
man's eyes. Close 'em, and I know I'll go to sleep
an' have good dreams. And down in the middle of
Morgantown is the buryin'-ground. I've ridden
past it a thousand times an' watched a corner plot,
where the grass grows quicker than it does any-
wheres else in the cemetery. Pierre, I'd die plumb
easy if I knew I was goin' to sleep the rest of time
in that place.' 1
"It shall be done."
"But that corner plot, it would cost a pile, son.
And I've no money. I gave what I had to them
wolf-eyed boys, Bill an' Bert. Money was what
they wanted, an' after I had Irene's son with me,
money was the cheapest way of gettin' rid of 'em."
"I'll buy the plot."
"Have you got that much money, lad?"
"Yes," lied Pierre calmly.
The bright eyes grew dimmer and then fluttered
close. Pierre started to his feet, thinking that the
end had come. But the voice began again, fainter,
slowly :
"No light left inside of me, but dyin 1 this way
is easy. There ain't no wind will blow on me after
I'm dead, but I'll be blanketed safe from head to
foot in cool, sweet-smellin' sod the kind that has
tangles of the roots of grass. There ain't no snow
will reach to me where I lie. There ain't no sun
will burn down to me. Dyin' like that is jest goin'
to sleep."
After that he said nothing for a time, and the
36 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
late afternoon darkened slowly through the room.
As for Pierre, he did not move, and his mind
went back. He did not see the bearded wreck who
lay dying before him, but a picture of Irene, with
the sun lighting her copper hair with places of burn-
ing gold, and a handsome young giant beside her.
They rode together on some upland trail at sunset
time, sharply framed against the bright sky. Their
hands were together; their faces were raised; they
laughed, from the midst of their small heaven.
There was a whisper below him: "Irene!'*
And Pierre looked down to blankly staring eyes.
He groaned, and dropped to his knees.
"I have come for you," said the whisper, "because
the time has come, Irene. We have to ride out to-
gether. We have a long ways to go. Are you
ready ?"
"Yes," said Pierre.
"Thank God ! It's a wonderful night. The stars
are asking us out. Quick ! Into your saddle. Now
the spurs. So! We are alone and free, with the
winds around us, and all that we have been for-
gotten behind us. Irene, look up with me !"
The eyes opened wide and stared up; without a
stir in the great, gaunt body he was dead. Pierre
drew the eyes reverently shut. There were no tears
in his eyes, but a feeling of hollowness about his
heart, and a great pain. He straightened and
looked about him and found that the room was
quite dark.
So in the dimness Pierre fumbled, by force of
habit, at his throat, and found the cross which he
THE CORNER PLOT 37
wore by a silver chain about his throat. He held it
in a great grip and closed his eyes and prayed.
When he opened his eyes again it was almost deep
night in the room, and Pierre had passed from youth
to manhood. Through the gloom nothing stood
out distinctly save the white face of the dead man,
and from that Pierre looked quickly away.
One by one he numbered his obligations to Mar-
tin Ryder, and first and last he remembered the lie
which had soothed his father. The money for that
corner plot where the grass grew first in the spring
of the year where was he to find it? He fumbled
in his pocket and found only a single coin.
He leaned back against the wall and strove to
concentrate on the problem, but his thoughts wan-
dered in spite of himself back to the snows of Can-
ada, to the letter, to the ride south, the death of the
roan, and so on until he reached his entry to that
very room.
Looking backward, he remembered all things
much more clearly than when he had actually seen
them. For instance, he recalled now that as he
walked through the door the two figures which had
started up to block his way had left behind them
some playing-cards at the corner table. One of
these cards had slipped from the edge of the board
and flickered slowly to the floor.
With that memory the thoughts of Pierre le
Rouge stopped. The picture of the falling card
remained; all else went out in his mind like the
snuffing of the candle. Then, as if he heard a roice
38 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
directing him through the utter blackness of the
room, he knew what he must do.
All his wealth was the single half-dollar piece in
his pocket, and there was only one way in which that
coin could be increased to the sum he would need
to buy that corner plot, where the soul of old Mar-
tin Ryder could sleep long and deep.
From his brothers he would get no help. The
least memory of those sallow, hungry faces con-
vinced him of that.
There remained the gaming table. In the north
country he had watched men sit in a silent circle,
smoking, drinking, with the flare of an oil-lamp
against deep, seamed faces, and only the slip and
whisper of card against card.
Cold conscience tapped the shoulder of Pierre,
remembering the lessons of Father Victor, but a mo-
ment later his head went up and his eyes were shin-
ing through the dark. After all, the end justified
the means. It was typical of him that sorrow sat
lightly on him.
A moment later he was laughing softly as a boy
in the midst of a prank, and busily throwing off the
robe of serge. Fumbling through the night he lo-
cated the shirt and overalls he had seen hanging
from a nail on the wall. Into these he slipped,
leaned to kiss the chill, damp forehead of the
sleeper, and then went out under the open sky.
The rest had revived the strength of the tough
little cow-pony, and he drove on at a gallop toward
the twinkling lights of Morgantown. There was
a new consciousness about Pierre as if he had
THE CORNER PLOT 39
changed his whole nature with his clothes. The
sober sense of duty which had kept him in awe all
his life like a lifted finger, was almost gone, and in
its place was a joyous freedom.
For the first time he faintly realized what an
existence other than that of a priest might be. Now
for a brief moment he could forget the part of the
subdued novice and become merely a man with noth-
ing about him to distinguish him from other men,
nothing to make heads turn at his approach and
raise whispers as he passed.
It was a game, but he rejoiced in it as a girl does
in her first masquerade. To-morrow he must be
grave and sober-footed and an example to other
men; to-night he could frolic as he pleased. The
good Father Victor would hear and frown, per-
haps, but remembering the purpose for which the
thing was done he would forgive.
So Pierre le Rouge tossed back his head and
laughed up to the frosty stars. The loose sleeves
and the skirts of the robe no longer entangled his
limbs. He threw up his arms and shouted A hill-
side caught the sound and echoed it back to him
with a wonderful clearness, and up and down the
long ravine beat the clatter of the flying hoofs. The
whole world shouted and laughed and rode with
him on Morgantown.
If the people in the houses that he passed had
known they would have started up from their chairs
and taken rifle and horse and after him on the trail.
But how could they tell from the passing of those
40 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
ringing hoofs that Pierre, the novice, was dead, and
Red Pierre was born?
So they drowsed on about their comfortable fires,
and Pierre drew rein with a jerk before the largest
of Morgantown's saloons. With a hand on the
swinging doors he paused a breathless moment,
thinking, doubting, wondering and a little cold of
heart like the boy who stands on the bank of the
river to take the first plunge in the spring of the
year. He had to set his teeth before he could sum-
mon the resolution to throw open the door. It was
done; he stepped inside, and stood blinking in the
sudden rush of light against his face.
It was all bewildering at first; the radiance, the
blue tangle of smoke, the storm of voices. For Mul-
doon's was packed from door to door. Coins rang
in a steady chorus along the bar, and the crowd
waited three and four deep.
Some one was singing a rollicking song of the
range at one end of the bar, and a chorus of four
bellowed a profane parody at the other end.
The ears of Pierre le Rouge tingled hotly, and
he lowered his eyes to the floor. Truly, Father Vic-
tor would be very wrath when all this was confessed.
Partly to escape this uproar he worked his way to
the quieter room at the back of the saloon.
It was almost as crowded as the bar, but here no
one spoke except for an occasional growl. Sudden
speaking, and a loud voice, indeed, was hardly safe.
Some one cursed at his ill-luck as Pierre entered, and
a dozen hands reached for six-guns. In such a place
one had to be prepared.
THE CORNER PLOT 41
Pierre remembered with quick dismay that he was
not armed. All his life the straight black gown had
been weapon enough to make all men give way be-
fore him. Now he carried no borrowed strength
upon his shoulders.
Automatically he slipped his fingers under the
breast of his shirt until their tips touched the cold
metal of the cross. That gave him stronger cour-
age. The joy of the adventure made his blood warm
again as he drew out his one coin and looked for a
place to start his venture.
"It is God who governs me/* he said, "and why
should I doubt Him ?"
So he approached the nearest table. On the sur-
face of it were marked six squares with chalk, and
each with its appropriate number. The man who
ran the game stood behind the table and shook three
dice. The numbers which turned up paid the gamb-
ler. The numbers which failed to show paid the
owner of the game.
His luck had been too strong that night, and now
only two men faced him, and both of them lost per-
sistently. They had passed the stage of intelligent
gaming; they were "bucking" the dice with savage
stubbornness.
Pierre edged closer, shut his eyes, and deposited
his coin. When he looked again he saw that he had
wagered on the fire.
CHAPTER V
HURLEY
THE dice clattered across the table and were
swept up by the hand of the man behind the table
before Pierre could note them. Sick at heart, he
began to turn away, as he saw that hand reach out
and gather in the coins of the other two betters. It
went out a third time and laid another fifty-cent
piece upon his. The heart of Pierre bounded up to
his throat.
Again the dice rolled, and this time he saw dis-
tinctly two fives turn up. Two dollars in silver were
dropped upon his, and still he let the money lie.
Again, again, and again the dice rolled. And now
there were pieces of gold among the silver that cov-
ered the square of the five.
The other two looked askance at him, and the
owner of the game growled: "Gimme room for the
coins, stranger, will you?"
Pierre picked up his winnings. In his left hand
he held them, and the coins brimmed his cupped
palm. With the free hand he placed his new wag-
ers. But he lost now.
"I cannot win forever," thought Pierre, and re-
doubled his bets in an effort to regain the lost
ground.
4*
HURLEY 43
Still his little fortune dwindled, till the sweat came
out on his forehead and the blood that had flushed
his face ran back and left him pale with dread. And
at last there remained only one gold piece. He hesi-
tated, holding it poised for the wager, while the
owner of the game rattled the dice loudly and looked
up at the coin with hungry eyes.
Once more Pierre closed his eyes and laid his
wager, while his empty left hand slipped again in-
side his shirt and touched the metal of the cross,
and once more when he opened his eyes the hand
of the gambler was going out to lay a second coin
over his.
"It is the cross!" thought Pierre, and thrilled
mightily. "It is the cross which brings me luck."
The dice rattled out. He won. Again, and still
he won. The gambler wiped his forehead and
looked up anxiously. For these were wagers in
gold, and the doubling stakes were running high.
About Pierre a crowd had grown a dozen cattle-
men who watched the growing heap of gold with
silent fascination. Then they began to make wagers
of their own, and there were faint whispers of
wrath and astonishment as the dice clicked out and
each time the winnings of Pierre doubled.
Suddenly the dealer stopped and held up his left
hand as a warning. With his right, very slowly, inch
by inch lest any one should suspect him of a gun
play, he drew out a heavy forty-five and laid it on
the table with the belt of cartridges.
"Three years she's been on my hip through thick
and thin, stranger. Three years she's shot close
44 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
an* true. There ain't a butt in the world that hugs
your hand tighter. There ain't a cylinder that spins
easier. Shoot? Lad, even a kid like you could be
a killer with that six-gun. What will you lay ag'in'
it?"
And his red-stained eyes glanced covetously at
the yellow heap of Pierre's money.
"How much?" said Pierre eagerly. "Is there
enough on the table to buy the gun?"
"Buy?" said the other fiercely. "There ain't
enough coin west of the Rockies to buy that gun.
D'you think I'm yaller hound enough to sell my six?
No, but I'll risk it in a fair bet. There ain't no dis-
grace in that; eh, pals?"
There was a chorus of low grunts of assent.
"All right," said Pierre. "That pile against the
gun."
"All of it?"
"All."
"Look here, kid, if you're tryin' to play a charity
game with me "
"Charity?"
The direct, frank surprise of that look disarmed
the other. He swept up the dice-box, and shook it
furiously, while his lips stirred. It was as if he
murmured an incantation for success. The dice
rolled out, winking in the light, spun over, and the
owner of the gun stood with both hands braced
against the edge of the table, and stared hopelessly
down.
A moment before his pockets had sagged with a
precious weight, and there had been a significant
HURLEY 45
drag of the belt over his right hip. Now both bur-
dens were gone.
He looked up with a short laugh.
"I'm dry. Who'll stake me to a drink?"
Pierre scooped up a dozen pieces of the gold.
"Here."
The other drew back.
"You're very welcome to it. Here's more, if
you'll have it."
"The coin I've lost to you? Take back a gamblin'
debt?"
"Easy there," said one of the men. "Don't you
see the kid's green? Here's a five-spot."
The loser accepted the coin as carelessly as if he
were conferring a favor by taking it, cast another
scowl in the direction of Pierre, and went out to-
ward the bar. Pierre, very hot in the face, pocketed
his winnings and belted on the gun. It hung low
on his thigh, just in easy gripping distance of his
hand, and he fingered the butt with a smile.
"The kid's feelin' most a man," remarked a sar-
castic voice. "Say, kid, why don't you try your
luck with Mac Hurley? He's almost through with
poor, old Cochrane."
Following the direction of the pointing finger,
Pierre saw one of those mute tragedies of the gamb-
ling hall. Cochrane, an old cattleman whose care-
fully trimmed, pointed white beard and slender, tnp-
ering fingers set him apart from the others in the
room, was rather far gone with liquor. He was
still stiffly erect in his chair, and would be till the
very moment consciousness left him, but his eyes
46 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
were misty, and when he spoke the fine-cut lips
moved slowly, as though numbed by cold.
Beside him stood a tall, black bottle with a little
whisky glass to flank it. He made his bets with
apparent carelessness, but with a real and deepen-
ing gloom. Once or twice he glanced up sharply
as though reckoning his losses, though it seemed to
Pierre le Rouge almost like an appeal.
And what appeal could affect Mac Hurley?
There was no color in the man, either body or soul.
No emotion could show in those pale, small eyes
or change the color of the flabby cheeks. If his
hands had been cut off he might have seemed some
sodden victim of a drug habit, but the hands saved
him.
They seemed to belong to another body beau-
tiful, swift, and strong, and grafted by some foul
mischance onto this rotten hulk. Very white they
were, and long, with a nervous uneasiness in every
motion, continually hovering around the cards with
little touches which were almost caresses.
"It ain't a game," said the man who had first
pointed out the group to Pierre, "it's just a
slaughter. Cochrane's too far gone to see straight.
Look at that deal now! A kid could see that he's
crooking the cards!"
It was Blackjack, and Hurley, as usual, was deal-
ing. He dealt with one hand, flipping the cards out
with a snap of the wrist, the fingers working rapidly
over the pack. Now and then he glanced over to
the crowd, as if to enjoy their admiration of his
skill. He was showing it now, not so much by the
HURLEY 47
deftness of his cheating as by the openness with
which he exposed his tricks.
As the stranger remarked to Pierre, a child could
have discovered that the cards were being dealt at
will from the top and the bottom of the pack, but
the gambler was enjoying himself by keeping his
game just open enough to be apparent to every other
man in the room just covert enough to deceive the
drink-misted brain of Cochrane. And the pale, swin-
ish eyes twinkled as they stared across at the dull
sorrow of the old man. There was an ominous
sound from Pierre:
"Do you let a thing like that happen in this coun-
try?" he asked fiercely.
The other turned to him with a sneer.
"Let it happen? Who'll stop him? Say, partner,
you ain't meanin' to say that you don't know who
Hurley is?"
"I don't need telling. I can see."
"What you can't see means a lot more than what
you can. I've been in the same room when Hurley
worked his gun once. It wasn't any killin', but it
was the prettiest bit of cheatin' I ever seen. But
even if Hurley wasn't enough, what about Carl
Diaz?"
He glared his triumph at Pierre, but the latter
was too puzzled to quail, and too stirred by the
pale, gloomy face of Cochrane to turn toward the
other.
"What of Diaz?"
"Look here, boy. You're a kid, all right, but
48 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
you ain't that young. D'you mean to say that you
ain't heard of Carlos Diaz?"
It came back to Pierre then, for even into the
snow-bound seclusion of the north country the
shadow of the name of Diaz had gone. He could
not remember just what they were, but he seemed
to recollect grim tales through which that name
figured.
The other went on: "But if you ain't ever seen
him before, look him over now. They's some says
he's faster on the draw than Bob McGurk, but, of
course, that's stretchin' him out a size too much.
What's the matter, kid; youVe met McGurk?"
"No, but I'm going to."
"Might even be carried to him, eh feet first?"
Pierre turned and laid a hand on the shoulder
of the other.
"Don't talk like that," he said gently. "I don't
like it."
The other reached up to snatch the hand from
his shoulder, but he stayed his arm.
He said after an uncomfortable moment of that
silent staring: "Well, partner, there ain't a hell of
a lot to get sore over, is there? You don't figure
you're a mate for McGurk, do you?"
He seemed oddly relieved when the eyes of Pierre
moved away from him and returned to the figure
of Carlos Diaz. The Mexican was a perfect model
for a painting of a melodramatic villain. He had
waxed and twirled the end of his black mustache
so that it thrust out a little spur on either side of
his long face. His habitual expression was a scowl ;
HURLEY 49
his habitual position was with a cigarette in the fin-
gers of his left hand, and his right hand resting on
his hip.
He sat in a chair directly behind that of Hurley,
and Pierre's new-found acquaintance explained:
"He's the bodyguard for Hurley. Maybe there's
some who could down Hurley in a straight gun fight ;
maybe there's one or two like McGurk that could
down Diaz damn his yellow hide but there ain't
no one can buck the two of 'em. It ain't in reason.
So they play the game together. Hurley works the
cards and Diaz covers up the retreat. Can't beat
that, can you?"
Pierre le Rouge slipped his left hand once more
inside his shirt until the fingers touched the cross.
"Nevertheless, that game has to stop."
"Who'll say, kid, are you stringin' me, or are
you drunk? Look me in the eye 1"
CHAPTER VI
FEAR
PIERRE turned and looked calmly upon the other.
And the man whispered in a sort of awe : "Well,
I'D be damned I"
"Stand aside !"
The other fell back a pace, and Pierre went
straight to the table and said to Cochrane: "Sir, I
have come to take you home."
The old man looked up and rubbed his eyes as
though waking from a sleep.
"Stand back from the table!" warned Hurley.
"By the Lord, have they been missing me? 1 ' quer-
ied old Cochrane.
"You are waited for," answered Pierre le Rouge,
"and I've been sent to take you home."
"If that's the case"
"It ain't the case. The kid's lying."
'"Lying?" repeated Cochrane, as if he had never
heard the word before, and he peered with clearing
eyes toward Pierre. "No, I think this boy has never
lied."
Silence had spread through the place like a vapor.
Even the slight sounds in the gaming-room were
done now, and one pair after another of eyes swung
toward the table of Cochrane and Hurley. The
50
FEAR 51
wave of the silence reached to the barroom. No
one could have carried the tidings so soon, but the
air was surcharged with the consciousness of an im-
pending crisis.
Half a dozen men started to make their way on
tiptoe toward the back room. One stood with his
whisky glass suspended in mid air, and tilted back
his head to listen. In the gaming-room Hurley
pushed back his chair and leaned to the left, giving
him a free sweep for his right hand. The Mexican
smiled with a slow and deep content.
"Thank you," answered Pierre, u but I ani wait-
ing still, sir."
The left hand of Hurley played impatiently on
the table.
He said: "Of course, if you have enough "
"I enough?" flared the old aristocrat
Pierre le Rouge turned fairly upon Hurley.
"In the name of God," he said calmly, and God
on his lips was as gentle as music, "make an end of
your game. You're playing for money, but I think
this man is playing for his eternal soul."
The solemn, bookish phraseology came smoothly
from his tongue. He knew no other. It drew a
murmur of amusement from the room and a snarl
from Hurley.
"Put on skirts, kid, and join the Salvation Army,
but don't get yourself messed all up in here. This
is my party, and I'm damned particular who I in-
vite! Now, run along!"
The head of Pierre tilted back, and he burst into
laughter which troubled even Hurley.
5* RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
The gambler blurted: "What's happening to you,
kid?"
"I've been making a lot of good resolutions, Mr.
Hurley, about keeping out of trouble ; but here I am
in it up to the neck."
"No trouble as long as you keep your hand out
of another man's game, kid."
"That's it. I can't see you rob Mr. Cochrane
like this. You aren't gambling you're digging
gold. The game stops now."
It was a moment before the crowd realized what
was about to happen; they saw it reflected first in
the face of Hurley, which suddenly went taut and
pale, and then, even as they looked with a smile
of curiosity and derision toward Pierre le Rouge,
they saw and understood.
For the moment Pierre said, "The game stops
now," the calm which had been with him was gone.
It was like the scent of blood to the starved wolf.
The last word was scarcely off his tongue when he
was crouched with a devil of green fury in his eyes
the light struck his hair into a wave of flame his
face altered by a dozen ugly years.
"D'you mean?" whispered Hurley, as if he feared
to break the silence with his full voice.
"Get out of the room."
And the impulse of Hurley, plainly enough, was
to obey the order, and go anywhere to escape from
that relentless stare. His glance wavered and
flashed around the circle and then back to Red
Pierre, for the expectancy and the alertness of all
the crowd forced him back.
FEAR 53
When the leader of the pack springs and fails to
kill, the rest of the pack tear him to pieces. Re-
membering this, Mac Hurley forced his glance back
to Pierre. Moreover, there was a soft voice from
behind, and he remembered Diaz.
All this had taken place in the length of time
that it takes a heavy body to totter on the brink
of a precipice or a cat to regain its feet after a fall.
After the voice of Diaz there was a sway through
the room, a pulse of silence, and then three hands
shot for their hips Pierre, Diaz, and Hurley.
No stop-watch could have caught the differing
lengths of time which each required for the draw.
The muzzle of Hurley's revolver was not clear of
the holster the gun of Diaz was nearly at the level
when Pierre's weapon exploded at his hip. The
bullet cut through the wrist of Hurley. Never again
would that slender, supple hand fly over the cards,
doing things other than they seemed. He made no
effort to escape from the next bullet, but stood look-
ing down at his broken wrist; horror for the mo-
ment gave him a dignity oddly out of place with
his usual appearance. He alone in all the room
was moveless.
The crowd, undecided for an instant, broke for
the doors at the first shot ; Pierre le Rouge, pitched
to the floor as Diaz leaped forward, the revolver
in either hand spitting lead and fire.
It was no bullet that downed Pierre but his own
cunning. He broke his fall with an outstretched left
hand, while the bullets of Diaz pumped into the
54 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
void space which his body had filled a moment
before.
Lying there at ease, he leveled the revolver, grin-
ning with the mirthless lust of battle, and fired over
the top of the table. The guns dropped from the
hands of huge Diaz. He caught at his throat and
staggered back the full length of the room, crashing
against the wall. When he pitched forward on his
face he was dead before he struck the floor.
Pierre, now Red Pierre, indeed, rose and ran to
the fallen man, and, looking at the bulk of the giant,
he wondered with a cold heart. He knew before
he slipped his hand over the breast of Diaz that
this was death. Then he rose again and watched
the still fingers which seemed to be gripping at the
boards.
These he saw, and nothing else, and all he heard
was the rattling of the wind of winter, wrenching
at some loose shingle on the roof, and he knew that
he was alone in the world, for he had put out a life.
He found a strange weight pulling down his right
hand, and started when he saw the revolver. He
replaced it in the holster automatically, and in so
doing touched the barrel and found it warm.
Then fear came to Pierre, the first real fear of his
life. He jerked his head high and looked about
him. The room was utterly empty. He tiptoed to
the door and found even the long bar deserted, lit-
tered with tall bottles and overturned glasses. The
cold in his heart increased. A moment before he
had been hand in hand with all the mirth in that
place.
FEAR 55
Now the men whose laughter he had repeated
with smiles, the men against whose sleeves his el-
bow had touched, were further away from him than
they had been when all the snow-covered miles from
Morgantown to the school of Father Victor had
laid between them. They were men who might lose
themselves in any crowd, but he was set apart with
a brand, even as Hurley and Diaz had been set apart
that eventful evening.
He had killed a man. That fact blotted out the
world. He drew his gun again and stole down the
length of the bar. Once he stopped and poised the
weapon before he realized that the white, fierce face
that squinted at him was his own reflection in a
mirror.
Outside the door the free wind caught at his face,
and he blessed it in his heart, as if it had been the
touch of the hand of a friend. Beyond the long,
dark, silent street the moon rose and passed up
through the safe, dark spaces of the sky.
He must move quickly now. The pursuit was
not yet organized, but it would begin in a space of
minutes. From the group of half a dozen horses
which stood before the saloon he selected the best
a tall, raw-boned nag with an ugly head. Into the
saddle he swung, wondering faintly that the theft
of a horse mattered so little to him. His was the
greatest sin. All other things mattered nothing.
Down the long street he galloped. The sharp
echoes flew out at him from every unlighted house,
but not a human being was in sight. So he swung
out onto the long road which wound up through the
56 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
hills, and beside him rode a grim brotherhood, the
invisible fellowship of Cain.
The moon rose higher, brighter, and a grotesque
black shadow galloped over the snow beside him.
He turned his head sharply to the other side and
watched the sweep of white hills which reached back
in range after range until they blended with the
shadows of night.
The road faded to a bridle path, and this in turn
he lost among the windings of the valley. He was
lost from even the traces of men, and yet the fear
of men pursued him. Fear, and yet with it there
was a thrill of happiness, for every swinging stride
of the tall, wild roan carried him deeper into free-
dom, the unutterable fierce freedom of the hunted.
CHAPTER VII
THE VOICE IN THE STORM
ALL life was tame compared with this sudden
awakening of Pierre, for his whole being burst into
flower, his whole nature opened. He had killed a
man. For fear of it he raced the tall roan furiously
through the night.
He had killed a man. For the joy of it his head
was high, he shouted a song that went ringing across
the blank, white hills. What place was there in Red
Pierre for solemn qualms of conscience? Had he
not met the first and last test triumphantly? The
oldest instinct in creation was satisfied in him. Now
he stood ready to say to all the world: Behold, a
man!
Let it be remembered that his early years had
been passed in a dull, dun silence, and time had
slipped by him with softly padding, uneventful hours.
Now, with the rope of restraint snapped, he rode
at the world with hands, palm upward, asking for
life, and that life which lies under the hills of the
mountain-desert heard his question and sent a cold,
sharp echo back to answer his lusty singing.
The first answer, as he plunged on, not knowing
where, and not caring, was when the roan reeled
suddenly and flung forward to the ground. Even
57
58 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
that violent stop did not unseat Red Pierre. He
jerked up on the reins with a curse and drove in the
spurs. Valiantly the horse reared his shoulders up,
but when he strove to rise the right foreleg dangled
helplessly. He had stepped in some hole and the
bone was broken cleanly across.
The rider slipped from the saddle and stood fac-
ing the roan, which pricked its ears forward and
struggled once more to regain its feet. The effort
was hopeless, and Pierre took the broken leg and
felt the rough edges of the splintered bone through
the skin. The animal, as if it sensed that the man
was trying to do it some good, nosed his shoulder
and whinnied softly.
Pierre stepped back and drew his revolver. The
bullet would do quickly what the cold would accom-
plish after lingering hours of torture, yet, facing
those pricking ears and the brave trust of the eyes,
he was blinded by a mist and could not aim. He
had to place the muzzle of the gun against the roan's
temple and pull the trigger. When he turned his
back he was the only living thing within the white
arms of the hills.
Yet, when the next hill was behind him, he had
already forgotten the second life which he put out
that night, for regret is the one sorrow which never
dodges the footsteps of the hunted. Like all his
brotherhood of Cain, Pierre le Rouge pressed for-
ward across the mountain-desert with his face turned
toward the brave to-morrow. In the evening of his
life, if he should live to that time, he would walk
and talk with God.
THE VOICE IN THE STORM 59
Now he had no mind save for the bright day
coming.
He had been riding with the wind and had scarcely
noticed its violence in his headlong course. Now
he felt it whipping sharply at his back and increas-
ing with each step. Overhead the sky was clear,
pitilessly clear. It seemed to give vision for the
wind and cold to seek him out, and the moon made
his following shadow long and black across the
snow.
The wind quickened rapidly to a gale that cut off
the surface of the snow and whipped volleys of the
small particles level with the surface. It cut the
neck of Red Pierre, and the gusts struck his shoul-
ders with staggering force like separate blows,
twisting him a little from side to side.
Coming from the direction of Morgantown, it
seemed as if the vengeance for Diaz was following
the slayer. Once he turned and laughed hard and
short in the teeth of the wind, and shook his fist back
at Morgantown and all the avenging powers of the
law.
Yet he was glad to turn away from the face of
the storm and stride on down-wind. Even traveling
with the gale grew more and more impossible. The
snowdrifts which the wind picked up and hurried
across the hills pressed against Pierre's back like a
great, invisible hand, bowing him as if beneath a
burden. In the hollows the labor was not so great,
but when he approached a summit the gale screamed
in his ear and struck him savagely.
For all his optimism, for all his young, undrained
60 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
strength, a doubt began to grow in the mind of
Pierre le Rouge. At length, remembering how that
weight of gold came in his pockets, he slipped his
left hand into the bosom of his shirt and touched
the icy metal of the cross. Almost at once he heard,
or thought he heard, a faint, sweet sound of singing.
The heart of Red Pierre stopped. For he knew
the visions which came to men perishing with cold;
but he grew calmer again in a moment. This touch
of cold was nothing compared with whole months
of hard exposure which he had endured in the north-
land. It had not the edge. If it were not for the
wind it was scarcely a threat to life. Moreover,
the singing sounded no more. It had been hardly
more than a phrase of music, and it must have been
a deceptive murmur of the wind.
After all, a gale brought wilder deceptions than
that. Some men had actually heard voices declaim-
ing words in such a wind. He himself had heard
them tell their stories. So he leaned forward again
and gave his stanch heart to the task. Yet once
more he stopped, for this time the singing came
clearly, sweetly to him.
There was no doubt of it now. Of course it was
wildly impossible, absurd; but beyond all question
he heard the voice of a woman, high and tender,
come whistling down the wind. He could almost
catch the words. For a little moment he lingered
still. Then he turned and fought his way into the
strong arms of the storm.
Every now and then he paused and crouched to
the snow. Usually there was only the shriek of the
THE VOICE IN THE STORM 61
wind in his ears, but a few times the singing came
to him and urged him on. If he had allowed the
idea of failure to enter his mind, he must have given
up the struggle, but failure was a stranger to his
thoughts.
He lowered his head against the storm. Some-
times it caught under him and nearly lifted him
from his feet. But he clung against the slope of the
hill, sometimes gripping hard with his hands. So he
worked his way to the right, the sound of the sing-
ing coming more and more frequently and louder
and louder. When he was almost upon the source
of the music it ceased abruptly.
He waited a moment, but no sound came. He
struggled forward a few more yards and pitched
down exhausted, panting. Still he heard the sing-
ing no longer. With a falling heart he rose and re-
signed himself to wander on his original course with
the wind, but as he started he placed his hand once
more against the cross, and it was then that he saw
her.
For he had simply gone past her, and the yelling
of the storm had cut off the sound of her voice.
Now he saw her lying, a spot of bright color on
the snow. He read the story at a glance. As she
passed this steep-sided hill the loosely piled snow
had slid down and carried with it the dead trunk
of a fallen tree.
Pierre came from behind and stood over her un-
noticed. He saw that the oncoming tree, by a
strange chance, had knocked down the girl and
pinned her legs to the ground. His strength and
62 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
the strength of a dozen men would not be sufficient
to release her. This he saw at the first glance, and
saw the bright gold of her hair against the snow.
Then he dropped on his knees beside her.
CHAPTER VIII
BELIEF
THE girl tossed up her arms in a silent ecstasy,
and Pierre caught the small cold hands and saw that
she was only a child of twelve or fourteen, lovely
as only a child can be, and still more beautiful with
the wild storm sweeping over her and the waste of
snow around them.
He crouched lower still, and when he did so the
strength of the wind against his face decreased won-
derfully, for the sharp angle of the hill's declivity
protected them. Seeing him kneel there, helpless
with wonder, she cried out with a little wail : "Help
me the tree help me !" And, bursting into a pas-
sion of sobbing, she tugged her hands from his and
covered her face.
Pierre placed his shoulder under the trunk and
lifted till the muscles of his back snapped and
cracked. He could not budge the weight; he could
not even send a tremor through the mass of wood;
He dropped back beside her with a groan. He felt
her eyes upon him; she had ceased her sobs, and
looked steadily, gravely, into his face.
It would have been easy for him to meet that look
on the morning of this day, but after that night's
63
64 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
work in Morgantown he had to brace his nerve
mightily to withstand it.
She said: "You can't budge the tree?"
"Yes in a minute; I will try again."
"You'll only hurt yourself for nothing. I saw
how you strained at it."
The greatest miracle he had ever seen was her
calm. Her eyes were wide and sorrowful indeed,
but she was almost smiling up to him.
After a while he was able to say, in a faint, small
voice: "Are you very cold?"
She answered: "I'm not afraid. But if you stay
longer with me, you may freeze. The snow and
even the tree help to keep me almost warm ; but you
will freeze. Go for help; hurry, and if you can,
send it back to me."
He thought of the long miles back to Morgan-
town; no human being could walk that distance
against this wind; not even a strong horse could
make its way through the storm. If he went on with
the wind, how long would it be before he reached a
house ? Before him, over range after range of hills,
he saw no single sign of a building. If he reached
some such place it would be the same story as the
trip to Morgantown; men simply could not beat a
way against that wind.
Then a cold hand touched his, and he looked up
to find her eyes grave and wide once more, and her
lips half smiling, as if she strove to deceive him.
"There's no chance of bringing help?"
He merely stared hungrily at her, and the love-
liest thing he had ever seen was the play of golden
BELIEF 65
hair beside her cheek. Her smile went out. She
withdrew her hand, but she repeated:
"I'm not afraid. I'll simply grow numb and then
fall asleep. But you go on a'n-d save yourself."
Seeing him shake his head, she caught his hands
again, and so strongly that the chill of her touch
filled his veins with an icy fire.
"I'll be unhappy. You'll make me so unhappy
if you stay. Please go."
He raised the small, white hand and pressed it
to his lips.
She said: "You are crying!"
"No, no!"
"There! I see the tears shining on my hand.
What is your name?"
"Pierre."
"Pierre? I like that name. Pierre, to make me
happy, will you go? Your face is all white and
touched with a shadow of blue. It is the cold. Oh,
won't you go?" Then she pleaded, finding him ob-
durate: "If you won't go for me, then go for your
father."
He raised his head with a sudden laughter, and,
raising it, the wind beat into his face fiercely and
the particles of snow whipped his skin.
"Dear Pierre, then for your mother?"
He bowed his head.
"Not for all the people who love you and wait
for you now by some warm fire some cozy fire,
all yellow and bright?"
He took her hands and with them covered his
eyes.
66 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
"Listen: I have no father; I have no mother."
"Pierre! Oh, Pierre, I'm sorry I"
"And for the rest of 'em, I've killed a man. The
whole world hates me; the whole world's hunting
me."
The small hands tugged away. He dared not
raise his bowed and miserable head for fear of her
eyes. And then the hands came back to him and
touched his face.
She was saying tremulously: "Then he deserved
to be killed. There must be men like that almost.
And I like you still, Pierre."
"Really?"'
"I almost think I like you more because you
could kill a man and then stay here for me."
"If you were a grown-up girl, do you know what
I'd say?"
"Please tell me."
"That I could love you."
"Pierre"
"Yes."
"My name is Mary Brown."
He repeated several times: "Mary."
"And if I were a grown-up girl, do you know
what I would answer?"
"I don't dare guess it."
"That I could love you, Pierre, if you were a
grown-up man."
"But I am."
"Not a really one."
And they both broke into laughter happy laugh-
ter that died out before a sound of rushing and of
BELIEF 67
thunder, as a mass slid swiftly past them, snow and
mud and sand and rubble. The wind fell away from
them, and when Pierre looked up he saw that a great
mass pf tumbled rock and soil loomed above them.
The landslide had not touched them, by some
miracle, but in a moment more it might shake loose
again, and all that mass of ton upon ton of stone
and loam would overwhelm them. The whole mass
quaked and trembled and trembled, and the very
hillside shuddered beneath them.
She looked up and saw the coming ruin; but her
cry was for him, not herself.
"Run, Pierre you can save yourself."
With that terror threatening him from above,
he rose and started to run down the hill. A moan
of woe followed him, and he stopped and turned
back, and fought his way through the wind until he
was beside her once more.
She was wringing the white, cold hands and
weeping:
"Pierre I couldn't help it but when you left
me the whole world went out, and my heart broke.
I couldn't help calling out for you; but now I'm
strong again, and I won't have you stay. The whole
mountain is shaking and falling toward us. Go
now, Pierre, and I'll never make a sound to bring
you back."
He said : "Hush ! I've something here which will
keep us both safe. Look !"
He tore from the chain which held it at his throat
the little metal cross, and held it high overhead,
68 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
glimmering in the pallid light. She forgot her fear
in wonder.
"I gambled with only one coin to lose, and I came
out to-night with hundreds and hundreds of dollars
because I had the cross. It is a charm against all
danger and against all bad fortune. It has never
failed me."
Over them the piled mass slid closer. The fore-
head of Pierre gleamed with sweat, but a strong
purpose made him talk on. At least he could take
all the foreboding of death from the child, and when
the end came it would be swift and wipe them both
out at one stroke. She clung to him, eager to be-
lieve.
"I've closed my eyes so that I can believe."
"It has never failed me. It saved me once when
I fought a big bobcat with only a knife. It saved
me again when I fought two men. Both of them
were famous fighters, but neither of them had the
cross. One of them I crippled and the other died.
You see, the power of the cross is as great as that.
Do you doubt it now, Mary?"
"Do you believe in it so much really Pierre?"
Each time there was a little lowering of her voice,
a little pause and caress in the tone as she uttered
his name, and nothing in all his life had stirred Red
Pierre so deeply with happiness and sorrow.
"Do you believe, Pierre?" she repeated.
He looked up and saw the shuddering mass of
the landslide creeping upon them inch by inch. In
another moment it would loose itself with a rush
and cover them.
BELIEF 69
"I believe," he said.
"If you should live, and I should die "
"I would throw the cross away."
"No, you would keep it; and every time it touched
cold against your breast you would think of me,
Pierre, would you not?"
"When you reach out to me like that, you sort
of take my heart between your hands."
"And when you look at me like that I feel grown-
up and sad and happy both together. But, listen,
Pierre, I know why I cannot die now. God means
us to be so happy together, doesn't He? Because
after we've been together on such a night, how can
we ever be apart again?"
The mass of the landslide toppled right above
them. She did not seem to see.
"Of course we never can be."
"But we'll be like a brother and sister and some-
thing more."
"And something more, Mary."
She clapped her hands and laughed. The laugh-
ter hurt him more than her sobbing, for as she lay
wrapped in her thick furs, even the pale, cold light
could not make her pallid.
The blowing hair was as warm as yellow sunshine
to the heart of Pierre le Rouge, and the color of her
cheeks was as dear to him as the early flowers of
spring in the northland.
"I'm so happy, Pierre. I was never so happy."
And he said, with his eyes on the approaching
ruin:
70 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
"It was your singing that brought me to you.
Will you sing again?"
"I sang because I knew that when I sang the
sound would carry farther through the wind than
if I called for help. What shall I sing for you now,
Pierre?"
"What you sang when I came to you."
And the light, sweet voice rose easily through
the sweep of the wind. She smiled as she sang, and
the smile and music were all for Pierre, he knew,
and all the pathos of the climax was for him; but
through the last stanza of the song the rumble of the
approaching death grew louder, and as she ended
he threw himself beside her and gathered her into
protecting arms.
She cried: "Pierre! What is it?"
"I must keep you warm; the snow will eat away
your strength."
"No ; it's more than that. Tell me, Pierre I You
don't trust the power of the cross?"
"Are you afraid?"
"Oh, no; I'm not afraid, Pierre."
"If one life would be enough, I'd give mine a thou-
sand times. Mary, we are to die."
A small arm slipped around his neck a cold hand
pressed against his cheek.
"Pierre."
"Yes."
The thunder broke above them with a mighty
roaring.
"You have no fear."
"Mary, if I had died alone I would have dropped
BELIEF 71
down to hell under my sins; but, with your arm
around me, you'll take me with you. Hold me
close."
"With all my heart, Pierre. See Fm not afraid.
It is like going to sleep. What wonderful dreams
we'll have!"
And then the black mass of the landslide swept
upon them.
CHAPTER IX
RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
DOWN all the length of the mountain-desert and
across its width of rocks and mountains and valleys
and stern plateaus there is a saying: "You can tell
a man by the horse he rides." For most other im-
portant things are apt to go by opposites, which is
the usual way in which a man selects his wife. With
dogs, for instance a quiet man is apt to want an
active dog, and a tractable fellow may keep the most
vicious of wolf-dogs.
But when it comes to a horse, a man's heart
speaks for itself, and if he has sufficient knowledge
of the king of beasts he will choose a sympathetic
mount. A dainty woman loves a neat-stepping sad-
dle-horse; a philosopher likes a nodding, stumble-
footed nag which will jog all day long and care not
a whit whether it goes up dale or down.
To know the six wild riders who galloped over
the white reaches of the mountain-desert this night,
certainly their horses should be studied first and
the men secondly, for the one explained the other.
They came in a racing triangle. Even the storm
at its height could not daunt such furious riders. At
the point of the triangle thundered a mighty black
stallion, his muzzle and his broad chest flecked with
RIDERS OF THE SILENCES 73
white foam, for he stretched his head out and
champed at the bit with ears laid flat back, as
though even that furious pace gave him no oppor-
tunity to use fully his strength.
He was no cleanly cut beauty, but an ugly headed
monster with a savagely hooked Roman nose and
small, keen eyes, always red at the corners. A
medieval baron in full panoply of plate armor
would have chosen such a charger among ten thou-
sand steeds, yet the black stallion needed all his
strength to uphold the unarmored giant who be-
strode him, a savage figure.
When the broad brim of his hat flapped up against
the wind the moonshine caught at shaggy brows, a
cruelly arched nose, thin, straight lips, and a for-
ward-thrusting jaw. It seemed as if nature had
hewn him roughly and designed him for a primitive
age where he could fight his way with hands and
teeth.
This was Jim Boone. To his right and a little
behind him galloped a riderless horse, a beautiful
young animal continually tossing its head and look-
ing as if for guidance at the big stallion.
To the left strode a handsome bay with pricking
ears. A mound interfered with his course, and he
cleared it in magnificent style that would have
brought a cheer from the lips of any English lover
of the chase.
Straight in the saddle sat Dick Wilbur, and he
* raised his face a little to the wind, smiling faintly
as if he rejoiced in its fine strength, as handsome as
the horse he rode, as cleanly cut, as finely bred. The
74 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
moon shone a little brighter on him than on any
others of the six stark riders.
Bud Mansie 'behind, for instance, kept his head
slightly to one side and cursed beneath his breath at
the storm and set his teeth at the wind. His horse,
delicately formed, with long, slender legs, could not
have endured that charge against the storm save
that it constantly edged behind the leaders and let
them break the wind. It carried less weight than
any other mount of the six, and its strength was cun-
ningly nursed by the rider so that it kept its place,
and at the finish it would be as strong as any and
swifter, perhaps, for a sudden, short effort, just as
Bud Mansie might be numbed through all his nerv-
ous, slender body, but never too numb for swift and
deadly action.
On the opposite wing of the flying wedge galloped
a dust-colored gray, ragged of mane and tail, and
vindictive of eye, like its down-headed rider, who
shifted his glance rapidly from side to side and
watched the ground closely before his horse as if
he were perpetually prepared for danger.
He distrusted the very ground over which his
mount strode. For all this he seemed the least for-
midable of all the riders. To see him pass none
could have suspected that this was Black Morgan
Gandil.
Last of the crew came two men almost as large
as Jim Boone himself, on strong steady-striding
horses. They came last in this crew, but among
a thousand other long-riders they would have ridden
first, either red-faced, good-humored, loud-voiced
RIDERS OF THE SILENCES 75
Garry Patterson, or Phil Branch, stout-handed, blunt
of jaw, who handled men as he had once hammered
red iron at the forge.
Each of them should have ridden alone in order
to be properly appreciated. To see them together
was like watching a flock of eagles every one of
which should have been a solitary lord of the air.
But after scanning that lordly train which followed,
the more terrible seemed the rider of the great black
horse.
Yet the king was sad, and the reason for his sad-
ness was the riderless horse which galloped so freely
beside him. His son had ridden that horse when *
they set out, and all the way down to the railroad
Handsome Hal Boone had kept his mount prancing
and curveting and had ridden around and around .
tall Dick Wilbur, playing pranks, and had teased
his father's black until the big stallion lashed out
wildly with furious heels.
It was the memory of this that kept the grave
shadow of a smile on the father's lips for all the
sternness of his eyes. He never turned his head,
for, looking straight forward, he could conjure up
the laughing vision; but when he glanced to the
empty saddle he heard once more the last unlucky
shot fired from the train as they raced off with their
booty, and saw Hal reel in his saddle and pitch for-
ward; and how he had tried to check his horse and
turn back ; and how big Dick Wilbur, and Patterson,
and mighty-handed Phil Branch had forced him to
go on and leave that form lying motionless on the
snow.
76 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
At that he groaned, and spurred the black, and
so the cavalcade rushed faster and faster through
the night.
They came over a sharp ridge and veered to the
side just in time, for all the further slope was a mass
of treacherous sand and rubble and raw rocks and
mud, where a landslide had stripped the hill to the
stone.
As they veered about the ruin and thundered on
down to the foot of the hill, Jim Boone threw up
his hand for a signal and brought his stallion to a
halt on back-braced, sliding legs.
For a metallic glitter had caught his eye, and then
he saw, half covered by the pebbles and dirt, the
figure of a man. He must have been struck by the
landslide and not overwhelmed by it, but rather
carried before it like a stick in a rush of water. At
the outermost edge of the wave he lay with the
rocks and dirt washed over him. Boone swung from
the saddle and lifted Pierre le Rouge.
The gleam of metal was the cross which his fingers
still gripped. Boone examined it with a somewhat
superstitious caution, took it from the nerveless fin-
gers, and slipped it into a pocket of Pierre's shirt.
A small cut on the boy's forehead showed where the
stone struck which knocked him senseless, but the
cut still bled a small trickle Pierre lived. He
even stirred and groaned and opened his eyes, large
and deeply blue.
It was only an instant before they closed, but
Boone had seen. He turned with the figure lifted
easily in his arms as if Pierre had been a child fallen
RIDERS OF THE SILENCES 77
asleep by the hearth and now about to be carried
off to bed.
And the outlaw said: "I've lost my boy to-night.
This here one was given me by the will of God."
Black Morgan Gandil reined his horse close by,
leaned to peer down, and the shadow of his hat fell
across the face of Pierre.
"There's no good comes of savin' shipwrecked
men. Leave him where you found him, Jim. That's
my advice. Sidestep a red-headed man. That's
what I say."
The quick-stepping horse of Bud Mansie came
near, and the rider wiped his blue, stiff lips, and
spoke from the side of his mouth, a prison habit of
the line that moves in the lock-step : "Take it from
me, Jim, there ain't any place in our crew for a man
you've picked up without knowing him beforehand.
Let him lay, I say."
But big Dick Wilbur was already leading up the
horse of Hal Boone, and into the saddle Jim Boone
swung the inert body of Pierre. The argument was
settled, for every man of them knew that nothing
could turn Boone back from a thing once begun.
Yet there were muttered comments that drew Black
Morgan Gandil and Bud Mansie together.
And Gandil, from the South Seas, growled with
averted eyes:
"This is the most fool stunt the chief has ever
pulled."
"Right, pal," answered Mansie. "You take a
snake in out of the cold, and it bites you when it
comes to in the warmth; but the chief has started,
78 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
and there ain't nothing that'll make him stop, except
maybe God or McGurk."
And Black Gandil answered with his evil, sudden
grin: "Maybe McGurk, but not God."
They started on again with Garry Patterson and
Dick Wilbur riding close on either side of Pierre,
supporting his limp body. It delayed the whole
gang, for they could not go on faster than a jog-
trot. The wind, however, was falling off in vio-
lence. Its shrill whistling ceased, at length, and
they went on, accompanied only by the harsh crunch-
ing of the snow underfoot.
CHAPTER X
THE GUARD
CONSCIOUSNESS returned to Pierre like the light
of the rising moon which breaks dimly through the
window and makes all the objects in a room gro-
tesquely large and blackly shadowed. Many a time
his eyes opened, and he saw nothing, but when he
did see and hear it was by vague glimpses.
He heard the crying crunch of the snow under-
foot; he heard the panting and snorting of the
horses; he felt the swing and jolt of the saddle be-
neath him ; he saw the grim faces of the long-riders,
and he said: "The law has taken me."
Thereafter he let his will lapse, and surrendered
to the sleepy numbness which assailed his brain in
waves. He was riding without support by this time,
but it was an automatic effort. There was no more
real life in him than in a dummy figure. It was not
the effect of the blow. It was rather the long ex-
posure and the over-exertion of nerves and mind
and body during the evening and night. He had
simply collapsed beneath the strain.
But an old army man has said: "Give me a soldier
of eighteen or twenty. In a single day he may not
march quite so far as a more mature man or carry
quite so much weight. He will go to sleep each
79
8o RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
night dead to the world. But in the morning he
awakens a new man. He is like a slate from which
all the writing has been erased. He is ready for a
new day and a new world. Thirty days of cam-
paigning leaves him as strong and fresh as ever.
"Thirty days of campaigning leaves the old sol-
dier a wreck. Why? Because as a man grows older
he loses the ability to sleep soundly. He carries the
nervous strain of one day over to the next. Life is
a serious problem to a man over thirty. To a man
under thirty it is simply a game. For my part, give
me men who can play at war."
So it was with Pierre le Rouge. He woke with a
faint heaviness of head, and stretched himself.
There were many sore places, but nothing more. He
looked up, and the slant winter sun cut across his
face and made a patch of bright yellow on the wall
beside him.
Next he heard a faint humming, and, turning his
head, saw a boy of fourteen or perhaps a little more,
busily cleaning a rifle in a way that betokened the
rnost expert knowledge of the weapon. Pierre him-
self knew rifles as a preacher knows his Bible, and as
he lay half awake and half asleep he smiled with en-
joyment to see the deft fingers move here and there,
wiping away the oil. A green hand will spend half
a day cleaning a gun, and then do the work imper-
fectly; an expert does the job efficiently in ten min-
utes. This was an expert.
Undoubtedly this was a true son of the mountain
desert. He wore his old slouch hat even in the
house, and his skin was that olive brown which comes
THE GUARD 81
from many years of exposure to the wind and sun.
At the same time there was a peculiar fineness about
the boy. His feet were astonishingly small and the
hands thin and slender for all their supple strength.
And his neck was not bony, as it is in most youths
at this gawky age, but smoothly rounded.
Men grow big of bone and sparse of flesh in the
mountain desert. It was the more surprising to
Pierre to see this young fellow with the marvelously
delicate-cut features. By some freak of nature here
was a place where the breed ran to high blood.
The cleaning completed, the boy tossed the butt
of the gun to his shoulder and squinted down the bar-
rel. Then he loaded the magazine, weighted the
gun deftly at the balance, and dropped the rifle
across his knees.
"Morning," said Pierre le Rouge cheerily, and
swung off the bunk to the floor. "How old's the
gun?"
The boy, without the slightest show of excitement,
snapped the butt to his shoulder and drew a bead
on Pierre's breast.
"Sit down before you get all heated up," said a
musical voice. "There's nobody waiting for you
on horseback."
And Pierre sat down, partly because Western
men never argue a point when that little black hole
is staring them in the face, partly because he remem-
bered with a rush that the last time he had fully
possessed his consciousness he had been lying in the
snow with the cross gripped hard and the toppling
mass of the landslide above him. All that had hap-
82 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
pencd between was blotted from his memory. He
fumbled at his throat. The cross was not there.
He touched his pockets.
"Ease your hands away from your hip," said the
cold voice of the boy, who had dropped his gun to
the ready with a significant finger curled around the
trigger, u or I'll drill you clean. 7 *
Pierre obediently raised his hands to the level of
his shoulders. The boy sneered, and a light of in-
finite scorn blazed into those great black eyes.
"This isn't a hold-up," he explained. "Put 'em
down again, but watch yourself."
The sneer varied to a contemptuous smile.
"I guess you're tame, all right."
"Point that gun another way, will you, son?"
The boy started and flushed a little.
"Don't call me son."
"Is this a lockup a jail?"
"This?"
"What is it, then? The last I remember I was
lying in the snow with "
"I wish to God you'd been let there," said the boy
bitterly.
But Pierre, overwhelmed with the endeavor to
recollect, rushed on with his questions and paid no
heed to the tone.
"I had a cross in my hand "
The scorn of the boy grew to mighty proportions.
"It's there in the breast-pocket of your shirt."
Pierre drew out the little cross, and the touch of
it against his palm restored whatever of his strength
was lacking. Very carefully he attached it to the
THE GUARD 83
chain about his throat. Then he looked up to the
contempt of the boy, and as he did so another mem-
ory burst on him and brought him to his feet. The
gun went to the boy's shoulders at the same time.
"When I was found was any one else with me?"
"Nope."
"What happened?"
"Must have been buried in the landslide. Half a
hill caved in, and the dirt rolled you down to the
bottom. Plain luck, that's all, that kept you from
going out."
"Luck?" said Pierre and he laid his hand against
his breast where he could feel the outline of the
cross. "Yes, I suppose it was luck. And she "
He sat down slowly and buried his face in his
hands. A new tone came in the voice of the boy.
His tone was thrillingly gentle as he asked : "Was a
woman with you?" But Pierre heard only the tone
and not the words. His face was gray when he
looked up again, and his voice hard.
"Tell me as briefly as you can how I come here,
ind who picked me up."
"My father and his men. They passed you lying
on the snow. They brought you home."
"Who is your father?"
The boy stiffened and his color rose in pride and
defiance.
"My father is Jim Boone."
Instinctively, while he stared, the right hand of
Pierre le Rouge crept toward his hip.
"Keep your hand steady/ 1 said the boy. U I got a
84 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
nervous trigger-finger. Yeh, dad is pretty well
known."
"You're his son?"
"I'm Jack Boone."
"But I've heard tell me, do you look like your
father?"
Jack Boone smiled, strove to frown, and then
burst into surprisingly musical laughter. It came
in bursts and ripples, and seemed that it would never
end. His merriment ended slowly, for he saw the
eyes of Pierre stare into blank distance, and knew
that the man with the red hair was thinking of the
woman whom the landslide had buried. Something
that was partially sympathy and partially curiosity
altered Jack's expression.
After all, it was very difficult to remain hostile in
front of the steady blue eyes of this stranger.
Pierre said gravely: "Why am I under guard?"
Jack was instantly aflame with the old anger.
"Not because I want you here."
"Who does?"
"Dad."
"Put away your pop-gun and talk sense. I won't
try to get away until Jim Boone comes. I only fight
men."
Even the anger and grief of the boy could not
keep him from smiling in his peculiarly winning
way.
"Just the same I'll keep the shooting-iron handy.
Sit still. A gun don't keep me from talking sense,
does it? You're here to take Hal's place. Hal!"
The little wail told a thousand things, and Pierre,
THE GUARD 85
shocked out of the thought of his own troubles,
waited.
"My brother, Hal; he's dead; he died last night,
and on the way back dad found you and brought
you to take Hal's place. Hal's place!"
The accent showed how impossible it was that
Hal's place could be taken by any mortal man.
"I got orders to keep you here, but if I was to
do what I'd like to do, I'd give you the best horse
on the place and tell you to clear out. That's me !"
"Then do it."
"And face dad afterward?"
"Tell him I overpowered you. That would be
easy; you a slip of a boy, and me a man."
"Stranger, it goes to show you may have heard of
Jim Boone, but you don't anyways know him. When
he orders a thing done he wants it done, and he
don't care how, and he don't ask questions why. He
just raises hell."
"He really expects to keep me here?"
"Expects? He will."
"Going to tie me up?" asked Pierre ironically.
"Maybe," answered Jack, overlooking the irony.
"Maybe he'll just put you on my shoulders to
guard."
He moved the gun significantly.
"And I can do it."
"Of course. But he would have to let me go some
time."
"Not till you'd promised to stick by him. I told
him that myself, but he said that you're young and
that he'd teach you to like this life whether you
86 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
wanted to or not. Me speaking personally, I agree
with Black Gandil: This is the worst fool thing that
dad has ever done. What do we want with you
in Hal's place!' 1
And a suggestion of a sob came in Jack's voice,
though he set his teeth to keep it back.
u But I've got a thing to do right away to-day;
it can't wait.
"Give dad your word to come back and he'll let
you go. He says you're the kind that will keep your
word. You see, he found you with a cross in your
hand."
And Jack's lips curled again.
It was all absurd, too impossible to be real. The
only real things were the body of white-handed, yel-
low-haired Mary Brown under the tumbled rocks
and dirt of the landslide, and the body of Martin
Ryder waiting to be placed in that corner plot where
the grass grew quicker than all other grass in the
spring of the year.
However, having fallen among madmen, he must
use cunning to get away before the outlaw and his
men came back from wherever they had gone.
Otherwise there would be more bloodshed, more
play of guns and hum of lead.
"Tell me of Hal," he said, and dropped his el-
bows on his knees as if he accepted his fate.
"Don't know you well enough to talk of Hal."
"I'm sorry." '
The boy made a little gesture of apology.
"I guess that was a low-down mean thing to say.
Sure I'll tell you about Hal if I can."
THE GUARD 87
For his lips trembled at the thought of the dead.
"Tell me anything you can," said Pierre gently,
"because I've got to try to be like him, haven't I?"
"You could try till rattlers got tame, but it'd take
ten like you to make one like Hal. He was dad's
own son he was my brother."
The sob came openly now, and the tears were a
bright mist in the boy's eyes.
"What's your name?"
"Pierre."
"Pierre? I suppose I got to learn it"
"I suppose so." And he edged farther forward,
so that he was sitting only on the edge of the bunk.
^Please do." And he gathered his feet under
him, ready for a spring forward and a grip at the
boy's threatening rifle.
Jack had canted his head a little to one side, smil-
ing faintly for the joy of the memory.
"Did you ever see a horse that was gentle and yet
had never been ridden, or his spirit broke, Pierre "
Here Pierre made his leap swift as some bobcat
of the northern woods; his hand whipped out as
lightning fast as the striking paw of the lynx, and the
gun was jerked from the hands of Jack. Not before
the boy clutched at it with a cry of horror, but the
force of the pull sent him lurching to the floor and
broke his grip.
He was up in an instant, however, and a knife
of ugly length glittered in his hand; as he sprang at
Pierre his lips were as white as the teeth over which
they snarled.
Pierre tossed aside the rifle and met the attack
S8 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
bare-handed. Deadly swift was the thrust of the
knife, but compared with the motion of Pierre it was
as slow as tame things are when they are likened to
the wild.
He caught the knife-bearing hand at the wrist
and under his grip the hand loosened its hold and the
steel tinkled on the floor. His other arm caught the
body of Jack in a mighty vise.
There was a brief and futile struggle, and a hiss-
ing of breath in the silence till the hat tumbled from
the head of Jack arfd down over the shoulders
streamed a torrent of silken black hair.
Pierre stepped back. This was the meaning,
then, of the strangely small feet and hands and the
low music of the voice. It was the body of a girl
that he had held, and his arm still tingled from the
finger-tips to the shoulder.
CHAPTER XI
JACK GROWS UP
IT was not fear nor shame that made the eyes of
Jacqueline so wide as she stared past Pierre toward
the door. He glanced across his shoulder, and
blocking the entrance to the room, literally filling the
doorway, was the bulk of Jim Boone.
"Seems as if I was sort of steppin' in on a little
family party," he said. "I'm sure glad you two
got acquainted so quick. Jack, how did you and
What the hell's your name, lad?"
"He tricked me, dad, or he would never have
got the gun away from me. This this Pierre
this beast he got me to talk of Hal till my eyes
filled up and I couldn't see. Then he stole "
"The point," said Jim Boone coldly, "is that he
got the gun. Run along, Jack. You ain't so growed
up as I was thinkin'. Or hold on maybe you're
more grown up. Which is it? Are you turnin' into
a woman, Jack?"
She whirled on Pierre in a white fury.
"You see? You see what you've done? He'll
never trust me again never! Pierre, I hate you.
I'll always hate you. And if Hal were here "
A storm of sobs and tears cut her short, and she
89
90 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
disappeared through the door. Boone and Pierre
stood regarding each other critically.
The boy spoke first: "You're not as big as I ex-
pected."
"I'm plenty big; but you're older than I thought."
"Too old for what you want of me. The girl
told me what that was."
"Not too old to be made what I want."
And his hands passed through a significant gesture
of moulding the empty air. The boy met his eye
dauntlessly.
"I suppose," he said, "that I've a pretty small
chance of getting away."
"Just about none, Pierre. Come here."
Pierre stepped closer and looked down the hall
into another room. There, about a table, sat the
five grimmest riders of the mountain desert that he
had even seen. They were such men as one could
judge at a glance, and Pierre made that instinctive
motion for his six-gun.
"The. girl," Jim Boone was saying, "kept you
pretty busy tryin' to make a break, and if she could
do anything maybe you'd have a pile of trouble with
one of them guardin' you. But if I'd had a good
look at you, lad, I'd never have let Jack take the job
of guardin' you."
"Thanks," answered Pierre dryly.
"You got reason; I can see that. Here's the
point, Pierre. I know young men because I can re-
member pretty close what I was at your age. I
wasn't any ladies' lap dog, at that, but time and
JACK GROWS UP 91
older men molded me the way I'm going to mold
you. Understand?"
Pierre was nerved for many things, but the last
word made him stir. It roused in him a red-tinged
desire to get through the forest of black beard at
the throat of Boone and dim the glitter of those
keen eyes. It brought him also another thought.
Two great tasks lay before him: the burial of
his father and the avenging of him on McGurk.
As to the one, he knew it would be childish madness
for him to attempt to bury his father in Morgan-
town with only his single hand to hold back the pow-
ers of the law or the friends of the notorious Diaz
and crippled Hurley.
And for the other, it was even more vain to
imagine that through his own unaided power he
could strike down a figure of such almost legendary
terror as McGurk. The bondage of the gang might
be a terrible thing through the future, but the pres-
ent need blinded him to what might come.
He said: "Suppose I stop raising questions or
making a fight, but give you my hand and call my-
self a member "
"Of the family? Exactly. If you did that I'd
know it was because you were wantin' something,
Pierre, eh?"
"Two things."
"Lad, I like this way of talk. One two you hit
quick like a two-gun man. Well, I'm used to paying
high for what I get. What's up?"
"The first "
92 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
"Wait Can I help you out by myself, or do you
need the gang?"
"The gang."
"Then come, and I'll put it up to them. You
first. 11
It was equally courtesy and caution, and Pierre
smiled faintly as he went first through the door. He
stood in a moment under the eyes of five silent men.
The booming voice of Jim Boone pronounced:
"This is Pierre. He'll be one of us if he can get the
gang to do two things. I ask you, will you hear him
for me, and then pass on whether or not you try his
game?"
They nodded. There were no greetings to ac-
knowledge the introduction. They waited, eyeing
the youth with distrust.
Pierre eyed them in turn, and then he spoke
directly to big Dick Wilbur.
"Here's the first : I want to bury a man in Mor-
gantown and I need help to do it."
Black Gandil snarled: "You heard me, boys;
blood to start with. Who's the man you want us
to put out?"
"He's dead my father."
They came up straight in their chairs like trained
actors rising to a stage crisis. The snarl straight-
ened on the lips of Black Morgan Gandil.
"He's lying in his house a few miles out of Mor-
gantown. As he died he told me that he wanted
to be buried in a corner plot in the Morgantown
graveyard. He'd seen the place and counted it for
his a good many years because he said the grass
JACK GROWS UP 93
grew quicker there than any other place, after the
snow went."
"A damned good reason," said Garry Patterson.
As the idea stuck more deeply into his imagination
he smashed his fist down on the table so that the
crockery on it danced. U A damned good reason,
say I!"
"Who's your father?" asked Dick Wilbur, who
eyed Pierre more critically but with less enmity than
the rest.
"Martin Ryder."
"A ringer !" cried Bud Mansie, and he leaned for*
ward alertly. "You remember what I said, Jim?"
"Shut up. Pierre, talk soft and talk quick. We
all know Mart Ryder had only two sons and you're
not either of them."
The Northener grew stiff and as his face grew
pale the red mark where the stone had struck his
forehead stood out like a danger signal.
He said slowly: "I'm his son, but not by the
mother of those two."
"Was he married twice?"
Pierre was paler still, and there was an uneasy
twitching of his right hand which every man under-
stood.
He barely whispered. "No; damn youl"
But Black Gandil loved evil.
He said, with a marvelously unpleasant smile:
"Then she was "
The voice of Dick Wilbur cut in like the snapping
of a whip: "Shut up, Gandil, you devil 1"
94 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
There were times when not even Boone would
cross Wilbur, and this was one of them.
Pierre went on: "The reason I can't go to Mor-
gantown is that I'm not very well liked by some of
the men there.'*
"Why not?"
"When my father died there was no money to pay
for his burial. I had only a half-dollar piece. I
went to the town and gambled and won a great deal.
But before I came out I got mixed up with a man
called Hurley, a professional gambler."
"And Diaz?" queried a chorus.
"Yes. Hurley was hurt in the wrist and Diaz
died. I think I'm wanted in Morgantown."
Out of a little silence came the voice of Black
Gandil: "Dick, I'm thankin' you now for cuttin' me
so short a minute ago."
Phil Branch had not spoken, as usual, but now
he repeated, with rapt, far-off eyes : " 'Hurley was
hurt in the wrist and Diaz died?' Hurley and
Diaz ! I played with Hurley, a couple of times."
"Speakin' personal," said Garry Patterson, his
red verging toward purple in excitement, "which I'm
ready to go with you down to Morgantown and bury
your father."
"And do it shipshape," added Black Gandil.
"With all the trimmings," said Bud Mansie,
"with all Morgantown joinin' the mournin' volun-
tarily under cover of our six-guns."
"Wait," said Boone. "What's the second re-
quest?"
"That can wait."
JACK GROWS UP 95
"It's a bigger job than this one?"
"Lots bigger."
"And in the mean time?"
"I'm your man."
They shook hands. Even Black Gandil rose to
take his share in the ceremony all save Bud Man-
sie, who had glanced out the window a moment be-
fore and then silently left the room. A bottle of
whiskey was produced and glasses filled all round.
Jim Boone brought in the seventh chair and placed
it at the table. They raised their glasses.
"To the empty chair," said Boone.
They drank, and for the first time in his life, the
liquid fire went down the throat of Pierre. He set
down his glass, coughing, and the others laughed
good-naturedly.
"Started down the wrong way?" asked Wilbur.
"It's beastly stuff; first I ever drank."
A roar of laughter answered him.
"Still I got an idea," broke in Jim Boone, "that
he's worthy of takin' the seventh chair. Draw it
up lad."
Vaguely it reminded Pierre of a scene in some
old play with himself in the role of the hero signing
away his soul to the devil, but an interruption kept
him from taking the chair. There was a racket at
the door a half-sobbing, half-scolding voice, and
the laughter of a man; then Bud Mansie appeared
carrying Jack in spite of her struggles. He placed
her on the floor and held her hands to protect him-
self from her fury.
"I glimpsed her through the window," he ex-
96 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
plained. "She was lining out for the stable and
then a minute later I saw her swing a saddle onto
what horse d'you think?"
"Out with it."
"Jim's big Thunder. Yep, she stuck the saddle
on big black Thunder and had a rifle in the holster.
I saw there was hell brewing somewhere, so I went
out and nabbed her."
"Jack!" called Jim Boone. "What were you
started for?"
Bud Mansie released her arms and she stood
with them stiffening at her sides and her small
brown fists clenched.
"Hal he died, and there was nothing but talk
about him nothing done. You got a live man in
Hal's place."
She pointed an accusing finger at Pierre.
"Maybe he takes his place for you, but he's not
my brother I hate him. I went out to get another
man to make up for Pierre."
"Well?"
"A dead man. I shoot straight enough for that."
A very solemn silence spread through the room;
for every man was watching in the eyes of the father
and daughter the same shining black devil of wrath.
"Jack, get into your room and don't move out of
it till I tell you to. D'you hear?"
She turned on her heel like a soldier and marched
from the room.
"Jack."
She stopped in the door but would not turn back,
JACK GROWS UP j 7
and still the room, watching that little tragedy, was
breathless.
"Jack, don't you love your old dad any more?"
She whirled and ran to him with outstretched arms
and clung to him, sobbing.
u Oh, dad dear dad," she groaned. "You've
broken my heart; youVe broken my heart!"
The others filed softly out of the room and stood
bareheaded under the winter sky.
Bud Mansie, his meager face transformed with
wonder, said: "Fellers, what d'you know about it?
Our Jack's grown up."
And Black Gandil answered: "Look at this Pierre
frowning at the ground. It was him that changed
her. 11
CHAPTER XII
THE BURIAL
THE annals of the mountain desert have never
been written and can never be written. They are
merely a vast mass of fact and tradition and imagin-
ing which floats from tongue to tongue from the
Rockies to the Sierra Nevadas. A man may be a
fact all his life and die only a local celebrity. Then
again, he may strike sparks from that imagination
which runs riot by camp-fires and at the bars of the
crossroads saloons.
In that case he becomes immortal. It is not that
lies are told about him or impossible feats ascribed
to him, but every detail about him is seized upon
and passed on with a most scrupulous and loving
care.
In due time he will become a tradition. That is,
he will be known familiarly at widely separated parts
of the range, places which he has never visited. It
has happened to a few of the famous characters of
the mountain desert that they became traditions be-
fore their deaths. It happened to McGurk, of
course. It also happened to Red Pierre.
Oddly enough, the tradition of Red Pierre did
not begin with his ride from the school of Father
Victor to Morgantown, distant many days of difficult
98
THE BURIAL 99
and dangerous travel. Neither did tradition seize
on the gun fight that crippled Hurley and "put out"
wizard Diaz. These things were unquestionably
known to many, but they did not strike the popular
imagination. What set men first on fire was the way
Pierre le Rouge buried his father "at the point of
the gun" in Morgantown.
That day Boone's men galloped out of the higher
mountains down the trail toward Morgantown.
They stole a wagon out of a ranch stable on the way
and tied two lariats to the tongue. So they towed
it, bounding and rattling, over the rough trail to the
house where Martin Ryder lay dead.
His body was placed in state in the body of the
wagon, pillowed with everything in the line of cloth
which the house could furnish. Thus equipped they
went on at a more moderate pace toward Morgan-
town.
What followed it is useless to repeat here. Tra-
dition rehearsed every detail of that day's work, and
the purpose of this narrative is only to give the de-
tails of some of the events which tradition does
not know, at least in their entirety.
They started at one end of Morgantown's street.
Pierre guarded the wagon in the center of the street
and kept the people under cover of his rifle. The
rest of Boone's men cleaned out the houses as they
went and sent the occupants piling out to swell the
crowd.
And so they rolled the crowd out of town and to
the cemetery, where "volunteers" dug the grave of
ioo RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
Martin Ryder wide and deep, and Pierre paid for
the corner plot three times over in gold.
Then a coffin improvised hastily for the occasion
out of a packing-box was lowered reverently, also
by "volunteer" mourners, and before the first sod
fell on the dead, Pierre borrowed a long black cloak
from one of the women and wrapped himself in it,
in lieu of the robe of the priest, and raised over his
head the crucifix of Father Victor that brought
good luck, and intoned a service in the purest Cicer-
onian Latin, surely, that ever regaled the ears of
Morgantown's elect.
The moment he raised that cross the bull throat
of Jim Boone bellowed a command, the poised guns
of the gang enforced it, and all the crowd dropped
to their knees, leaving the six outlaws scattered about
the edges of the mob like sheep dogs around a fold-
ing flock, while in the center stood Pierre with white,
upturned face and the raised cross.
So Martin Ryder was buried with "trimmings,"
and the gang rode back, laughing and shouting,
through the town and up into the safety of the
mountains. Election day was fast approaching and
therefore the rival candidates for sheriff hastily or-
ganized posses and made the usual futile pursuit.
In fact, before the pursuit was well under way,
Boone and his men sat at their supper table in the
cabin. The seventh chair was filled; all were present
except Jack, who sulked in her room. Pierre went
to her door and knocked. He carried under his
arm a package which he had secured in the General
Merchandise Store of Morgantown.
THE BURIAL 101
"We're all waiting for you at the table," he ex-
plained.
"Just keep on waiting," said the husky roice of
Jacqueline.
"If I leave the table will you come out?"
She stammered: "Ye n-no!"
"Yes or no?"
"No, no, no!"
And he heard the stamp of her foot and smiled
a little.
"I've brought you a present."
"I hate your presents !"
"It's a thing you've wanted for a long time, Jac-
queline."
Only a stubborn silence.
"I'm putting your door a little ajar."
"If you dare to come in I'll "
"And I'm leaving the package right here at the
entrance. I'm so sorry, Jacqueline, that you hate
me."
And then he walked off down the hall cunning
Pierre before she could send her answer like an
arrow after him. At the table he arranged an
eighth plate and drew up a chair before it.
"If that's for Jack," remarked Dick Wilbur,
"you're wasting your time. I know her and I know
her type. She'll never come out to the table to-
night nor to-morrow, either. I know!"
In fact, he knew a good deal too much about girls
and women also, did Wilbur, and that was why
he rode the long trails of the mountain-desert with
Boone and his men. Far south and east in the Ba-
102 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
hamas a great mansion stood vacant because he was
gone, and the dust lay thick on the carpets and
powdered the curtains and tapestries with a common
gray.
He had built it and furnished it for a woman
he loved, and afterward for her sake he had killed
a man and fled from a posse and escaped in the
steerage of a west-bound ship. Still the law fol-
lowed him, and he kept on west and west until he
reached the mountain-desert which thinks nothing
of swallowing men and their reputations.
There he was safe, but some day he would see
some woman smile, catch the glimmer of some eye,
and throw safety away to ride after her.
It was a weakness, but what made a tragic figure
of handsome Dick Wilbur was that he knew his
weakness and sat still and let fate walk up and
overtake him.
Yet Pierre le Rouge answered this man of sorrow-
ful wisdom: u ln my part of the country men say:
'If you would speak of women let money talk for
you.'"
And he placed a gold piece on the table.
"She will come out to the supper table."
"She will not," smiled Wilbur, and covered the
coin. "Will you take odds?"
"No charity. Who else will bet?"
"I," said Jim Boone instantly. "You figure her
for an ordinary sulky kid."
Pierre smiled upon him.
"There's a cut in my shirt where her knife passed
y THE BURIAL 103
through; and that's the reason that I'll bet on her
now."
The whole table covered his coin, with laughter.
"We've kept one part of your bargain, Pierre.
We've seen your father buried in the corner plot.
Now, what's the second part?"
"I don't know you well enough to ask you that,"
said Pierre.
They plied him with suggestions.
"To rob the Berwin Bank?"
"Stick up a train?"
"No. That's nothing."
"Round up the sheriffs from here to the end of
the mountains?"
"Too easy."
"Roll all those together," said Pierre, "and you'll
begin to get an idea of what I'll ask."
Then a low voice called from the black throat of
the hall "Pierre!"
The others were silent, but Pierre winked at
them, and made great flourish with knife and fork
against his plate as if to cover the sound of Jac-
queline's voice.
"Pierre!" she called again. "I've come to thank
you."
He jumped up and turned toward the hall.
"Do you like it?"
"It's a wonder!"
"Then we' re friends?"
"If you want to be."
"There's nothing I want more. Then you'll come
out and have supper with us, Jack?"
io 4 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
"Pierre"
"Yes?"
"I'm ashamed. I've been acting like a silly kid."
"But we're waiting for you."
There was a little pause, and then Jim Boone
struck his fist on the table and cursed, for she
stepped from the darkness into the flaring light of
the room.
CHAPTER XIII
A TALE OF THE SLEDGE
SHE wore a cartridge belt slung jauntily across
her hips and from it hung a holster of stiff new
leather with the top flap open to show the butt of
a man-sized forty-five caliber six-shooter her first
gun. Not a man of the gang but had loaned her his
guns time and again, but they had never dreamed of
giving the child a weapon of her own.
So they stared at her agape, where she stood with
her head back, one slender hand resting on her hip,
one hovering about the butt of the gun, as if she
challenged them to question her right to be called
"man."
It was as if she abandoned all claims to femininity
with that single step ; the gun at her side made her
seem inches taller and years older. She was no
longer a child, but a long-rider who could back any
horse on the range and shoot with the best.
One glance she cast about the room to drink in
the amazement of the gang, and then with a pro-
found instinct guiding her, she picked out the best
critic in the room and said to him with a frown:
"Well, Dick, how's it hang?"
The big man was as flushed as the girl.
105
106 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
"Hangs like a charm," he said, "a charm that '11
be apt to make men step about."
And her father broke in rather hoarsely: "Sit
down, girl. Sit down and be one of us. One of
us you are by your own choice from this day on.
You're neither man nor woman, but a long-rider
with every man's hand against you. You've done
with any hope of a home or of friends. You're one
of us. Poor Jack my girl !"
"Poor?" she returned. "Not while I can make a
quick draw and shoot straight."
And then she swept the circle of eyes, daring them
to take her boast lightly, but they knew her too well,
and were all solemnly silent. At this she relented
somewhat, and went directly to Pierre, flushing from
throat to hair. She held out her hand.
"Will you shake and call it square?"
"I sure will," nodded Pierre.
"And we're pals you and me, like the rest of
'em?"
"We are."
"Shake again."
She took the place beside him.
Garry Patterson was telling how he had said fare-
well to a Swedish sweetheart, and the roar of
laugher took the eyes away from Jacqueline for a
moment. So she leaned to Pierre le Rouge and
whispered at his ear: "Pierre you've made me the
happiest fellow on the range."
As the whisky went round after round and the
fun waxed higher the two seemed shut away from
the others; they were younger, less touched and
A TALE OF THE SLEDGE 107
marked by life; they listened while the others talked,
and now and then exchanged glances of interest or
aversion.
"Listen," she said after a time, "I've heard this
story before."
It was Phil Branch, square-built and square of
jaw, who was talking.
"There's only one thing I can handle better than
a gun, and that's a sledge-hammer. A gun is all
right in its way, but for work in a crowd, well, give
me a hammer and I'll show you a way out."
Bud Mansie grinned: "Leave me my pair of sixes
and you can have all the hammers between here
and Central Park in a crowd. There's nothing
makes a crowd remember its heels like a pair of
barking sixes."
"Ah, ah!" growled Branch. "But when they've
heard bone crunch under the hammer there's noth-
ing will hold them."
"I'd have to see that."
"Maybe you will, Bud, maybe you will. It was
the hammer that started me for the long trail west.
I had a big Scotchman in the factory who couldn't
learn how to weld. I'd taught him day after day
and cursed him and damn near prayed for him. But
he somehow wouldn't learn the swine ah, ah !"
He grew vindictively black at the memory.
"Every night he wiped out what I'd taught him
during the day and the eraser he used was booze.
So one fine day I dropped the hammer after watch-
in 1 him make a botch on a big bar, and cussed him
up one leg and down the other. The Scotchman had
io8 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
a hang-over from the night before and he made a
pass at me. It was too much for me just then, for
the day was hot and the forge fire had been spitting
cinders in my face all morning. So I took him by
the throat"
He reached out and closed his taut fingers slowly.
"I didn't mean nothin' by it, but after a man has
been moldin' iron, flesh is pretty weak stuff. When
I let go of Scotchy he dropped on the floor, and
while I stood starin' down at him somebody seen
what had happened and spread the word.
"I wasn't none too popular, bein' not much on
talk, so the boys got together and pretty soon they
come pilin' through the door at me, packin' every-
thing from hatchets to crowbars.
u Lads, I was sorry about Scotchy, but after I
glimpsed that gang comin' I wasn't sorry for noth-
ing. I felt like singin', though there wasn't no song
that could say just what I meant. But I grabbed up
the big fourteen-pound hammer and met 'em half-
way.
"The first swing of the hammer it met something
hard, but not as hard as iron. The thing crunched
with a sound like an egg under a heavy man's heel.
And when that crowd, heard it they looked sick.
God, how sick they looked! They didn't wait for
no second swing, but they beat it hard and fast
through the door with me after 'em. They scat-
tered, but I kept right on and didn't never really stop
till I reached the mountain-desert and you, Jim."
"Which is a good yarn," said Bud Mansie, "but
I can tell you one that '11 cap it. It was "
A TALE OF THE SLEDGE 109
He stopped short, staring up at the door. Out-
side, the wind had kept up a perpetual roaring, and
no one noticed the noise of the opening door. Bud
Mansie, facing that door, however, turned a queer
yellow and sat with his lips parted on the last word.
He was not pretty to see. The others turned their
heads, and there followed the strangest panic which
Pierre had even seen.
Jim Boone jerked his hand back to his hip, but
stayed the motion, half completed, and swung his
hands stiffly above his head. Garry Patterson sat
with his eyes blinked shut, pale, waiting for death
to come. Dick Wilbur rose, tall and stiff, and stood
with his hands gripped at his sides, and Black Mor-
gan Gandil clutched at the table before him and his
keen eyes wandered swiftly about the room, seeking
a place for escape.
There was only one sound, and that was a whis-
pering moan of terror from Jacqueline. Only Pierre
made no move, yet he felt as he had when the black
mass of the landslide loomed above him.
What he saw in the door was a man of medium
size and almost slender build. In spite of the patch
of gray hair at either temple he was only somewhere
between twenty-five and thirty. But to see him was
to forget all details except the strangest face which
Pierre had ever seen or would ever look upon in all
his career.
It was pale, with a pallor strange to the ranges;
even the lips seemed bloodless, and they curved with
a suggestion of a smile that was a nervous habit
rather than any sign of mirth. The nerves of the
no RIDE'RS OF THE SILENCES
left eye were also affected, and the lid dropped and
fluttered almost shut, so that he had to carry his
head far back in order to see plainly. There was
such indomitable pride and scorn in the man that his
name came up to the lips of Pierre: "McGurk."
A surprisingly gentle voice said: "Jim, I'm sorry
to drop in on you this way, but I've had some un-
pleasant news."
His words dispelled part of the charm. The
hands of big Boone lowered; the others assumed
more natural positions, but each, it seemed to Pierre,
took particular and almost ostentatious care that
their right hands should be always far from the
holsters of their guns.
The stranger went on: u Martin Ryder is finished,
as I suppose you know. He left a spawn of two
mongrels behind him. I haven't bothered with
them, but I'm a little more interested in another son
that has cropped up. He's sitting over there in your
family party and his name is Pierre. In his own
country they call him Pierre le Rouge, which means
Red Pierre, in our talk.
"You know I don't like to be dictatorial, and I've
never crossed you in anything before, Jim. Have
I?"
Boone moistened his white lips and answered:
"Never," huskily, as if it were a great muscular ef-
fort for him to speak.
"This time I have to break the custom. Boone,
this fellow Pierre has to leave the country. Will
you see that he goes?"
The lips of Boone moved and made no sound.
A TALE OF THE SLEDGE in
He said at length: "McGurk, I'd rather cross
the devil than cross you. There's no shame in ad-
mitting that. But Fve 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. More-
over, 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
112 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
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 mean time" he stepped
forward to the table and poured a small drink of
whiskey 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 fas-
cinated eyes. "An unwilling pledge is better than
none at all. To you, gentleman, 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 XIV
MCGURK
THE mirth died and in its place came a long
silence. Jim Boone stared upon Pierre with miser-
able eyes, and then rose and left the roomt The
others one by one followed his example. Dick Wil-
bur in passing dropped his hand on Pierre's shoul-
der. 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
"3
H4 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
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 and ready to be ended. 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 unmanned
again and frozen with fear; that his spirit would
be broken and he would become a thing too despic-
able 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 be-
fore him.
McGURK 115
He looked up and saw Jacqueline. She stepped
close, and the horse nosed her shoulder affection-
ately.
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?"
"You have to leave us, and never come back?"
"Is he as sure as that, Jack?"
"Sure? Who?"
She had not known, after all; she thought that he
was merely riding away from the region where Mc-
Gurk was king. Now she caught his wrists and
shook them.
"Pierre, you arc not going to face McGurk?
Pierre!"
It was sweet and bitter-sweet that the child should
wish him to stay, and it made the heart of Pierre old
and stern to look down on her.
"If you were a man, you would understand. 11
"I know; because of your father. I do under-
stand, but oh, Pierre, it makes me so unhappy so
terribly sad, Pierre."
Inspiration made her catch her breath.
"Listen! I can shoot as straight as almost any
man. We will ride down together. We will go
through the doors together me first to take his fire,
and you behind to shoot him down."
n6 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
"I guess no man can be as brave as a woman,
Jack. No; I have to see McGurk alone. He faced
my father alone and shot him down. I'll face Mc-
Gurk alone and live long enough to put my mark on
him."
"But you don't know him. He can't be hurt.
Do you think my father and and Dick Wilbur
would fear any man who could be hurt? No, but
McGurk has been in a hundred fights and never been
touched. There's a charm over him, don't you see?"
"I'll break the charm, that's all."
"You're only a boy, Pierre."
"I, also, carry a charm with me. Good-by."
He was up in the saddle.
'Then I'll call dad I'll call them all if you
die they shall all follow you. I swear they shall.
Pierre!"
He merely leaned forward and touched the horse
with his spurs, but after he had raced the first
hundred yards he glanced back. She was running
hard for the house, and calling as she went. Pierre
cursed and spurred the horse again.
Yet even if Jim Boone and his men started out
after him they could never overtake him. Before
they were in their saddles and up with him, he'd be
a full three miles out in the hills. Not even black
Thunder could make up as much ground as that.
So all the fifteen miles to Gaffney's place he urged
his horse. The excitement of the race kept the
thought of McGurk back in his mind. Only once
he lost time when he had to pull up beside a buck-
board and inquire the way. After that he flew on
McGURK 117
again. Yet as he clattered up to the door of Gaff-
ney's crossroads saloon and swung to the ground he
looked back and saw a cluster of horsemen swing
around the shoulder of a hill and come tearing after
him. Surely his time was short.
He thrust open the door of the place and called
for a drink. The bartender spun the glass down the
bar to him.
"Where's McGurk?"
The other stopped in the very act of taking out
the bottle from the shelf, and his curious glance
went over the face of Pierre le Rouge. He decided,
apparently, that it was foolish to hold suspicions
against so young a man.
"In that room," and he jerked his hand toward
a door. "What do you want with him?"
"Got a message for him."
"Tell it to me, and I'll pass it along."
Pierre met the eye of the other and smiled faintly.
"Not this message."
"Oh," said the other, and then shouted: "Mc-
Gurk!"
Far away came the rush of hoofs over a hard
trail. Only a minute more and they would be here;
only a minute more and the room would be full of
fighting men ready to die with him and for him.
Yet Pierre was glad; glad that he could meet the
danger alone ; ten minutes from now, if he lived, he
could answer certainly one way or the other the
greatest of all questions: "Am I a man?"
Out of the inner room the pleasant voice which
he dreaded answered: "What's up?"
n8 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
The barkeeper glanced Pierre le Rouge over
again and then answered: "A friend with a mes-
sage."
The door opened and framed McGurk. He did
not start, seeing Pierre.
He said: "None of the rest of them had the guts
even to bring me the message, eh?"
Pierre shrugged his shoulders. It was a mighty
effort, but he was able to look his man fairly in the
eyes.
U A11 right, lad. How long is it going to take you
to clear out of the country?"
"That's not the message," answered a voice which
Pierre did not recognize as his own.
"Out with it, then."
"It's in the leather on my hip."
And he went for his gun. Even as he started his
hand he knew that he was too slow for McGurk, yet
the finest split-second watch in the world could not
have caught the differing time they needed to get
their guns out of the holsters.
Just a breath before Pierre fired there was a stun-
ning blow on his right shoulder and another on his
hip. He lurched to the floor, his revolver clattering
against the wood as he fell, but falling, he scooped
up the gun with his left and twisted.
That movement made the third shot of McGurk
fly wide and Pierre fired from the floor and saw a
, spasm of pain contract the face of the outlaw.
Instantly the door behind him flew open and
Boone's men stormed into the room. Once more
McGurk fired, but his wound made his aim wide and
McGURK 119
the bullet merely tore up a splinter beside Pierre's
head. A fusillade from Boone and his men an-
swered, but the outlaw had leaped back through the
door.
"He's hurt," thundered Boone. "By God, the
charm of McGurk is broken. Dick, Bud, Gandil,
take the outside of the place. I'll force the door."
Wilbur and the other two raced through the door
and raised a shout at once, and then there was a
rattle of shots. Big Patterson leaned over Pierre.
He said in an awe-stricken voice: "Lad, it's a
great work that you've done for all of us, if you've
drawn the blood from McGurk."
"His left shoulder," said Pierre, and smiled in
spite of his pain.
"And you, lad?"
"I'm going to live; I've got to finish the job.
Who's that beside you? There's a mist over my
eyes."
"It's Jack. She outrode us all."
Then the mist closed over the eyes of Pierre and
his senses went out in the dark.
CHAPTER XV
GOLD HAIR
THOSE who are curious about the period which
followed during which the title "Le Rouge" was for-
gotten and he became known only as "Red" Pierre
through all the mountain-desert, can hear the tales
of his doing from the analists of the ranges. This
story has to do only with his struggle with McGurk,
and must end where that struggle ended.
The gap of six years which occurs here is due to
the fact that during that period McGurk vanished
from the mountain-desert. He died away from the
eyes of men and in their minds he became that tra-
dition which lives still so vividly, the tradition of the
pale face, the sneering, bloodless lips, and the hand
which never failed.
During this lapse of time there were many who
claimed that he had ridden off into some lonely
haunt and died of the wound which he received from
Pierre's bullet. A great majority, however, would
never accept such a story, and even when the six
years had rolled by they still shook their heads and
"had their doubt on the matter" like Wouier Van
Twitter of immortal memory.
They awaited his return just as certain stanch .old
Britons await the second coming of Arthur from the
I2O
GOLD HAIR i2i
island of Avalon. In the mean time the terror of
his name passed on to him who had broken the
"charm" of McGurk.
Not all that grim significance passed on to "Red"
Pierre, indeed, because he never impressed the public
imagination as did the terrible ruthlessness of Mc-
Gurk. At that he did enough to keep tongues wag-
ging.
Cattlemen loved to tell those familiar exploits of
the "two sheriffs," or that "thousand-mile pursuit of
Canby," with its half-tragic, half-humorous conclu-
sion, or the "Sacking of Two Rivers," or the "three-
cornered battle" against Rodriguez and Blond.
But men could not forget that in all his work there
rode behind Red Pierre six dauntless warriors of the
mountain-desert, while McGurk had been always a
single hand against the world, a veritable lone wolf.
Whatever kept him away through those six years,
the memory of the wound he received at Gaffney's
place never left McGurk, and now he was coming
back with a single great purpose in his mind, and in
his heart a consuming hatred for Pierre and all the
other of Boone's men.
Certainly if he had sensed the second coming of
McGurk, Pierre would not have ridden so jauntily
through the hills this day, or whistled so carelessly,
or swept the hills with such a complacent, lordly
eye. A man of mark cannot bear himself too
modestly, and Pierre, from boots to high-peaked,
broad-brimmed sombrero, was the last word in ele-
gance for a rider of the mountain-desert.
Even his mount seemed to sense the pride of his
122 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
master. It was a cream-colored mustang, not one
of the lump-headed, bony-hipped species common to
the ranges, but one of those rare reversions to the
Spanish thoroughbreds from which the Western
cow-pony is descended. The mare was not over-
large, but the broad hips and generous expanse of
chest were hints, and only hints, of her strength and
endurance. There was the speed of the blooded
racer in her and the tirelessness of the mustang.
Now, down the rocky, half broken trail she picked
her way as daintily as any debutante tiptoeing down
a great stairway to the ballroom. Life had been
easy for Mary since that thousand-mile struggle to
overtake Canby, and now her sides were sleek from
good feeding and some casual twenty miles a day,
which was no more to her than a canter through the
park is to the city horse.
The eye which had been so red-stained and fierce
during the long ride after Canby was now bright
and gentle. At every turn she pricked her small
sharp ears as if she expected home and friends on
the other side of the curve. And now and again she
tossed her head and glanced back at the master for
a moment and then whinnied across some echoing ra-
vine.
It was Mary's way of showing happiness, and
her master's acknowledgment was to run his gloved
left hand up through her mane and with his ungloved
right, that tanned and agile hand, pat her shoulder
lightly.
Passing to the end of the down-grade, they
reached a slight upward incline, and the mare, as
GOLD HAIR 123
if she had come to familiar ground, broke into a
gallop, a matchless, swinging stride. Swerving to
right and to left among the great boulders, like a
football player running a broken field, she increased
the gallop to a racing pace.
That twisting course would have shaken an or-
dinary horseman to the toes, but Pierre, swaying
easily in the saddle, dropped the reins into the crook
of his left arm and rolled a cigarette in spite of the
motion and the wind. It was a little feat, but it
would have drawn applause from a circus crowd.
He spoke to the mare while he lighted a match
and she dropped to an easy canter, the pace which
she could maintain from dawn to dark, eating up
the gray miles of the mountain and the desert, and
it was then that Red Pierre heard a gay voice singing
in the distance.
His attitude changed at once. He caught a
shorter grip on the reins and swung forward a little
in the saddle, while his right hand touched the butt
of the revolver in its holster and made sure that it
was loose; for to those who hunt and are hunted
every human voice in the mountain-desert is an
ominous token.
The mare, sensing the change of her master
through that weird telegraphy which passed down
the taut bridle reins, held her head high and flat-
tened her short ears against her neck.
The song and the singer drew closer, and the
vigilence of Pierre ceased as he heard a mellow
barytone ring out:
124 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
"They call me poor, yet I am rich
ki the touch of her golden hair,
My heart is. filled like a miser's hands
With the red-gold of her hair.
The sky I ride beneath all day
Is the blue of her dear eyes;
The only heaven I desire
Is the blue of her dear eyes."
And here Dick Wilbur rode about the shoulder
of a hill, broke off his song at the sight of Pierre le
Rouge, and shouted a welcome. They came to-
gether and continued their journey side by side. The
half-dozen years had hardly altered the blond, hand-
some 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 familiaf gesture with those
GOLD HAIR 125
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 a fragrance, you
know, that disarms a man, and like a fragrance
there's just a touch of melancholy about her and an
appeal that follows after you when she's gone."
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,
iz6 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
of course, but about this girl I can't be wrong. To-
night I'm taking her to a masquerade."
He pulled his horse to a full stop.
"Pierre, you have to come with me."
CHAPTER XVI
ENNUI
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 sky-line, 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 re-
sponded 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 horse-
flesh on the ranges," explained Wilbur, "I get to
thinking that you're pretty much king of the moun-
tains; but in certain respects, Pierre, you're a child.
I^a, ha, ha ! a regular infant."
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
about as well as the next man."
"Let it drop," said Wilbur, sober again, for he
127
128 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
shared with all of Boone's crew a deep-rooted un-
willingness 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?"
"Golden, Pierre."
"Mary, and golden hair," mused Red Pierre. "I
think I'll go to that dance."
"With Jack? She dances wonderfully, you
know."
"Well with Jack."
So they reached a tumbled ranch-house squeezed
between two hills so that it was sheltered from the
storms of the winter but held all the heat of the
summer.
Once it had been a goodly building, the home of
some cattle-king. But bad times had come.
A bullet in a saloon brawl put an end to the cattle-
king, and now his home was a wreck of its former
glory. The northern wing shelved down to the
ground as if the building were kneeling to the power
ENNUI 129
of the wind, and the southern portion of the house,
though still erect, seemed tottering and rotten
throughout and holding together until at a final
blow the whole structure would crumple at once.
To the stables, hardly less ruinous than the big
house, Pierre and Wilbur took their horses, and a
series of whinnies greeted them from the stalls. To
look down that line of magnificent heads raised
above the partitions of the stalls was like glancing
into the stud of some crowned head who made hunt-
ing and racing his chief end in life, for these were
animals worthy of the sport of kings.
They were chosen each from among literal hun-
dreds and thousands, and they were cared for far
more tenderly than the masters cared for them-
selves. There was a reason in it, for upon their
speed and endurance depended the life of the out-
law. Moreover, the policy of Jim Boone was one
of actual "long riding."
Here he had come to a pause for a few days to
recuperate his horses and his men. To-morrow,
perhaps, he would be on the spur again and sweep-
ing off to a distant point in the mountain desert to
strike and be gone again before the rangers knew
well that he had been there. Very rarely did one
settler have another neighbor at a distance of less
than two hundred miles. It meant arduous and con-
tinual riding, and a horse with any defect was worse
than useless because the speed of the gang had to
be the speed of the slowest horse in the lot.
It was some time before the two long riders had
completed the grooming of their horses and had
130 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
gone down the hill and into the house. In the larg-
est habitable room they found a fire fed with rotten
timbers from the wrecked portion of the building,
and scattered through the room a sullen and de-
jected group: Mansie, Branch, Jim Boone, and
Black Morgan Gandil.
At a glance it was easy to detect their malady; it
was the horrible ennui which comes to men who are
always surrounded by one set of faces. If a man
is happily married he may bear with his wife and his
children constantly through long stretches of time,
but the glamour of life lies in the varying personali-
ties which a man glimpses in passing, but never
knows.
This was a rare crew. Every man of them was
marked for courage and stamina and wild daring.
Yet even so in their passive moments they hated
each other with a hate that passed the understanding
of common men.
Through seven years they had held together,
through fair weather and foul, and now each knew
from the other's expression the words that were
about to be spoken, and each knew that the other
was reading him, and loathing what he read.
So they were apt to relapse into long silences un-
less Jack was with them, for being a woman her
variety was infinite, or Pierre le Rouge, whom all
except Black Gandil loved and petted, and feared.
They were a battered crowd. Wind and hard
weather and a thousand suns had marked them, and
the hand of man had branded them. Here and there
was a touch of gray in their hair, and about the
ENNUI 131
mouth of each were lines which in such silent mo-
ments as this one gave an expression of infinite and
wistful yearning.
"What's up? What's wrong?" asked Wilbur
from the door, but since no answer was deigned he
said no more.
But Pierre, like a charmed man who dares to
walk among lions, strolled easily through the room,
and looked into the face of big Boone, who smiled
faintly up to him, and Black Gandil, who scowled
doubly dark, and Bud Mansie, who shifted uneasily
in his chair and then nodded, and finally to Branch.
He dropped a hand on the massive shoulder of the
blacksmith.
"Well?" he asked.
Branch let himself droop back into his chair.
His big, dull, colorless eyes stared up to his friend.
"I dunno, lad. I'm just weary with the sort of
tired that you can't help by sleepin'. Understand?"
Pierre nodded, slowly, because he sympathized.
"And the trouble?"
Branch stared about as if searching for a reason.
"Jack's up-stairs sulking; Patterson hasn't come
home yet."
And Black Gandil, who heard all things, said
without looking up: "A man that saves a ship-
wrecked fellow, he gets bad luck for thanks."
Pierre turned a considering eye on him, and Gan-
dil scowled back.
"YouVe been croaking for six years, Morgan,
about the bad luck that would come to Jim from
i 3 2 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
saving me out of the snow. It's never happened,
has it?"
Gandil, snarling from one side of his mouth, an-
swered: "Where's Patterson?"
"Am I responsible if the blockhead has got drunk
some place?"
"Patterson doesn't get drunk not that way.
And he knows that we were to start again to-day."
"There ain't no doubt of that," commented
Branch.
"It's the straight dope. Paterson keeps his
dates," said Bud Mansie.
The booming bass of Jim Boone broke in : "Shut
up, the whole gang of you. We've had luck for the
six years Pierre has been with us. Who calls him
a Jonah?"
And Black Gandil answered: "I do. I've sailed
the seas. I know bad luck when I see it."
"You've been seeing it for six years."
"The worst storms come on a voyage that starts
with fair weather. Patterson? He's gone; he ain't
just delayed; he's gone."
It was not the first of these gloomy prophecies
which Gandil had made, but each time a heavy
gloom broke over Red Pierre. For when he summed
up the good fortune which the cross of Father Vic-
tor had brought him, he found that he had gained
a father, and lost him at their first meeting; and
he had won money on that night of the gambling,
but it had cost the life of another man almost at
once. The horse which carried him away from the
vengeance in Morgantown had died on the way and
ENNUI 133
he had been saved from the landslide, but the girl
had perished.
He had driven McGurk from the ranges, and
where would the penalty fall on those who were near
and dear to him? In a superstitious horror he had
asked himself the question a thousand times, and
finally he could hardly bear to look into the ominous,
brooding eyes of Black Gandil. It was as if the man
had a certain and evil knowledge of the future.
CHAPTER XVII
BLACK GANDIL
THE knowledge of the torment he was inflicting
made the eye of Black Gandil bright with triumph.
He continued, and now every man in the room
was sitting up, alert, with gloomy eyes fixed upon
Pierre: "Patterson is the first, but he ain't the last.
He's just the start. Who's next?" He looked
slowly around.
"Is it you, Bud, or you, Phil, or you, Jim, or
maybe me?"
And Pierre said: "What makes you think you
know that trouble's coming, Morgan?"
"Because my blood runs cold in me when I look
at you."
Red Pierre grew rigid and straightened in a way
they knew.
"Damn you, Gandil, I've borne with you and your
croaking too long, d'ye hear? Too long, and I'll
hear no more of it, understand?"
"Why not? You'll hear from me every time I
sight you in the offing. You c'n lay to that!"
The others were tense, ready to spring for cover,
but Boone reared up his great figure.
"Don't answer him, Pierre. You, Gandil, shut
your face or I'll break ye in two."
134
BLACK GANDIL 135
The fierce eyes of Pierre le Rouge never wavered
from his victim, but he answered: "Keep out of this.
This is my party. I'll tell you why you'll stop gib-
bering, Gandil."
He made a pace forward and every man shrank
a little away from him.
"Because the cold in your blood is part hate and
more fear, Black Gandil."
The eyes of Gandil glared back for an instant.
With all his soul he yearned for the courage to pull
his gun, but his arm was numb; he could not move
it, and his eyes wavered and fell.
The shaggy gray head of Jim Boone fell likewise,
and he was murmuring to his savage old heart:
"The good days are over. They'll never rest till
one of 'em is dead, and then the rest will take sides
and we'll have gun-plays at night. Seven years,
and then to break up !"
Dick Wilbur, as usual, was the pacifier. He strode
across the room, and the sharp sound of his heels
on the creaking floor broke the tension. He said
softly to Pierre : "You've raised hell enough. Now
let's go up and get Jack down here to undo what
you've just finished. Besides, you've got to ask her
for that dance, eh?' 1
The glance of Pierre still lingered on Gandil as
he turned and followed Wilbur up the complaining
stairs to the one habitable room in the second story
of the house. It was set aside for the use of Jac-
queline.
At the door Wilbur said : "Shrug your shoulders
back; you look as if you were going to jump at some-
136 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
thing. And wipe the wolf-look off your face. After
all, Jack's a girl, not a gun-fighter."
Then he knocked and opened the door.
She lay face down on her bunk, her head turned
from them and toward the wall. Slender and supple
and strong, it was still only the size of her boots and
her hands that would make one look at her twice
and then guess that this was a woman, for she was
dressed, from trousers even to the bright bandanna
knotted around her throat, like any prosperous
range rider.
Now, to be sure, the thick coils of black hair told
her sex, but when the broad-brimmed sombrero was
pulled well down on her head, when the cartridge-
belt and the six-gun were slung about her waist, and
most of all when she spurred her mount recklessly
across the hills, no one could have suspected that this
was not some graceful boy born and bred in the
mountain-desert, wilful as a young mountain-lion,
and as dangerous.
"Sleepy?" called Wilbur.
She waited a moment and then queried with ex-
aggerated impudence: "Well?"
Ennui unspeakable was in that drawling mono-
tone.
"Brace up; I've got news for you."
Her hand moved and all the graceful body, but
it was only with a yawn. What need was there to
speak? She wished to be alone.
"And I've brought Pierre along to tell you about
it."
"Ohl"
BLACK GANDIL 137
And she sat bolt upright with shining eyes. In-
stantly she remembered to yawn again, but her glance
smiled on them above her hand.
She apologized. "Awfully sleepy, Dick."
But he was not deceived. He said: "There's a
dance down near the Barnes place, and Pierre wants
you to go with him."
Back tilted her head, and her throat stirred as if
she were singing.
"Pierre! A dance?"
He explained: "Dick's lost his head over a girl
with yellow hair, and he wants me to go down and
see her. He thought you might want to go along."
Her face changed like the moon when a cloud
blows across it. Before she answered she slipped
down on the bunk again, pillowed her head leisurely
on her arm, and answered with another slow, in-
solent yawn : "Thanks ! I'm staying home to-night. 1 '
Wilbur glared his rage covertly at Pierre, but the
latter was blandly unconscious that he had made
any faux pas.
He said carelessly: "Too bad. It might be in-
teresting, Jack?"
At his voice she looked up a sharp and graceful
toss of the head.
"What?"
"The girl with the yellow hair."
"Then go ahead and see her. I won't keep you.
You don't mind if I go on sleeping? Sit down and
be at home."
With this she calmly turned her back again and
seemed thoroughly disposed to carry out her word.
138 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
Red Pierre flushed a little, watching her, and he
spoke his anger outright : "You're acting like a sulky
kid, Jack, not like a man."
It was a habit of his to forget that she was a
woman. Without turning her head she answered:
"Do you want to know why?"
"You're like a cat showing your claws. Go on I
Tell me what the reason is."
"Because I get tired of you."
In all his life he had never been so scorned. He
did not see the covert grin of Wilbur in the back-
ground. He blurted : "Tired ?"
"Awfully. You don't mind me being frank, do
you, Pierre?"
He could only stammer: "Sometimes I wish to
God you were a man, Jack!"
"You don't often remember that I'm a woman."
"What do you mean by that?"
She was silent, but there was a perceptible tremor
in the graceful body.
He repeated: "Do you mean that I'm rude or
rough with you, Jacqueline?"
Still the silence, but Wilbur was grinning broader
than ever. "Answer me !"
She started up and faced him, her face convulsed
with rage.
"What do you want me to say? Yes, you are
rude I hate you and your lot. Go away from me ;
I don't want you ; I hate you all."
And she would have said more, but furious sobs
swelled her throat and she could not speak, but
dropped, face down, on the bunk and gripped the
BLACK GANDIL 139
blankets in each hard-set hand. Over her Pierre
leaned, utterly bewildered, found nothing that he
could say, and then turned and strode, frowning,
from the room. Wilbur hastened after him and
caught him just as the door was closing.
"Come back," he pleaded. "This is the best
game I've ever seen. Come back, Pierre! You've
made a wonderful start."
Pierre le Rouge shook off the detaining hand and
glared up at Wilbur.
"Don't try irony, Dick. I feel like murder.
Think of it ! All this time she's been hating me ; and
now it's making her weep; think of it Jack
weeping!"
"Why, you're a child, Pierre. Go back and take
her in your arms and tell her you're going to make
her go to the dance."
"Take her in my arms? She'd stab me, there's
that much of the devil in her. Don't grin at me
and keep chuckling like an utter ass. What's up,
Dick?"
"Don't you see? No, you don't, but it's so plain
that a baby of three years could understand. She's
in love with you."
"With me?"
"With Red Pierre."
"You can't make a joke out of Jack with me.
You ought to know that."
'Pierre, I'd as soon make a joke out of a wild-
cat."
"Grinning still? Wilbur, I'm taking more from
you than I would from any man on the ranges."
140 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
"I know you are, and that's why I'm stringing
this out because I'm going to have a laugh ha, ha,
ha! the rest of my life ha, ha, ha, ha! when-
ever I think of this ha, ha, ha, ha, ha I"
The burst of merriment left him speechless, and
Pierre, glowering, his right hand twitching danger-
ously close to that holster at his hip. He sobered,
and said: "Go in and talk to her and prove that
I'm right."
"Ask Jack if she loves me? Why, I'd as soon
ask any man the same question."
The big long rider was instantly curious.
"Has she never appealed to you as a woman,
Pierre?"
"How could she? I've watched her ride; I've
watched her use her gun; I've slept rolled in the
same blankets with her, back to back; I've walked
and talked and traveled with her as if she were my
kid brother."
Wilbur nodded, as if the miracle were being
slowly unfolded before his eyes.
"And you've never noticed anything different
about her? Never watched a little lift and grace
in her walk that no man could ever have; never
heard her laugh in a voice that no man could ever
imitate; never seen her color change just because
you, Pierre, came near or went far away from her?"
"Because of me?" asked the bewildered Pierre.
"You fool, you! Why, lad, I've been kept
amused by you two for a whole evening, watching
her play for your attention, saving her best smiles
for you, keeping her best attitudes for you, and let-
BLACK GANDIL 141
ting all the richness of her voice go out for a
block a stone. Gad, the thing still doesn't seem
possible I Pierre, one instant of that girl would give
romance to a man's whole life."
"This girl? This Jack of ours?"
u He hasn't seen it! Why, if I hadn't seen years
ago that she had tied her hands and turned her heart
over to you, I'd have been down on my knees to her
a thousand times, begging her for a smile, a shadow
of a hope."
"If I didn't know you, Dick, I'd say that you were
partly drunk and partly a fool."
"Here's a hundred a cold hundred that I'm
right. I'll make it a thousand, if you dare."
"Dare what?"
"Ask her to marry you."
"Marry me?"
"Damn it all well, then whatever you like.
But I say that if you go back into that room and sit
still and merely look at her, she'll be in your arms
within five minutes."
"I hate to take charity, but a bet is a bet. That
hundred is in my pocket already. It's a go I"
They shook hands.
"But what will be your proof, Dick, whether I
win or lose?"
"Your face, blockhead, when you come out of
the room."
Upon this Pierre pondered a moment, and then
turned toward the door. He set his hand on the
knob, faltered, and finally set his teeth and entered
the room.
J
CHAPTER XVIII
FIVE MINUTES' SILENCE
SHE lay as he had left her, except that her face
was now pillowed in her arms, and the long sobs
kept her body quivering. Awe and curiosity swept
over Pierre, looking down at her, but chiefly a puz-
zled grief such as a strong man feels when a friend
is in trouble. He came closer and laid a hand on
her shoulder.
"Jack!"
She turned far enough to strike his hand away
and instantly rescumed her former position, though
the sobs were softer. This childish anger irritated
him. He was about to storm out of the room when
the thought of the hundred dollars stopped him.
It was not that he hoped to win the money, for dol-
lars rolled easily into his hands and out again, but
the bet had been made, and it was his pride that he
would play out his part of it. It seemed unsports-
manlike to leave without some effort.
The effort which he finally made was that sug-
gested by Wilbur. He folded his arms and stood
silent, waiting, and ready to judge the time as nearly
as he could until the five minutes should have
elapsed. He was so busy computing the minutes
that it was with a start that he noticed some time
142
,
FIVE MINUTES' SILENCE 143
later that the weeping had ceased. She lay quiet
Her hand was dabbing furtively at her face for a
purpose which Pierre could not surmise.
At last a broken voice murmured: "Pierre!"
He would not speak, but something in the voice
made his anger go. After a little it came, and louder
this time: "Pierre?"
He did not stir.
She whirled and sat on the edge of the bunk, cry-
ing: "Pierre!" with a note of fright. Then she
flushed richly.
"I thought perhaps you were gone. I thought
Pierre I was afraid I mean I hoped "
She could not go on.
And still he persisted in that silence, his arms
folded, the keen blue eyes considering her as if from
a great distance.
She explained: "I was afraid Pierre! Why
don't you speak? Tell me, are you angry?"
And she sprang up and made a pace toward him.
She had never seemed so little manlike, so wholly
womanly. For the thick coils of hair were loosed
on her head, and the black hair framed a face
stained, flushed, with eyes that were like a great
black, bottomless well of sorrow and wistfulness.
And the hand which stretched toward him, palm up,
was a symbol of everything new and strange that
he found in her.
He had seen it balled to a small, angry fist, brown
and dangerous; he had seen it gripping the butt of
a revolver, ready for the draw; he had seen it tug-
ging at the reins and holding a racing horse in check
i 4 4 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
with an ease which a man would envy; but never
before had he seen it turned palm up, to his knowl-
edge; and now, because he could not speak to her,
according to his plan, he studied her thoroughly for
the first time.
Slender and marvelously made was that hand.
The whole woman was in it, finely fashioned, deli-
cate, made for beauty, not for use. It was all he
could do to keep from exclaiming.
She made a quick step toward him, eager, un-
certain :
"Pierre, I thought you had left me that you
were gone, and angry."
The hearts of men are tinder; something caught
on fire in Pierre, but still he would say nothing. He
was beginning to feel t cruel pleasure in his victory,
but it was not without a deep sense of danger.
She had laid aside her six-gun, but she had not
abandoned it She had laid aside her anger, but she
could resume it again as swiftly ts she could take
up her revolver.
He exulted in the touch of victory, but it was as
a man who rides a horse that paces docilely beneath
him but may plunge into a fury of bucking in a mo-
ment. She was closer very close, and somehow
he knew that at his pleasure he could make her smile
or tremble by speaking. Yet he would not speak.
The five minutes were not yet up.
She cried with a little burst of rage : "Pierre, you
are making a game of me I"
But seeing that he did not change she altered
swiftly and caught his hand in both of hers. She
FIVE MINUTES' SILENCE 145
spoke the name which she always used when she
was greatly moved.
"Ah, Pierre le Rouge, what have I done?"
His silence tempted her on like the smile of the
sphinx.
And suddenly she was inside his arms, though
how she separated them he could not tell, and cry-
ing: "Pierre, I am unhappy. Help me, Pierre!"
It was true, then, and Wilbur had won his bet.
But how could it have happened? He took the arms
that encircled his neck and brought them slowly
down, and watched her curiously. Something was
expected of him, but what it was he could not tell,
for women were as strange to him as the wild sea
is strange to the Arab.
He hunted his mind, and then : "One of the boys
has angered you, Jack?"
And she said, because she could think of no way
to cover the confusion which came to her after the
outbreak: "Yes."
He dropped her arms and strode a pace or two
up and down the room.
"Gandil?"
"N-no!"
"You're lying. It was Gandil."
And he made straight for the door.
She ran after him and flung herself between him
and the door. Clearly, as if it were a painted pic-
ture, she saw him facing Gandil saw their hands
leap for the guns saw Gandil pitch face forward
on the floor writhe all his limbs and then lie still.
"Pierre for God's sake!"
146 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
Her terror convinced him partially, and the furor
went back from his eyes as a light goes back in a
long, dark hall.
"On your honor, Jack, it's not Gandil?"
"On my honor."
"But some one has broken you up."
"No, I"
"Don't lie. Why, even while you look at me your
color changes. You're pale one minute and red the
next. Some one has crossed you, Jack. And who-
ever crosses you crosses me, by God! Out with his
name! Is it Branch?"
"No."
"Then it's big Patterson."
"No."
"I have it! Mansie! There's always something
of the sneak about him that I never liked."
"No, no!"
"It is ! He came up to you and whispered some
dog's remark for you to hear. Damn him I never
trusted Mansie!"
He pushed her away from the door and set his
hand on the knob, but he could not keep her back.
She was upon him again and twisted between him
and the entrance to the room.
"Pierre, upon my honor, it was none of these
men."
He could not help but believe.
"Only Wilbur is left. Jack, I'd rather raise my
hand against myself than to harm Dick, but if "
"I'll never tell you who it was. Don't you see?
FIVE MINUTES' SILENCE 147
It would be like a murder in cold blood if I were
to send you after him."
"But he's here he's one of us, this man who's
bothered you."
She could not help but answer: "Yes."
He scowled down at the floor.
"You would never be able to guess who it is.
Give it up. After all I can live through it I
guess."
"It's something that has saddened you. Do you
know, we've been so much together that I can al-
most read your mind, in a way. Why are you
smiling?"
"I wish that you could read it Pierre at
times."
He took her face between his hands and frowned
down into her eyes. At his touch she grew very pale
and trembled as if a wind were striking against her.
"You see, you've been so near to me, and so dear
to me all these years, Jack, that you're like a sister,
almost."
"And you to me, Pierre."
"But different nearer even than a sister."
"So much nearer!"
"It's queer, isn't it? But you can't forget this
trouble you've had. The tears come up in your eyes
again. Tell me his name, Jack, and the dog "
She said: "Only let me go. Take your hands
away, Pierre."
He obeyed her, deeply worried, and she stood
for a moment with a hand pressed over her eyes,
swaying. He had never seen her like this; he was
i 4 S RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
Hkc a pilot striving to steer his ship through an un-
fathomable fog. Following what had become an
instinct with him, he raised his left hand and touched
the crosa beneath his throat. And inspiration came
to him.
CHAPTER XIX
PARTNERS
"WHETHER you want to or not, Jack, we'll go <:
this dance to-night."
Jacqueline's hand fell away from her eye. She
seemed suddenly glad again.
"Do you want to take me, Pierre?"
He explained: "Of course. Besides, we have to
keep an eye on Wilbur. This girl with the yellow
hair"
She had altered swiftly again. There was no un-
derstanding her or following her moods this day.
He decided to disregard them, as he had often done
before.
"Black Gandil swears that I'm bringing bad luck
to the boys at last. Patterson has disappeared; Wil-
bur has lost his head about a girl. We've got to
save Dick."
He knew that she was fond of Wilbur, but she
showed no enthusiasm now.
"Let him go his own way. He's big enough to
take care of himself."
"But it's common talk, Jack, that the end of Wil-
bur will come through a woman. It was that that
sent him on the long trail, you know. And thi* girl
with the yellow hair "
H9
150 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
"Why do you harp on her?"
"Harp on her?"
"Every other word nothing but yellow hair.
I'm sick of it. I know the kind faded corn color
dyed, probably. Pierre, you are all blind, and you
most of all."
This being obviously childish, Pierre brushed the
consideration of it from his mind.
"And for clothes, Jack?"
They were both dumb. It had been years since
she had worn the clothes of a woman. She had
danced with the men of her father's gang many a
time while some one whistled or played on a mouth-
organ, and there was the time they rode into Beulah
Ferry and held up the dance-hall, and Jim Boone
and Mansie lined up the crowd with their hands held
high above their heads while the sweating musicians
played fast and furious and Jack and Pierre danced
down the center of the hall.
She had danced many a time, but never in the
clothes of a woman; so they stared, mutely puzzled.
A thought came first to Jacqueline. It obliterated
even the memory of the yellow-haired girl and set
her eyes dancing. She stepped close and murmured
her suggestion in -the ear of Pierre. Whatever it
was, it made his jaw set hard and brought grave
lines into his face.
She stepped back, asking: "Well?"
"We'll do it. What a little demon you are, Jack!"
"Then we'll have to start now. There's barely
time.
They ran from the room together, and as they
PARTNERS 151
passed through the room below Wilbur called after
them: "The dance?"
"Yes."
"Wait and go with me."
"We ride in a roundabout way."
They were through the door as Pierre called back,
and a moment later the hoofs of their horses scat-
tered the gravel down the hillside. Jacqueline rode
a black stallion sired by her father's mighty Thun-
der, who had grown old but still could do the work
of three ordinary horses in carrying the great bulk
of his master. The son of Thunder was little like
his sire, but a slender-limbed racer, graceful, nerv-
ous, eager. A clumsy rider would have ruined the
horse in a single day's hard work among the trails
of the mountain-desert, but Jacqueline, fairly read-
ing the mind of the black, nursed his strength when
it was needed and let him run free and swift when
the ground before him was level.
Now she picked her course dexterously down the
hillside with the cream-colored mare of Pierre fol-
lowing half a length behind.
After the first down-pitch of ground was covered
they passed into difficult terrain, and for half an
hour went at a jog trot, winding in and out among
the rocks, climbing steadily up and up through the
hills.
Here the ground opened up again, and they roved
on at a free gallop, the black always half a length
in front. In all the length of the mountain-desert
there was no other picture which could compare with
152 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
these two in their youth and their pride and their
fearlessness.
They rode alert, high-headed like their horses,
and there was about them a suggestion of the pa-
tience which carries a man endlessly after one pur-
pose, and a suggestion of the eagerness, too, which
makes him strike swift and hard and surely when
the time for action comes.
Along the ridge of a crest, an almost level stretch
of a mile or more, Jack eased the grip on the reins,
and the black responded with a sudden lengthening
of stride and lowered his head with ears pressed
back flat while he fairly flew over the ground.
Nothing could match that speed. The strong
mare fell to the rear, fighting gamely, but beaten
by that effort of the stallion.
Jack swerved in the saddle and looked back,
laughing her triumph. Pierre smiled grimly in re-
sponse and leaned forward, shifting his weight more
over the withers of Mary. He spoke to her, and
one of her pricking ears fell back as if to listen to
his voice. He spoke again and the other ear fell
back, her neck straightened, she gave her whole
heart to her work.
First she held the stallion even, then she began to
gain. That was the meaning of those round, strong
hips, and the breadth of the chest. She needed a
half-mile of running to warm her to her work, and
now the black came back to her with every leap.
The thunder of the approaching hoofs warned
the girl. One more glance she cast in apprehension
OTCT her shoulder, and then brought her spurs into
PARTNERS 153
play again and again. Still the rush of hoofs behind
her grew louder and louder, and now there was a
panting at her side and the head of cream-colored
Mary drew up and past.
She gave up the battle with a little shout of anger
and slowed up her mount with a sharp pull on the
reins. It needed only a word from Pierre and his
mare drew down to a hand-gallop, twisting her head
a little toward the black as if she called for some
recognition of her superiority.
"It's always this way," cried Jack, and jerked at
the reins with a childish impotence of anger. "I
beat you for the first quarter of a mile and then this
fool of a horse Pm going to give him away."
"The black," said Pierre, assuming an air of
quiet and superior knowing which always aggravated
her most, "is a good second-rate cayuse when some
one who knows horses is in the saddle. I'd give
you fifty for him on the strength of his looks and
keep him for a decoration."
She could only glare her speechless rage for a
moment. Then she changed swiftly and threw out
her hands in a little gesture >of surrender.
"After all, what difference does it make? Your
Mary can beat him in a long run or a short one, but
it's your horse, Pierre, and that takes the sting away.
If it were any one else's I'd well, I'd shoot either
the horse or the rider. But my partner's horse is
my horse, you know."
She broke into song, the clear voice flinging back
from the mountainside to the canon that dropped
on their right:
154 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
"My partner's horse is my horse, bunky
From his fetlock to the bucking-strap,
From his flying hoofs to the saddle-flap
My oartner's horse is my horse, bunky.
"My partner's gun is my gun, bunky
From the chamber to the trigger-guard;
And the butt like a friend's hand gripping hard
My partner's gun is my gun, bunky.
"My partner's heart is my heart, bunky
And like matched horses galloping well,
They will beat together through heaven and bell
My partner's heart is my heart, bunky."
He swerved his mare sharply to the left and took
her hand with a strong grip.
"Jack, of all the men I've ever known, I'd rather
walk with you, I'd rather talk with you, I'd rather
ride with you, I'd rather fight for you. Jack, you're
the best pal that ever wore spurs, and the gamest
sport."
"Of all the men you ever knew," she said, "I sup-
pose that I am."
He did not hear the low voice, for he was look-
ing out over the canon and whistling the refrain of
her song happily. A few moments later they swung
out onto the very crest of the range.
On all sides the hills dropped away through the
gloom of the evening, brown near by, but falling
off through a faint blue haze and growing blue-black
with the distance. A sharp wind, chill with the
coming of night, cut at them. Not a hundred feet
overhead shot a low-winging hawk back from his
PARTNERS 155
day's hunting and rising only high enough to clear
the range and then plunge down toward his nest.
Like the hawks they peered down from their
point of vantage into the profound gloom of the
valley below. They shaded their eyes and studied
it with a singular interest for long moments, patient,
silent, quiet as the hawk when he steadies himself
in leisurely circles high in the heart of heaven and
fixes his eyes surely on his prey far, far below then
folds his wings and shoots suddenly down, a veritable
bolt from the blue.
So these two marauders stared until she raised a
hand slowly and then pointed down. He followed
the direction she indicated, and there, through the
haze of the evening, he made out a glimmer of lights.
He said sharply: "I know the place, but we'll
have a devil of a ride to get there."
And like the swooping hawk they started down
the slope. It was precipitous in many places, but
Pierre kept almost at a gallop, making the mare take
the slopes often crouched back on her haunches with
forefeet braced forward, and sliding many yards
at a time.
In between the boulders he darted, twisting here
and there, and always erect and jaunty in the saddle,
swaying easily with every movement of Mary. Not
far behind him came the girl. Fine rider that she
was, she could not hope to compete with such match-
less horsemanship where man and horse were only
one piece of strong brawn and muscle, one daring
spirit. Many a time the chances seemed too desper-
ate to her, but she followed blindly where he led,
1 56 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
setting her teeth at each succeeding venture, and
coming out safe every time, until they swung out
at last through a screen of brush and onto the level
floor of the valley.
CHAPTER XX
FULL DRESS
IN the heart of that valley two roads crossed.
Many a year before a man with some imagination
and illimitable faith was moved by the crossing of
those roads to build a general merchandise store.
Time justified his faith, in a small way, and now
McGuire's store was famed for leagues and leagues
about, for he dared to take chances with all manner
of novelties, and the curious, when their pocketbooks
were full, went to McGuire's to find inspiration.
Business was dull this night, however; there was
not a single patron at the bar, and the store itself
was empty, so he went to put out the big gasoline
lamp which hung from the ceiling in the center of
the room, and was on the ladder, reaching high
above his head, when a singular chill caught him in
the center of his plump back and radiated from that
spot in all directions, freezing his blood. He swal-
lowed the lump in his throat and with his arms still
stretched toward the lamp he turned his head and
glanced behind.
Two men stood watching him from a position
just inside the door. How they had come there he
could never guess, for the floor creaked at the light-
est step. Nevertheless, these fantoms had appeared
157
15* RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
silently, and now they must be dealt with. He
turned on the ladder to face them, and still he kept
the arms automatically above his head while he de-
scended to the floor.
However, on a closer examination, these two did
not seem particularly formidable. They were both
quite young, one with dark-red hair and a some-
what overbright eye; the other was hardly more
than a boy, very slender, delicately made, the sort
of handsome young scoundrel whom women cannot
resist.
Having made these observations McGuire ven-
tured to lower his arms by jerks; nothing happened;
he was safe. So he vented his feelings by scowling
on the strangers.
"Well," he snapped, "what's up? Too late for
business. I'm closin' up."
The two quite disregarded him. Their eyes were
wandering calmly about the place, and now they
rested on the pride of McGuire's store. The figure
of a man in evening clothes, complete from shoes to
gloves and silk hat, stood beside a girl of wax love-
liness. She wore a low-cut gown of dark green, and
over her shimmering, cold white shoulders was
draped a scarf of dull gold. Above, a sign said:
"You only get married once; why don't you do it
up right?"
"That," said the taller stranger, "ought to do
very nicely for us, eh?"
And the younger replied in a curiously light, pleas-
ant voice : "Just what we want. But how'll I get
away with all that fluffy stuff, eh?"
FULL DRESS 159
The elder explained : "We're going to a bit of a
dance and we'll take those evening clothes."
The heart of McGuire beat faster and his little
eyes took in the strangers again from head to foot.
"They ain't for sale," he said. "They's just sam-
ples. But right over here "
"This isn't a question of selling," said the red-
headed man. "We've come to accept a little dona-
tion, McGuire."
The storekeeper grew purple and white in patches.
Still there was no show of violence, no display of
guns; he moved his hand toward his own weapon,
and still the strangers merely smiled quietly on him.
He decided that he had misunderstood, and went
on: "Over here I got a line of goods that you'll
like. Just step up and "
The younger man, frowning now, replied: "We
don't want to see any more of your junk. The
clothes on the models suit us all right. Slip J em off,
McGuire."
"But " began McGuire and then stopped.
His first suspicion returned with redoubled force;
above all, that head of dark red hair made him
thoughtful. He finished hoarsely: "What the hell's
this?"
"Why," smiled the taller man, "youVe never done
much in the interests of charity, and now's a good
time for you to start. Hurry up, McGuire; we're
late already!"
There was a snarl from the storekeeper, and he
went for his gun, but something in the peculiarly
steady eyes of the two made him stop with his fingers
i6o RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
frozen hard around the butt. A mighty sickness
overwhelmed McGuire, and before his eyes there
swam a dark mist.
He whispered: "You're Red Pierre?"
"The clothes, 1 * repeated Pierre sternly, u on the
jump, McGuire."
And with a jump McGuire obeyed. His hands
trembled so that he could hardly remove the scarf
from the shoulders of the model, but afterward fear
made his fingers supple. He lifted up the green
gown; white, filmy clothes showed underneath.
There came a sharp cry from Jack: "Turn away,
Pierre; turn quick and don't dare to look. I'll take
care of McGuire."
And Pierre le Rouge turned, grinning. When
she told him that he could look again, he found her
with a bright spot of color in either cheek, and her
eyes avoided his. It thrilled Pierre, and yet it
troubled him, for she seemed changed, all at once,
less of a comrade, and strangely aloof. McGuire
was doing up the clothes in two bundles.
Jacqueline took one of them and Pierre the other
under his left arm ; with his right hand he drew out
some yellow coins.
"I didn't buy these clothes because I didn't have
the time to dicker with you, McGuire. I've heard
you talk prices before, you know. But here's what
the clothes are worth to us."
And into the quaking hands of McGuire he poured
a chinking stream of gold pieces.
Relief, amazement, and a very wholesome fear
struggled in the face of McGuire as he saw himself
FULL DRESS r6i
threefold overpaid. At that little yellow heap he
remained staring, unheeding the sound of the retreat-
ing outlaws. At it he still stared with fascinated
eyes while the door banged and the clatter of gallop-
ing hoofs began.
"It ain't possible," he said at last, "thieves hare
begun to pay."
His eyes sought the ceiling.
"So that's Red Pierre?" said McGuire.
As for Pierre and Jacqueline, they were instantly
safe in the black heart of the mountains. Many a
mile of hard riding lay before them, however, and
already the dance must be nearly ready to begin in
the Crittenden schoolhouse. There was no road,
not even a trail that they could follow. They had
never even seen the Crittenden schoolhouse; they
knew its location only by vague descriptions.
But they had ridden a thousand times in places
far more bewildering and less known to them. Like
all true denizens of the mountain-desert, they had
a sense of direction as uncanny as that of an Eskimo.
Now they struck off confidently through the dark and
trailed up and down through the mountains until
they reached a hollow in the center of which shone
a group of dim lights. It was the schoolhouse near
the Barnes place, the scene of the dance.
So they turned back behind the hills and in the
covert of a group of cottonwoods they kindled two
more little fires, shading them on three sides with
rocks and leaving them open for the sake of light on
the fourth.
They worked busily for a time, without a word
1 62 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
spoken by either of them. The only sound was the
rustling of Jacqueline's stolen silks and the purling
of a small stream of water near them, some meager
spring.
But presently: "P-P-Pierre, I'm f -freezing."
He himself was numbed by the chill air and paused
in the task of thrusting a leg into the trousers, which
persisted in tangling and twisting under his foot.
"So'm I. It's c-c-cold as the d-d-d-devil."
"And these th-things aren't any thicker than
spider webs."
"Wait. I'll build you a great big fire.'
And he scooped up a number of dead twigs.
"P-P-Pierre ! D-d-d-don't you d-d-dare c-come in
s-sight of m-me."
"D-d-damn it! I don't want to see you."
"P-Pierre! Aren't you ash-sh-sh-shamed to talk
like that?"
"Jack, this damned collar won't button."
"K-k-eep t-t-t-trying."
"Come help me."
"Pierre ! How can I come dressed like th-th-this?"
"I'm n-n-not going to the dance."
"P-P-P-Pierre!"
"I'm not."
"Then I am."
"W-w-w-without me?"
"Y-y-yes."
"Jack, you're a flirt."
"I hate you, Pierre!"
"Thank G-G-G-God! The collar's on."
"I can't tie this th-th-thing."
FULL DRESS 163
"I'll come help you. 11
"N-n-n-no!"
"What is it?"
"The thing that g-g-goes around me."
"C-c-c-corset?"
A silence.
"Pierre!"
"W-well?"
"It's t-t-tieoT 1
"But this damned tie isn't!"
"I'll do it for you."
And then: "N-n-no. Go b-b-b-back!"
He fixed the eye-glass on his nose and laughed at
the thought of himself.
"Pierre."
"Well?"
"I've got the dress on. 11
"Then I can come?"
He was warm enough now, with the suit on and
even the tie knotted, after a fashion.
"No. I st-t-till feel just n-n-n-naked, Pierre."
"Is there something missing?"
"Yes. Around the shoulders."
"Take the scarf."
There was an interlude of more rustling, then:
"P-P-Pierre."
"Well?"
"I wish I had a m-m-m-mirror."
"Jack, are you vain?"
A cry of delight answered him. He threw cau-
tion to the winds and advanced on her. He found
her kneeling above a pool of water fed by the soft
1 64 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
sliding little stream from the spring. With one hand
she held a burning twig by way of a torch, and with
the other she patted her hair into shape and finally
thrust the comb into the glittering, heavy coils.
She started, as if she felt his presence without
looking, and knelt with body erect.
"P-P-Pierre!"
"Ye*?"
"C-c-c-close your eyes."
He obeyed.
"Look!"
She stood with the torch high overhead, and he
saw a beauty so glorious that he closed his eyes in-
voluntarily and still he saw the vision in the dull-
green gown, with the scarf of old gold about her
shoulders and the skin peering out here and there,
dazzling white. And there were two lights, the
barbaric red of the jewels in her hair, and the black
shimmer of her eyes. He drew back a step more.
It was a picture to be looked at from a distance.
She ran to him with a cry of dismay:
"Pierre, what's wrong with me?"
His arms went round her of their own accord. It
was the only place they could go. And all this fra-
grant, marvelous beauty was held in the circle of
his will.
"It isn't that, but you're so wonderful, Jack, so
glorious, that I hardly know you. You're like a
different person."
He felt the warm body trembling, and the thought
that it was not entirely from the cold set his heart
beating like a trip-hammer. What he felt was so
FULL DRESS 165
strange to him that he stepped back in a vague alarm,
and then laughed. She stood with a half whimsical,
half expectant smile.
"Jack, how am I to risk you in the arms of all the
strangers in that dance?"
The light of Alexander when he dreamed of new-
worlds to conquer came into those wide black eyes.
"It's late. Listen!"
She cupped a hand at her ear and leaned to listen.
Up from the hollow below them came a faint strain
of music, a very light sound that was drowned a mo-
ment later by the solemn rushing of the wind through
the great trees above them.
They looked up of one accord.
"Pierre, what was that?"
"Nothing; the wind in the branches, that's all."
"It was a hushing sound. It was like it was like
a warning, almost."
But he was already turning away, and the fol-
lowed him hastily.
CHAPTER XXI
THE DANCE
JACQUELINE could never back a horse in that
gown, or even sit sidewise in the saddle without
hopelessly crumpling it, so they walked to the school-
house. It was a slow progress, for she had to step
lightly and carefully for fear of the slippers. He
took her bare arm and helped her ; he would never
have thought of it under ordinary conditions, but
since she had put on this gown she was greatly
changed to him, no longer the wild, free rider of
the mountain-desert, but a defenseless, strangely
weak being. Her strength was now something other
than the skill to ride hard and shoot straight and
quick.
Greatest wonder of all, she accepted the new re-
lation tacitly, and leaned more and more weight on
his hand, and even looked up and laughed with pleas-
ure when he almost lifted her over a muddy runlet.
It was all new, very strange, and, oddly enough, not
unpleasant. Each was viewing the other from such
an altered point that neither spoke.
So they came to the schoolhouse in this silence,
and reached the long line of buggies, buckboards,
and, most of all, saddled horses. They flooded the
horse-shed where the school children stabled their
1 66
THE DANCE 167
mounts in the winter weather. They were tethered
to the posts of the fence ; they were grouped about
the trees.
It was a prodigious gathering, and a great affair
for the mountain-desert. They knew this even be-
fore they had set foot within the building.
They stopped here and adjusted their masks care-
fully. They were made from a strip of black lining
which Jack had torn from one of the coats in the
trunk which lay far back in the hills.
Those masks had to be tied firmly and well, for
some jester might try to pull away that of Pierre,
and if his face were seen, it would be death a
slaughter without defense, for he had not been able
to conceal his big Colt in these tight-fitting clothes.
Even as it was, there was peril from the moment
that the lights within should shine on that head of
dark-red hair.
As for Jack, there was little fear that she would
be recognized. She was strange even to Pierre
every time he looked down at her, for she had
ceased to be Jack and had become very definitely
"Jacqueline." But the masks were on; the scarf
adjusted about the throat and bare, shivering shoul-
ders of Jack, and they stood arm in arm before the
door out of which streamed the voices and the music.
"Are you ready ?"
"Yes."
"Pierre if they should find us out "
"Never in a thousand years. Are you ready?"
"Yes."
But she was trembling so, either from fear, or ex-
i6S RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
citement, or both, that he had to take a firm hold
on her arm and almost carry her up the steps, shove
the door open, and force her in.
A hundred eyes were instantly upon them, prac-
tised, suspicious eyes, accustomed to search into all
things and take nothing for granted; eyes of men
who, when a rap came at their door, looked to see
whether or not the shadow of the stranger fell full
in the center of the crack beneath the door. If it
fell to one side the man might be an enemy, and
therefore they would stand at one side of the room,
their hands upon the butt of the si^c-gun, and shout:
"Come in." Such was the battery of glances from
the men, and the color of Pierre altered, paled.
He knew some of those faces, for those who hunt
and are hunted never forget the least gestures of
their enemies. There was a mighty temptation to
turn back even then, but he set his teeth and forced
himself to stand calmly, adjust the absurd eye-glass
on his nose, and stare about the room.
The chuckle which replied to this maneuver freed
him for the moment. Suspicion was lulled. More-
over, the red-jeweled hair of Jacqueline and her
lighted eyes called all attention almost immediately
upon her. She shifted the golden scarf the white
arms and breast flashed in the light a gasp re-
sponded. There would be talk to-morrow; there
were whispers even now.
It was not the main hall that they stood in, for
this school, having been built by an aspiring com-
munity, contained two rooms; this smaller room,
icd by the little ones of the school, was now con-
THE DANCE 169
verted into a hat-and-cloak room, and here also were
a dozen baskets and boxes filled with comforters
and blankets.
It was because of what lay in those baskets that
the men and the women walked and talked softly in
this room. They were wary lest they should arouse
a sound which not even the loudest music could quite
drown a sound which makes all women sit up
straight and sniff like hunted animals at bay, and
makes all men frown and glance about for places
of refuge.
Now and then some girl came panting and flushed
from the dance-hall within and tiptoed to one of
these baskets, and raised an edge of a blanket and
looked down at the contents with a singular smile.
Pierre hung up his hat, removed his gloves slowly,
nerving himself to endure the sharp glances, and
opened the door for Jacqueline.
If she had held back tremulously before, some-
thing she had seen in the eyes of ., those in the first
room, something in the whisper and murmur which
rose the moment she started to leave, gave her cour-
age. She stepped into the dance-hall like a queen
going forth to address devoted subjects.
The second ordeal was easier than the first.
There were many times more people in that crowded
room, but each was intent upon his own pleasure.
A wave of warmth and light swept upon them, and
a blare of music, and a stir and hum of voices, and
here and there the sweet sound of a happy girl's
laughter. They raised their heads, these two wild
170 RIDERS 6F THE SILENCES
rangers of the mountain-desert, and breathed deep
of the fantastic scene.
It was marvelous, indeed, that so much gay life
could exist within the arms of those gaunt, naked
hills beyond the windows. There was no attempt
at beauty in the costumes of the masqueraders.
Here and there some girl achieved a novel and pleas-
ing effect; but on the whole they strove for cheaper
and more stirring things in the line of the grotesque.
Here passed a youth wearing a beard made from
the stiff, red bristles of the tail of a sorrel horse.
Another wore a bear's head cunningly stuffed, the
grinning teeth flashing over his head and the skin
draped over his shoulders. A third disfigured him-
self horribly by painting after the fashion of an In-
dian on the war-path, with crimson streaks down his
forehead and red and black across his cheeks.
But not more than a third of all the assembly
made any effort to masquerade, beyond the use of
the simple black mask across the upper part of the
face. The rest of the men and women contented
themselves with wearing the very finest clothes they
could afford to buy, and there was through the air
a scent of the general merchandise store which not
even a liberal use of cheap perfume and all the drifts
of pale-blue cigarette smoke could quite overcome.
As for the music, it was furnished by two very
old men, relics of the days when there were contests
in fiddling; a stout fellow of middle age, with cheeks
swelled almost to bursting as he thundered out
terrific blasts on a slide trombone; a youth who
THE DANCE 171
rattled two sticks on an overturned dish-pan in lieu
of a drum, and a cornetist of real skill.
In an interlude, before very long, he would amuse
with a solo, including all sorts of runs and whistling
notes, and be a source of talk for many a month
to come.
There were hard faces in the crowd, most of
them, of men who had set their teeth against hard
weather and hard men, and fought their way
through, not to happiness, but to existence, so that
fighting had become their pleasure.
Now they relaxed their eternal vigilance, their
eternal suspicion. Another phase of their nature
weakened. Some of them were smiling and laugh-
ing for the first time in months, perhaps, of bitter
labor and loneliness on the range. With the gates
of good-nature opened, a veritable flood of gaiety
burst out. It glittered in their eyes, it rose to their
lips in a wild laughter. They seemed to be dancing
more furiously fast in order to forget the life which
they had left, and to which they must return.
And through all the cheapness there was a great
note of poetry as well; but one caught this only by
a sense of intuition, or by remembering that these
were the conquerors of the bitter nature of the moun-
tain-desert There was beauty here, the beauty of
strength in the men and a brown loveliness in the
girls; just as in the music, the blatancy of the rat-
tling dish-pan and the blaring trombone were more
than balanced by the real skill of the violinists, who
kept a high, sweet, singing tone through all the
clamor.
1 72 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
One could close his ears to the rest of the noise,
if he strove to do so, and hear nothing but that har-
monious moaning of the strings, steady and clear,
like the aspirations of a man divorced from the facts
of his weakness and his crudeness in practical life.
And Pierre le Rouge and Jacqueline? They
stood aghast for a moment when that crash of noise
broke around them; but they came from a life where
there was nothing of beauty except the lonely
strength of the mountains and the appalling silences
of the stars that roll above the desert. Almost at
once they caught the overtone of human joyousness,
and they turned with strange smiles to each other,
and it was "Pierre?" "Jack?" Then a nod, and she
was in his arms, and they glided into the dance.
CHAPTER XXII
THE OVERTONE
WHEN a crowd gathers in the street, there rises
a babel of voices, a confused and pointless clamor,
no matter what the purpose of the gathering, until
some man who can think as well as shout begins to
speak. Then the crowd murmurs a moment, and
after a few seconds composes itself to listen.
So it was with the noise in the hall when Pierre
and Jacqueline began to dance. First there were
smiles of derision and envy around them, but after
a moment a little hush came where they moved, and
then men began to note the smile of the girl and
the whiteness of that round throat, and the grace
of the bare, tapering arms.
So a whisper went around the room, and there
began a craning of necks and an exchange of nods.
All that crowd became in a moment no more than
the chorus which fills the background of the stage
when the principals step out from the wings.
They could not help but dance well, for they had
youth and grace and strength, and the glances of
applause and envy were like wine to quicken their
blood, while above all they caught the overtone of
the singing violins, and danced by that alone. The
music ended with a long flourish just as they whirled
173
174 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
to a stop in a corner of the room. At once an eddy
of men started toward them.
"Who shall it be?" smiled Pierre. "With whom
do you want to dance? It's your triumph, Jack."
She was alight and alive with the victory, and her
eyes roved over the crowd.
"The big man with the tawny hair."
"But he's making right past us."
"No; he'll turn and come back."
"How do you know?"
For answer she glanced up and laughed, and he
realized with a singular sense of loneliness that she
knew many things which were beyond his ken. Some
one touched his arm, and a voice, many voices, beset
him:
"How's the chances for a dance with the girl,
partner?"
"My name's McCormack. Riley? Glad to know
you. I've got a flask on the hip, Riley; what's the
chance of making a trade on this next dance?"
"How do we swap partners? Mine is the rangy
girl with the red topknot. Not much on looks, Bill,
but a cayuse don't cover ground on his looks.
Dance? Say, Bill, she'll rock you to sleep!"
"This dance is already booked," Pierre answered,
and kept his eyes on the tall man with the scarred
face and the resolute jaw. He wondered pro-
foundly why Jacqueline had chosen such a partner.
At least she had prophesied correctly, for the big
man turned toward them just as he seemed about
to head for another part of the hall. The crowd
gave way before him, not that he shouldered them
THE OVERTONE 175
aside, but they seemed to feel the coming of his
shadow before him, and separated as they would
have done before the shadow of a falling tree.
In another moment Pierre found himself looking
up to the giant. No mask could disguise him,
neither cover that long, twisting mark of white down
his cheek, nor hide the square set of the jaw, nor
dim the keen steady eyes. Upon him there was
written at large : "This is a man."
And there came to Pierre an exceedingly great
uneasiness in his right hand, and a twitching of the
fingers low down on his thigh where the familiar
holster should have hung. His left hand rose, fol-
lowing the old instinct, and touched beneath his
throat where the cold cross lay.
He was saying easily: "This is your dance, isn't
it? 1
"Right, Bud," answered the big man in a mellow
voice as great as his size. "Sorry I can't swap part-
ners with you, but I hunt alone."
An overwhelming desire to get a distance between
himself and this huge unknown came to Pierre.
He said: "There goes the music. You're off."
And the other, moving toward Jack, leaned down
a little and murmured at the ear of the outlaw:
"Thanks, Pierre."
Then he was gone, and Jacqueline was laughing
over his shoulder back to Pierre.
Through his daze and through the rising clamor
of the music, a voice said beside him: "You look
sort of sick, dude. Who's your friend?"
"Don't you know him?" asked Pierre.
176 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
"No more than I do you; but I've ridden the
range for ten years around here, and I know that
he's new to these parts. If I'd ever glimpsed him
before, I'd remember him. He'd be a bad man in
a mix, eh?"
And Pierre answered with devout earnestness:
"He would."
"But where 'd you buy those duds, pal? Hey,
look! Here's what I've been waiting for the
Barneses and the girl that's visitin' 'em from the
East."
"What girl?"
"Look!"
The Barnes group was passing through the door,
and last came the unmistakable form of Dick Wilbur,
masked, but not masked enough to hide his familiar
smile or cover the well-known sound of his laughter
as it drifted to Pierre across the hall, and on his arm
was a girl in an evening dress of blue, with a small,
black mask across her eyes, and deep-golden hair.
Pausing before she swung into the dance with
Wilbur, she made a gesture with the white arm,
and looked up laughing to big, handsome Dick.
Pierre trembled, and his heart beat once and
stopped.
As he watched, the song which Dick had sung
came like a monotonous, religious chant within him :
They call me poor, yet I am rich
In the touch of her golden hair;
My heart is filled like a raiser's hamh
With the red-gold of her hair.
THE OVERTONE 177
The only sky I ride beneath
Is the dear blue of her eyes,
The only heaven I desire
Is the blue of her dear eyes.
But even the memory of the song died in him
while he watched her dance, and saw the lights and
shadows flit across the smooth shoulders; and when.
he saw the hands of Wilbur about her, a red rage
came up in him.
Dick in passing, marked that stare above the
heads of the crowd, and frowned with trouble. The
hungry eyes of Pierre followed them as they circled
the hall again; and this time Wilbur, perhaps fear-
ing that something had gone wrong with Pierre,
steered close to the edge of the dancing crowd and
looked inquisitively across.
He leaned and spoke to the girl, and she turned
her head, smiling, to Pierre. Then the smile went
out, and even despite the mask, he saw that her eyes
had widened. The heart of Pierre grew thunderous
with music. She had stopped and slipped from the
arm of Wilbur, and came step by step slowly toward
him like one walking in her sleep.
There, by the edge of the dancers, with the noise
of the music and the laughter and the shuffling feet
to cover them, they met. The hands she held to him
were cold and trembling. He only knew that they
were marvelously soft, and that they faltered and
closed strongly about his own.
"Is it you?"
"It is I."
178 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
That was all; and then the shadow of Wilbur
loomed above them.
"What's this? Do you know each other? It
isn't possible ! Pierre, are you playing a game with
me?"
But under the glance of Pierre he fell back a step,
and reached for the gun which was not there. They
were alone once more.
"Mary Mary Brown!"
"Pierre!"
"But you are dead!"
"No, no ! But you Pierre "
"It was a miracle the cross that saved me."
"Where can we go?"
"Outside."
"Pierre."
"Yes."
"Hold my arm close so I'll know it isn't just
dreaming. And go quickly!"
"They are staring at us the fools as if they
were trying to understand."
"We'll be followed?"
"Never."
"Do you need a wrap?"
"No."
"But it is cold outside, and your shoulders are
bare."
"Then take that cloak. But quickly, Pierre, be-
fore we're followed."
He drew it about her; he led her through the
door; it clicked shut; they were alone with the sweet,
frosty air about them. She tore away the mask,
THE OVERTONE 179
and her beauty struck him like the moon when it
drops suddenly through a mist of clouds.
"And yours, Pierre?"
"Not here."
"Why?"
"Because there are people. Hurry. Now here,
with just the trees around us "
And he tore off the mask.
The white, cold moon shone over them, slipping
down between the dark tops of the trees, and the
wind stirred slowly through the branches with a
faint, hushing sound, as if once more a warning
were coming to Pierre this night. He looked up,
his left hand at the cross.
"Look down. You are afraid of something,
Pierre. What is it?"
"With your arms around my neck, there's nothing
in the world I fear. Mary, I loved you all this
time."
"Pierre and I "
"But you have grown so tall so strange I can
hardly feel "
"And you so stern and old."
"I never dreamed I could love anything more
than the little girl who lay in the snow, and died
there that night."
"And I never dreamed I could smile at any man
except the boy who lay by me that night. And he
died."
"What miracle saved you?"
She said : "It was wonderful, and yet very simple.
You remember how the tree crushed me down into
1 80 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
the snow? Well, when the landslide moved, it car-
ried the tree before it; the weight of the trunk was
lifted from me. Perhaps it was a rock that struck
me over the head then, for I lost consciousness. The
slide didn't bury me, but the rush carried me before
it like a stick before a wave, you see.
"When I woke I was almost completely covered
with a blanket of debris, but I could move my arms,
and managed to prop myself up in a sitting posture.
It was there that my father and his searching party
found me; he had been combing that district all
night. They carried me back, terribly bruised, but
without even a bone broken. It was a miracle that
I escaped, and the miracle must have been worked
by your cross; do you remember?"
He shuddered and threw a hand up before his
eyes.
"Dearest "
"It's nothing but the cross for every good for-
tune it has brought me, it has brought bad luck to
others."
"Hush, Pierre. Put your arms around me. I
am all yours all. You must not think of the
trouble or the cross."
He obeyed and drew her close to him, and the
warm slender body gave to him and lay close against
his; and her head went back, and the curve of her
soft lips was close to his. He kissed her, reverently,
and then, with passion, the lips, the eyes, the throat,
that quivered as if she were singing.
"Pierre, I have said good night to you every time
before I went to sleep all these years."
THE OVERTONE 181
'And IVc looked for you in the face of every
woman."
"And I used to think that a still, small voice an-
swered me out of the night."
"Oh, my dear, there was a voice; for I've loved
you so hard that it must have been like a hand at
yoiy shoulder tapping, and asking you to remember
me. Mary, you are crying."
"I'm so happy; I can't help it. It's as if as if
Pierre "
"Dear, my dear."
"Hold me closer. I want to feel your strength
around me, so that I know I can never lose you
again."
"Never."
"Tell me again that you love me."
"I love you."
"I love you, Pierre."
Then the wind spoke for them, using the trees
for a harp above them. She looked up to him, and
saw the nodding branches above his head, and higher
still, the cold and changeless radiance of the stars.
He bent back her head and stared so grimly down
Into her eyes that her smile ceased tremulously.
"Mary, what is the perfume?"
"None, except the scent of the pines and the
sweet, cold air of the night, Pierre."
"There is something more. It's as if the wind
had taken all the fragrance from a thousand miles
of wild flowers, and brought them blended and faint
and sweeter than anything else in the world It is
1 82 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
you, Mary, you are so beautiful. How many men
have told you that you are beautiful?"
"None have told me ; at least I've listened to them
with only half my heart."
"What have they told you?"
"Nothing, except words about eyes and lips, and
things like that."
"And your hair?"
"Oh, yes, they never forget that."
"Then there is nothing left for me to say, except
that God made you so that I could love you with all
my heart. And while I hold you here and hunt for
things to say, my mind goes rushing out to great
things the sea, the mountains, the wind, the cold,
quiet, beautiful stars. But you are unhappy to hear
me. Look I The big tears come one by one in
your eyes, and roll down your face."
"I'm so happy, Pierre, that I cannot help but be
sad a little."
"But never after this. We will always be happy."
"Always and always."
"Mary, I have ridden all day over a burning hot
desert and come under the mountains at night and
looked up, and I've seen the white, pure snow with
the blue of the sky behind it. You are like that
to me. But you will be cold out here; I musn't go
on saying nothings like this."
"I love it, Pierre. I won't have you stop."
"Sit here on this stump now, I'll sit at your
feet."
"No, beside me, please, Pierre."
"I will not move. Give me your hands. Now,
THE OVERTONE 183
when I look up your face is framed by a tree-top
that goes nodding from one side to the other, and
I look up at your eyes and past them at the stars
until I know that our love is like them, and free as
the wind. Mary, my dearest, your cold hand that
I kiss is more to me than oceans of silver, or moun-
tains of gold."
"Now, if we could both die, this would never
end. But it will never end in spite of to-morrow,
will it? You will go back home with me."
u Go home with you?"
"Take my hand again. Pierre, what has hap-
pened? What have I done? What have I said?"
CHAPTER XXIII
THE FEAR OF THE LIVING
BUT he only stared gravely up to her with such
a sorrow that her heart went cold.
"Nothing but I've remembered."
"What?"
"It's the cross. It brings luck and bad fortune
together. Mary, I'll throw it away, now and then
no, it makes no difference. We are done for."
"Pierre!"
"Don't you see, Mary, or are you still blind as
I was ever since I saw you tonight? It's all in that
name Pierre."
"There nothing in it, Pierre, that I don't love."
He rose, and she with him. His head was bowed
as if with the weight of the doom which he fore-
saw.
"You have heard of the wild men of the moun-
tains, and the long-riders?"
He knew that she nodded, though she could not
speak.
"I am Red Pierre."
"You!"
"Yes."
Yet he had the courage to raise his head and
watch her shrink with horror. It was only an in-
184
THE FEAR OF THE LIVING 185
stant. Then she was beside him again, and one
arm around him, while she turned her head and
glanced fearfully back at the lighted schoolhouse.
The faint music mocked them.
"And you dared to come to the dance? We must
go. Look, there are horses ! We'll ride off into the
mountains, and they'll never find us we'll "
"Hush! One day's riding would kill you riding
as I ride."
"I'm strong very strong, and the love of you,
Pierre, will give me more strength. But quickly, for
if they knew you, every man in that place would
come armed and ready to kill. I know, for I've
heard them talk. Tell me, are one-half of all the
terrible things they say "
"They are true, I guess."
"I won't think of them. Whatever you've done,
it was not you, but some devil that forced you on.
Pierre, I love you more than ever. Will you go
East with me, and home? We will lose ourselves in
New York. The millions of the crowd will hide
us."
"Mary, there are some men from whom even
the night can't hide me. If they were blind their
hate would give them eyes to find me."
"Pierre, you are not turning away from me
Pierre!"
"God help me."
"He will. There's some ghost of a chance for
u. Will you take that chance and come with me?"
He thought of many things, but what he answered
was :"1 will."
1 86 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
"Then let's go at once. The railroad "
"Not that way. No one in that house suspects
me now. We'll go back and put on our masks
again, and hush, what's there?"
"Nothing."
"There is a man s step.
And she, seeing the look on his face, covered her
eyes in nameless horror. When she looked up a
great form was looming through the dark, and then
the voice of Wilbur came, hard and cold.
"IVe looked everywhere for you. Miss Brown,
they are anxious about you in the schoolhouse. Will
you go back?"
"No I "
But Pierre commanded: "Go back."
So she turned, and he ordered again: 4< I think
our friend has something to say to me. You can
find your way easily. To-morrow "
"To-morrow, Pierre?"
"Yes."
"I shall be waiting."
With what a voice she said it! And thea she was
gone.
He turned quietly to big Dick Wilbur, on whose
contorted face the moonlight fell.
"Say it, Dick, and have it out in cursing me, if
that '11 help."
The big man stood with his hands gripped hard
behind him, fighting for self-control.
"Pierre, I've cared for you more than I've cared
for any other man. I've thought of you like a kid
brother. Now tell me that you haven't done this
THE FEAR OF THE LIVING 187
thing, and I'll believe you rather than my senses.
Tell me you haven't come like a thief in the night
and stolen the girl I love away from me; tell
m *__"
"If you keep on like that, you'll end by jumping
at my throat. Hold yourself, Dick."
"I will if you'll tell me that you haven't "
"I love her, Dick."
"Damn you! And she?"
"She'll forget me; God knows I hope she'll far-
get me."
"I brought two guns with me. Here they are."
He held out the weapons.
"Take your choice."
"Does it have to be this way?"
"If you'd rather have me shoot YOU down in cold
blood?"
"I suppose this is as good a way as any."
"What do you mean?"
"Nothing. Give me a gun."
"Here. This is ten paces. Are you ready?"
"Yes."
"Pierre. God forgive you for what you've done.
She liked me, I know. If it weren't for you, I
would have won her and a chance for real life again
but now damn you!"
"I'll count to ten, slowly and evenly. When I
reach ten we fire?"
"Yes."
"I'll trust you not to beat the count, Dick."
"And I you. Start."
1 88 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
He counted quietly, evenly: "One, two, three,
four, five six, seven, eight, nine ten."
The gun jerked up in the hand of Wilbur, but he
stayed the movement with his finger pressing still
upon the trigger. The hand of Pierre had not
moved.
He cried: "By God, Pierre, what do you mean?"
There was no answer. He strode across the in-
tervening space dropped his gun, and caught the
other by the shoulders. Out of the nerveless fingers
of Pierre the revolver slipped and crushed a dead
twig on the ground, and a pair of lifeless eyes stared
up to Dick Wilbur.
"In the name of God, Pierre, what has happened
to you?"
"Dick, why didn't you fire?"
"Fire? Murder you?"
"You shoot straight I know it would have
been over quickly."
"What is it, boy? You look dead there's no
color in your face, no light in your eyes, even your
voice is dead. I know it isn't fear. What is it?"
"You're wrong. It's fear."
"Fear and Red Pierre. The two don't mate."
"Fear of living, Dick."
"So that's it? God help you. Pierre, forgive
me. I should have known that you had met her
before, but I was mad, and didn't know what I was
doing, couldn't think."
"It's over and forgotten. I have to go back and
get Jack. Will you ride home with us?"
THE FEAR OF THE LIVING 18;
"Jack? She's not in the hall. She left shortly
after you went, and she means some deviltry.
There's a jealous fiend in that girl. I watched her
eyes when they followed you and Mary from the
hall."
"Then we'll ride back alone."
"Not I. Carry the word to Jim that I'm through
with the game. I'm going to wash some of the
grime off my conscience and try to make myself fit
to speak to this girl again."
"It's the cross," said Pierre.
"What do you mean?"
"Nothing. The bad luck has come to poor old
Jim at last, because he saved me out of the snow.
Patterson has gone, and now you, and perhaps Jack
well, this is good-by, Dick?"
"Yes."
Their hands met, a long, strong grip.
"You forgive me, Dick?"
"With all my heart, old fellow."
"I'll try to wish you luck. Stay close to her. Live
clean for her sake and worship her like a saint. Per-
haps you'll win her."
"I'll do what one man can."
"But if you succeed, ride out of the mountain-
desert with her never let me hear of it."
"I don't understand. Will you tell me what's be-
tween you, Pierre? You've some sort of claim on
her. What is it?"
"I've said good-by. Only one thing more. Nerer
mention my name to her."
190 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
So he turned and walked out into the moonlight
in the immaculate dress-suit and big Wilbur stared
after him until he disappeared beyond the shoulder
of a hill
CHAPTER XXIV
THE LUCK OF THE SHIPWRECKED
IT was early morning before Pierre reached the
refuge of Boone's gang, but there was still a light
through the window of the large room, and he en-
tered to find Boone, Mansie, and Gandil grouped
about tht fire, all ominously silent, all ominously
wakeful. They looked up to him and big Jim nodded
his gray head. Otherwise there was no greeting.
From a shadowy corner Jacqueline rose and went
toward the door. He crossed quickly and barred
the way.
"What is it, Jack?"
"Get out of the way."
"Not till you tell me what's wrong."
A veritable devil of fury came blazing in her eyes,
and her hand twitched nervously back to her hip
where the dark holster hung. She said in a voice
that shook with anger: "Don't try your bluff on me.
I ain't no shorthorn, Pierre le Rouge."
He stepped aside, frowning.
"To-morrow I'll argue the point with you, Jack."
She turned at the door and snapped back: "You?
You ain't fast enough on the draw to argue with
me!"
And she was gone. He turned to face the mock-
191
192 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
ing smile of Black Gandil and a rapid volley of ques-
tions.
"Where's Patterson ?"
"No more idea than vou have."
"And Branch ?"
"What's become of Branch? Hasn't he re-
turned?"
"No. And Dick Wilbur?"
"Boys, he's done with this life and I'm glad of
it. He's starting on a new track."
"After a woman?" sneered Bud Mansie.
"Shut up, Bud," broke in Boone, and then slowly
to Pierre: "Patterson is gone for two days now.
You ought to know what that means. Branch ought
to have returned from looking for him, and Branch
is still out. Wilbur is gone. Out of seven we're
only four left. Who's next?"
He stared gloomily from face to face, and Gandil
snarled: "A fellow who saves a shipwrecked man "
"Damn you, keep still, Gandil."
"Don't damn me, Pierre le Rouge, but damn the
luck you've brought to Jim Boone."
"Jim, do you chalk all this up against me?"
"I, lad? No, no! But it's queer. Patterson's
done for; there's no doubt of that. Good-natured
Garry Patterson. God, boy, how we'll miss him!
And Branch seems to have gone the same way. If
neither of them show up before morning we can
cross 'em off the list. Now Wilbur has gone and
Jack has ridden home looking like a small-sized thun-
der storm, and now you come with a white face and
a blank eye. What hell is trailin' us, Pierre, what
THE LUCK OF THE SHIPWRECKED 193
hell is in store for us. YouVe seen something, and
we want to know what it is.'*
"A ghost, Jim, that's all. Just a ghost."
Bud Mansie said softly: "There's only one ghost
that could make you look like this. Was it McGurk,
Pierre?"
Boone commanded: u No more of that, Bud.
Boy's we're going to turn in, and to-morrow we'll
climb the hills looking for the two we've lost. But
there's something or some one after us. Lads, I'm
thinking our good days are over. The seven of us
have been too many for a small posse and too fast
for a big one, but the seven are down to four. The
good days are over."
And the three answered in a solemn chorus: u Thc
good days are over."
All eyes fixed on Pierre, and his glance was
settled on the floor.
The morning brought them no better cheer, for
Jack, whose singing generally wakened them, was
not to be coaxed into speech, and when Pierre en-
tered the room she rose and left the breakfast-table.
The sad eyes of Jim Boone followed her and then
turned to Pierre. No explanation was forthcoming,
and he asked for none. The old fatalist had ac-
cepted the worst, and now he waited for doom to
descend.
They took their horses after breakfast and rode
out to search the hills, for it was quite possible that
an accident had crippled at least one of the two lost
men, either Patterson or Branch. Not a gully within
194 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
miles was left unsearched, but toward evening they
rode back, one by one, with no tidings.
One by one they rode up, and whistled to an-
nounce their coming, and then rode on to the stable
to unsaddle their horses. About the supper table
all gathered with the exception of Bud Mansie. So
they waited the meal and each from time to time
stole a glance at the fifth plate where Bud should sit.
It was Jack who finally stirred herself from her
dumb gloom to take up that fifth and carry it out
of the room. It was as if she had announced the
death of Mansie.
After that, they ate what they could and then went
back around the fire. The evening waned, but it
brought no sign of any of the missing three. The
wood burned low in the fire. The first to break the
long silence was Jim Boone, with "Who brings in the
wood?"
And Black Gandil answered: "We'll match, eh?"
In an outburst of energy the day before he dis-
appeared Garry Patterson had chopped up some
wood and left a pile of it at the corner of the house.
It was a very little thing to bring in an armful of
that wood, but long-riders do not love work, and
now they started the matching seriously. The odd
man was out, and Pierre went out on the first toss
of the coins.
"You see," said Gandil. "Bad luck to every one
but himself."
At the next throw Jacqueline was the lucky one,
and her father afterward. Gandil rose and
stretched himself leisurely, yet as he sauntered to-
THE LUCK OF THE SHIPWRECKED 195
ward the door his backward glance at Pierre was
black indeed. He glanced curiously toward Jack
who looked away sharply and then turned his eyes
to her father.
The latter was considering him with a gloomy,
foreboding stare and considering over and over
again, as Pierre le Rouge well knew, the prophecy
of Black Morgan Gandil.
He fell in turn into a solemn brooding, and many
a picture out of the past came up beside him and
stood near till he could almost feel its presence. He
was roused by the creaking of the floor beneath the
ponderous step of Jim Boone, who flung the door
open and shouted: "Oh, Morgan.*'
In the silence he turned and stared back at Pierre.
"What's up with Gandil ?"
u God knows, not I."
Pierre rose and ran from the room and around
the side of the building. There by the woodpile lay
the prostrate body. It was a mere limp weight
when he turned and raised it in his arms. So he
walked back into the house carrying all that was
left of Black Morgan Gandil, and placed his burden
on a bunk at the side of the room.
There had been no outcry from either Jim Boone
or his daughter, but they came quickly to him, and
Jacqueline pressed her ear over the heart of the hurt
man.
She said: "He's still alive, but nearly gone.
Where's the wound?"
They found it when they drew off his coat a
small cut high on the right breast, and another lower
196 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
and more to the left. Either of them would been
fatal, and about each the flesh was discolored where
the hilt of the knife or the fist of the striker had
driven home the blade.
They stood back and made no hopeless effort to
save him. It was uncanny that Black Morgan Gan-
dil, after all of his battles, should die without a strug-
gle in this way. And it had been no cowardly attack
from the rear. Both wounds were in the front. A
hope came to them when his color increased at one
time, but it was for only a moment; it went out
again as if some one were erasing paint from his
cheeks.
But just as they were about to turn away his body
stirred with a slight convulsion, the eyes opened
wide, and he strove to speak. A red froth came on
his lips. He made another desperate effort, and
twisting himself onto one elbow pointed a rigid arm
at Pierre. He gasped: "McGurk God!" and
dropped. He was dead before his head touched the
blanket.
It was Jacqueline who closed the staring eyes, for
the two men were frozen where they stood. They
had heard the story of Patterson and Branch and
Mansie in one word from the lips of the dying man.
McGurk was back. McGurk was prowling about
the last of the gang of Boone, and the lone wolf
had pulled down four of the band one by one on suc-
cessive days. Only two remained, and these two
looked at one another with a common thought.
"The lights 1" cried Jacqueline, turning from the
THE LUCK OF THE SHIPWRECKED 197
body of Gandil. "He can shoot us down through
the windows at his leisure."
"But he won't," said her father. "I've lived too
long with the name of McGurk in my ears not to
know the man. He'll never kill by stealth, but
openly and man to man. I know him, damn him.
He'll wait till he meets us alone, and then we'll finish
as poor Gandil, there, or Patterson and Branch and
Bud Mansie, all of them fallen somewhere in the
mountains with the buzzards left to bury 'em. That's
how we'll finish with McGurk on our trail. And
you Gandil was right it's you that's brought him
on us. A shipwrecked man by God, Gandil was
right!"
His right hand froze on the butt of his gun and
his face convulsed with impotent rage, for he knew,
as both the others knew, that long before that gun
was clear of the holster the bullet from Pierre's
gun would be on its way. But Pierre threw his arms
wide, and standing so, his shadow made a black cross
on the wall behind him. He even smiled to tempt
the big man further.
CHAPTER XXV
JACQUELINE WAIT8
JACQUELINE ran between and caught the hand of
her father, crying:
"Are you going to finish the work of McGurk
before he has a chance to start it? He hunted the
rest down one by one. Dad, if you put out Pierre
what is left? Can you face that devil alone?"
And the old man groaned: "But it's his luck that's
ruined me. It's his damned luck which has broken
up the 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 glar-
ing her scorn.
"The yellow streak took a long time in showin',
but it's in you, all right, Pierre le Rouge."
198
JACQUELINE WAITS 199
"YouVc 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 to-
ward 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 Mc-
Gurk"
"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 deviW
"Aye, you can threaten me safely. But if McGurk
were here "
200 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
"Let him come."
"Pierre!"
"I mean it."
"Then give me one promise."
"A thousand of "em."
"Let me hunt him with you."
He stared at her with a mute wonder. She had
never been so beautiful.
"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 mur-
mured, 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 over-
JACQUELINE WAITS 201
hauling, 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 and the golden hair of
Mary Brown, 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 to-day 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 every one
202 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
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 another
was hurt. I escaped from the town by riding a horse
to death. I was nearly killed in a landslide, and now
the men who saved me from that are done for.
"It's all one story, the same over and over. Can
I carry a fortune like that back to her? Dick, it
would haunt me by day and by night. She would
be the next. I know it as I know that Fm sitting
in the saddle here. That's my answer. Carry it
back to her."
U I won't lie and tell you Fm sorry, because Fm
a fool and still have a ghost of a hope, but this will
be hard news to tell her, and Fd rather give five
years of life than face the look that will come in
her eyes."
"I know it, Dick."
"But this is final?"
"It is."
"Then good-bye again, and God bless you,
Pierre."
"And you, old fellow."
They swerved their horses in opposite directions
and galloped apart.
"It was nothing," said Pierre to Jack, when he
came up with her and drew his horse down to a trot.
But he knew that she had read his mind, and for an
hour they could not look each other in the face.
But all day through the mazes of canon and hill
JACQUELINE WAITS 203
and rolling ground they searched patiently. There
was no cranny in the rocks too small for them to
reconnoiter with caution. There was no group of
trees they did not examine.
Yet it was not strange that they failed. In the
space of every square mile there were a hundred
hiding-places which might have served McGurk.
It would have taken a month to comb the country.
They had only a day, and left the result to chance,
but chance failed them. When the shadows com-
menced to swing across the gullies they turned back
and rode with downward heads, silent.
One hill lay between them and the old ranch-house
which had been the headquarters for their gang so
many days, when they saw a faint drift of smoke
across the sky not a thin column of smoke such as
rises from a chimney, but a broad stream of pale
mist, as if a dozen chimneys were spouting wood-
smoke at once.
They exchanged glances and spurred their horses
up the last slope. As always in a short spurt, the
long-legged black of Jacqueline out-distanced the
cream-colored mare, and it was she who first topped
the rise of land. The girl whirled in her saddle with
raised arm, screamed back at Pierre, and rode on at
a still more furious pace.
What he saw when he reached a corresponding
position was the ranch-house wreathed in smoke, and
through all the lower windows was the red dance of
flames. Before him fled Jacqueline with all the
speed of the black. He loosened the reins, spoke to
the mare, and she responded with a mighty rush.
204 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
Even that tearing pace could not quite take him up
to the girl, but he flung himself from the saddle and
was at her side when she ran across the smoking
veranda and wrenched at the front door.
The whole frame gave back at her, and as Pierre
snatched her to one side the doorway fell crashing
on the porch, while a mighty volume of smoke burst
out at them like a puff from the pit.
They stood sputtering, coughing, and choking, and
when they could look again they saw a solid wall of
red flame, thick, impenetrable, shuddering with the
breath of the wind.
While they stared a stronger breath of that wind
tore the wall of flames apart, driving it back in a
raging tide to either side. The fire had circled the
walls of the entire room, but it had scarcely en-
croached on the center, and there, seated at the table,
was Boone.
He had scarcely changed from the position in
which they last saw him, save that he was fallen
somewhat deeper in the chair, his head resting
against the top of the back. He greeted them,
through that infernal furnace, with laughter, and
wide, steady eyes. At least it seemed laughter, for
the mouth was agape and the lips grinned back, but
there was no sound from the lips and no light in
the fixed eyes.
Laughter indeed it was, but it was the laughter
of death, as if the soul of the man, in dying, recog-
nized its natural wild element and had burst into
convulsive mirth. So he sat there, untouched as yet
by the wide river of fire, chuckling at his destiny.
JACQUELINE WAITS 205
The wall of fire closed across the doorway again
and the work of red ruin went on with a crashing
of timbers from the upper part of the building.
As that living wall shut solidly, Jacqueline leaped
forward, shouting, like a man, words of hope and
rescue ; Pierre caught her barely in time a precari-
ous grasp on the wrist from which she nearly
wrenched herself free and gained the entrance to
the fire. But the jerk threw her off balance for the
least fraction of an instant, and the next moment she
was safe in his arms.
Safe? He might as well have held a wildcat, or
captured with his bare hands a wild eagle, strong
of talon and beak. She tore and raged in a wild
fury.
"Pierre, coward, devil !"
"Steady, Jack !"
"Are you going to let him die?"
"Don't you see? He's already dead."
"You lie. You only fear the fire !"
"I tell you, McGurk has been here before us."
Her arm was freed by a twisting effort and she
beat him furiously across the face. One blow dut
his lip and a steady trickle of hot blood left a taste
of salt in his mouth.
"You young fiend 1" he cried, and grasped both
her wrists with a crushing force.
She leaned and gnashed at his hands, but he
whirled her about and held her from behind, impo-
tent, raging still.
"A hundred McGurks could never have killed
him!"
206 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
There was a sharp explosion from the midst of
the fire.
"See ! He's fighting against his death!"
"No! No!" It's only the falling of a timber!"
Yet with a panic at his heart he knew that it was
the sharp crack of a firearm.
"Liar again! Pierre, for God's sake, do some-
thing for him. Father! He's fighting for his life!"
Another and another explosion from the midst
of the fire. He understood then.
"The flames have reached his guns. That's all,
Jack. Don't you see? We'd be throwing ourselves
away to run into those flames."
Realization came to her at last. A heavy weight
slumped down suddenly over his arms. He held
her easily, lightly. Her head had tilted back, and
the red flare of the fire beat across her face and
throat. The roar of the flames shut out all other
thought of the world and cast a wide inferno of light
around them.
Higher and higher rose the fires, and the wind
cut off great fragments and hurried them off into the
night, blowing them, it seemed, straight up against
the piled thunder of the clouds. Then the roof
sagged, swayed, and fell crashing, while a vast cloud
of sparks and livid fires shot up a hundred feet into
the air. It was as if the soul of old Boone had de-
parted in that final flare.
It started the girl into sudden life, surprising
Pierre, so that she managed to wrench herself free
and ran from him. He sprang after her with a
shout, fearing that in her hysteria she might fling
JACQUELINE WAITS 207
herself into the fire, but that was not her purpose.
Straight to the black horse she ran, swung into the
saddle with the ease of a man, and rode furiously
off through the falling of the night.
He watched her with a curious closing of loneli-
ness like a hand about his heart. He had failed,
and because of that failure even Jacqueline was leav-
ing him. It was strange, for since the loss of the
girl of the yellow hair and those deep blue eyes, he
had never dreamed that another thing in life could
pain him.
So at length he mounted the mare again and rode
slowly down the hill and out toward the distant
ranges, trotting mile after mile with downward head,
not caring even if McGurk should cross him, for
surely this was the final end of the world to Pierre
le Rouge.
About midnight he halted at last, for the uneasy
sway of the mare showed that she was nearly dead
on her feet with weariness. He found a convenient
place for a camp, built his fire, and wrapped his
blanket about him without thinking of food.
He never knew how long he sat there, for his
thoughts circled the world and back again and found
all a prospect of desert before him and behind, until
a sound, a vague sound out of the night startled him
into alertness. He slipped from beside the fire and
into the shadow of a steep rock, watching with eyes
that almost pierced the dark on all sides.
And there he saw her creeping up on the outskirts
of the firelight, prone on her hands and knees, drag-
ging herself up like a young wildcat hunting prey;
208 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
it was the glimmer of her eyes that he caught first
through the gloom. A cold thought came to him
that she had returned with her gun ready.
Inch by inch she came closer, and now he was
aware of her restless glances probing on all sides of
the camp-fire. Silence only the crackling of a
pitchy stick. And then he heard a muffled sound,
soft, soft as the beating of a heart in the night, and
regularly pulsing. It hurt him infinitely, and he
called gently: "Jack, why are you weeping?"
She started up with her fingers twisted at the butt
of her gun.
"It's a lie," called a tremulous voice. "Why
should I weep?"
And then she ran to him.
"Oh, Pierre, I thought you were gone!"
That silence which came between them was thick
with understanding greater than speech. He said
at last:
"I've made my plan. I am going straight for the
higher mountains and try to shake McGurk off my
trail. There's one chance in ten I may succeed, and
if I do then I'll wait for my chance and come down
on him, for sooner or later we have to fight this out
to the end."
"I know a place he could never find," said Jacque-
line. "The old cabin in the gulley between the Twin
Bears. We'll start for it to-night."
"Not we," he answered. "Jack, here's the end
of our riding together."
She frowned with puzzled wonder.
He explained: "One man is stronger than a
JACQUELINE WAITS 209
dozen. That's the strength of McGurk that he
rides alone. He's finished your father's men.
There's only Wilbur left, and Wilbur will go next
then me!"
She stretched her hands to him. She seemed to
be pleading for her very life.
"But if he finds us and has to fight us both I
shoot as straight as a man, Pierre!"
"Straighter than most. And you're a better pal
than any I've ever ridden with. But I must go
alone. It's only a lone wolf that will ever bring
down McGurk. Think how he's rounded us up like
a herd of cattle and brought us down one by one."
"By getting each man alone and killing him from
behind."
"From the front, Jack. No, he's fought square
with each one. The wounds of Black Gandil were
all in front, and when McGurk and I meet it's going
to be face to face."
Her tone changed, softened: "But what of me,
Pierre?"
"You have to leave this life. Go down to the city,
Jack. Live like a woman ; marry some lucky fellow ;
be happy."
"Can you leave me so easily?"
"No, it's hard, devilish hard to part with a pal
like you, Jack; but all the rest of my life I've got
hard things to face, partner."
"Partner!" she repeated with an indescribable em-
phasis. "Pierre, I can't leave you."
"Why?"
"I'm afraid to go. Let me stay!"
210 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
He said gloomily: "No good will come of it."
"I'll never trouble you never !"
"No, the bad luck comes on the people who are
with me, but never on me. It's struck them all down,
one by one ; your turn is next, Jack. If I could leave
the cross behind "
He covered his face, and groaned: "But I don't
dare; I don't dare! I have to face McGurk. Jack,
I hate myself for it, but I can't help it. I'm afraid
of McGurk, afraid of that damned white face, that
lowered, fluttering eyelid, that sneering mouth.
Without the cross to bring me luck, how could I meet
him? But while I keep the cross there's ruin and
hell without end for every one with me."
She was white and shaking. She said: "I'm not
afraid. I've one friend left; there's nothing else to
care for."
"So it's to be this way, Jack?"
"This way, and no other."
"Partner, I'm glad. My God, Jack, what a man
you would have made I"
Their hands met and clung together, and her head
had drooped, perhaps in acquiescence.
CHAPTER XXVI
A GAME OF SUPPOSE
DICK WILBUR, telling Mary how Pierre had cut
himself adrift, did not even pretend to sorrow, and
she listened to him with her eyes fixed steadily on
his own. As a matter of fact, she had shown neither
hope nor excitement from the moment he came back
to her and started to tell his message. But if she
showed neither hope nor excitement for herself,
surely she gave Dick still fewer grounds for any op-
timistic foresights.
So he finished gloomily: "And as far as I can make
out, Pierre is right. There's some rotten bad luck
that follows him. It may not be the cross I don't
suppose you believe in superstition like that, Miss
Brown?"
She said: "It saved my life."
"The cross?"
"Yes."
"Then Pierre you mean you met before the
dance you mean "
He was stammering so that he couldn't finish his
thoughts, and she broke in: "If he will not come to
me, then I must go to him."
"Follow Pierre le Rouge?" queried Wilbur.
"Miss Brown, you're an optimist. But that's be-
2i2 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
cause youVe never seen him ride. I consider it a
good day's work to start out with him and keep
within sight till night, but as for following and over-
taking him ha, ha, ha, ha !"
He laughed heartily at the thought.
And she smiled a little sadly, answering: "But I
have the most boundless patience in the world. He
may gallop all the way, but I will walk, and keep on
walking, and reach him in the end. I am not very
strong, but "
Her hands moved out as though testing their
power, gripping at the air.
"Where will you go to hunt for him?"
*'I don't know. But every evening, when I look
out at the sunset hills, with the purple along the val-
leys, I think that he must be out there somewhere,
going toward the highest ranges. If I were up in
that country I know that I could find him."
"Never in a thousand years."
"Why?"
"Because he's on the trail "
"On the trail?"
"Of McGurk."
She started.
What is this man McGurk? I hear of him on
all sides. If one of the men rides a bucking horse
successfully, some one is sure to say: 'Who taught
you what you know, Bud McGurk ?' And then the
rest laugh. The other day a man was pointed out
to me as an expert shot. 'Not as fast as McGurk,'
it was said, 'but he shoots just as straight.' Finally
I asked some one about McGurk. The only answer
j
A GAME OF SUPPOSE 213
I received was: *I hope you never find out what he
is.' Tell me, what is McGurk?"
Wilbur considered the question gravely.
He said at last: "McGurk is hell !"
He expanded his statement: "Think of a man
who can ride anything that walks on four feet, who
never misses with either a rifle or a revolver, who
doesn't know the meaning of fear, and then imagine
that man living by himself and fighting the rest of
the world like a lone wolf. That's McGurk. He's
never had a companion ; he's never trusted any man.
Perhaps that's why they say about him the same
thing that they say about me."
"What's that?"
"You will smile when you hear. They say that
McGurk will lose out in the end on account of some
woman."
"And they say that of you?"
"They say right of me. I know it myself. Look
at me now? What right have I here? If I'm found
I'm the meat of the first man who sights me, but
here I stay, and wait and watch for your smiles
like a love-sick boy. By Jove, you must despise me,
Mary!"
"I don't try to understand you Westerners," she
answered, "and that's why I have never questioned
you before. Tell me, why is it that you come so
stealthily to see me and run away as soon as any one
else appears?"
He said with wonder: "Haven't you guessed?"
"I don't dare guess."
"But you have, and your guess was right. There's
2i 4 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
a price on my head. By right, I should be out there
on the ranges with Pierre le Rouge and McGurk.
There's the only safe place; but I saw you and I
came down out of the wilds and can't go back. I'll
stay, I suppose, till I run my head into a halter."
She was too much moved to speak for a moment,
and then: "You come to me in spite of that? Dick,
whatever you have done, I know that it's only
chance which made you go wrong, just as it made
Pierre. I wish "
The dimness of her eyes encouraged him with a
great hope. He stole closer to her.
He repeated: "You wish "
"That you could be satisfied with a mere friend-
ship. I could give you that, Dick, with all my
heart."
He stepped back and smiled somewhat grimly
on her.
She went on: "And this McGurk what do you
mean when you say that Pierre is on his trail?"
"Hunting him with a gun."
She grew paler and trembled, but her voice re-
mained steady. It was always that way; at the very
moment when he expected her to quail, some inner
strength bore her up and baffled him.
"But in all those miles of mountains they may
never meet?"
"They can't stay apart any more than iron can
stay away from a magnet. Listen : half a dozen
years ago McGurk had the reputation of bearing a
charmed life. He had been in a hundred fights and
he was never touched with either a knife or a bullet.
A GAME OF SUPPOSE 215
Then he crossed Pierre le Rouge when Pierre was
only a youngster just come onto the range. He put
two bullets through Pierre, but the boy shot him
from the floor and wounded him for the first time.
The charm of McGurk was broken.
"For half a dozen years McGurk was gone; there
was never a whisper about him. Then he came back
and went on the trail of Pierre. He has killed the
friends of Pierre one by one; Pierre himself is the
next in order Pierre or myself. And when those
two meet there will be the greatest fight that was
ever staged in the mountain-desert."
She stood straight, staring past Wilbur with hun-
gry eyes.
"I knew he needed me. I have to save him, Dick.
You see that? I have to bring him down from the
mountains and keep him safe from McGurk. Mc-
Gurk! somehow the sound means what 'devil 1 used
to mean to me."
"You've never traveled alone, and yet you'd go
up there and brave everything that comes for the
sake of Pierre? What has he done to deserve it,
Mary?"
"What have I done, Dick, to deserve the care you
have for me?"
He stared gloomily on her.
"When do you start?"
"To-night."
"Your friends won't let you go."
"I'll steal away and leave a note behind me."
"And you'll go alone?"
She caught at a hope.
216 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
"Unless you'll go with me, Dick?"
"I? Take you to Pierre?"
She did not speak to urge him, but in the silence
her beauty pleaded for her.
He said: "Mary, how lovely you are. If I go I
will have you for a few days for a week at most,
all to myself."
She shook her head. From the window behind
her the sunset light flared in her hair, flooding it
with red-gold against which her skin was marvelously
delicate and white, and the eyes of the deepest blue.
"All the time that we are gone, you will never
say things like this, Dick?"
"I suppose not. I should be near you, but ter-
ribly far away from your thoughts all the while.
Still, you will be near. You will be very beautiful,
Mary, riding up the trail through the pines, with
all the scents of the evergreens blowing about you,
and I well, I must go back to a second childhood
and play a game of suppose "
"A game of what?"
"Of supposing that you are really mine, Mary,
and riding out into the wilderness for my sake."
She stepped a little closer, peering into his face.
"No matter what you suppose, I'm sure you'll
leave that part of it merely a game, Dick !"
He laughed suddenly, though the sound broke off
as short and sharp as it began.
"Haven't I played a game all my life with the
fair ladies? And have I anything to show for it
except laughter? I'll go with you, Mary, if you'll
let me."
A GAME OF SUPPOSE 217
"Dick, you've a heart of gold! What shall I
take?"
"I'll make the pack up, and I'll be back here an
hour after dark and whistle. Like this "
And he gave the call of Boone's gang.
"I understand. I'll be ready. Hurry, Dick, for
we've very little time."
He hesitated, then: "All the time we're on the
trail you must be far from me, and at the end of it
will be Pierre le Rouge and happiness for you.
Before we start, Mary, I'd like to "
It seemed that she read his mind, for she slipped
suddenly inside his arms, kissed him, and was gone
from the room. He stood a moment with a hand
raised to his face.
"After all," he muttered, "that's enough to die
for, and " He threw up his long arms in a gesture
of infinite resignation.
"The will of God be done!" said Wilbur, and
laughed again.
CHAPTER XXVII
THE TRAIL
SHE was ready, crouched close to the window of
her room, when the signal came, but first she was
not sure, because the sound was as faint as a mem-
ory. Moreover, it might have been a freakish
whistling in the wind, which rose stronger and
stronger. It had piled the thunder-clouds high and
higher, and now and again a heavy drop of rain
tapped at her window like a thrown pebble.
So she waited, and at last heard the whistle a sec-
ond time, unmistakably clear. In a moment she was
hurrying down to the stable, climbed into the saddle,
and rode at a cautious trot out among the sand-hills.
For a time she saw no one, and commenced to fear
that the whole thing had been a grucsomely real,
practical jest. So she stopped her horse and imi-
tated the signal whistle as well as she could. It was
repeated immediately behind her almost in her ear,
and she turned to make out the dark form of a tall
horseman.
"A bad night for the start," called Wilbur. "Do
you want to wait till to-morrow?"
She could not answer for a moment, the wind
whipping against her face, while a big drop stung
her lips.
218
THE TRAIL 219
She said at length : "Would a night like this stop
Pierre or McGurk?"
For answer she heard his laughter.
"Then I'll start. I must never stop for weather."
He rode up beside her.
"This is the start of the finish."
"What do you mean?"
"Nothing. But somewhere on this ride, I've an
idea a question will be answered for me."
"What question?"
Instead of replying he said : "YouVe got a slicker
on?"
"Yes."
"Then follow me. We'll gallop into the wind a
while and get the horses warmed up. Afterward
we'll take the valley of the Old Crow and follow it
up to the crest of the range."
His horse lunged out ahead of hers, and she fol-
lowed, leaning far forward against a wind that kept
her almost breathless. For several minutes they
cantered steadily, and before the end of the gallop
she was sitting straight up, her heart beating fast,
a faint smile on her lips, and the blood running hot
in her veins. For the battle w^s begun, she knew,
by that first sharp gallop, and here at the start she
felt confident of her strength. When she met Pierre
she could force him to turn back with her.
Wilbur checked his horse to a trot; they climbed
a hill, and just as the rain broke on them with a
rattling gust they swung into the valley of the Old
Crow. Above them in the sky the thunder rode; the
rain whipped against the rocks like the rattle of a
220 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
thousand flying hoofs; and now and again the light-
ning flashed across the sky.
Through that vast accompaniment they moved
on in the night straight toward the heart of the
mountains which sprang into sight with every flash
of the lightning and seemed toppling almost above
them, yet they were weary miles away, as she knew.
By those same flashes she caught glimpses of the
face of Wilbur. She hardly knew him. She had
seen him always big, gentle, handsome, good-nat-
ured ; now he was grown harder, with a stern set of
the jaw, and a certain square outline of face. It
had seemed impossible. Now she began to guess
how the law could have placed a price upon his head.
For he belonged out here with the night and the
crash of the storm, with free, strong, lawless things
about him.
An awe grew up in her, and she was filled half
with dread and half with curiosity at the thought
of facing him, as she must many a time, across the
camp-fire. In a way, he was the ladder by which
she climbed to an understanding of Pierre le Rouge,
Red Pierre. For that Pierre, she knew, was to big
Wilbur what Dick himself was to the great mass
of law-abiding men. Accident had cut Wilbur adrift,
but it was more than accident which started Pierre
on the road to outlawry; it was the sheer love of
dangerous chance, the glory in fighting other men.
This was Pierre.
What was the man for whom Pierre hunted?
What was McGurk? Not even the description of
Wilbur had proved very enlightening. Her thought
THE TRAIL 221
of him was vague, nebulous, and taking many forms.
Sometimes he was tall and dark and stern. Again
he was short and heavy and somewhat deformed of
body. But always he was everywhere in the night
about her.
She guessed at his voice rumbling through an echo
of the thunder; she heard the sound of his pursuing
horse in the rattle of the following rain. Her work
was to keep this relentless lone rider away from
Pierre ; it was as if she strove to keep the ocean tide
away from the shore. They seemed doomed to meet
and shock.
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. Fi-
nally, 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.
222 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
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 youVe 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 weari-
THE TRAIL 223
ness, 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, crack-
ling and snapping, and when she followed their
flight she saw the darkly nodding tops of the ever-
greens 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 rav-
enously 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 re-
strained 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 moon-
light glinted on something at the edge of the river.
224 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
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 shoul-
ders. 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 re-
ality, 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.
225
<226 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
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 knowl-
edge 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.
A HINT OF WHITE 227
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 evi-
dently intended that she should ride Wilbur's beau-
tiful 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 sur-
rounded her with care.
At least this new emotion obscured somewhat the
terror and the sorrow of Wilbur's disappearance. 1
She cooked her breakfast as if obeying the order of
the unseen, climbed into the saddle of Wilbur's
228 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
horse, and started off up the valley, leading her own
mount.
Every moment or so she turned in the saddle sud-
denly in the hope of getting a glimpse of the fol-
lower, but even when she surveyed the entire stretch
of country from the crest of a low hill, she saw noth-
ing 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 some-
thing 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
A HINT OF WHITE 229
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 moun-
tain-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 be-
ginning 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 dur-
ing 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
2 3 o RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
of the fire. Not a voice accoste3 her. As far as
she could peer among the lithe trunks of the sap-
lings, 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 out-
law 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. Per-
haps and the thought thrilled her this little camp
had been prepared by the same power, human or un-
earthly, 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 over-
whelming, 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
A HINT OF WHITE 231
black trees and then floated through the sky. Be-
neath such a moon no harm could come to her. It
was while she stared at it, letting her tensed alert-
ness 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 ques-
tion, 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 accom-
plish 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 lean-
ing directly above her, and chief of all two peaks,
232
JACK 233
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 des-
tination.
It was evening before she came to the headwaters
of the Old Crow, and rode out into the gorge be-
tween the two mountains. The trail failed her here.
There was no semblance of a ravine to follow, ex-
cept 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.
234 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
and not till then did she note the faint flicker of a
light no brighter or more distinct than the phos-
phorescent 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, fas-
tened 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 spa-
cious one at that, but arranged as a shelter, not a
home. The cooking, apparently, was done over the
JACK 235
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 com-
fortable 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.
236 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
"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 hard-
ened 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.
JACK 237
Now that handsome face was under a doud 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 sympa-
thy 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 mys-
terious 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 sneer-
ing 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 be-
stowed 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."
238 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
u ls 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 warmtd 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
239
2 4 o RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
boy's hand or a short motion to knock off the cig-
arette 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
Jier 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
THE WHISPER OF THE KNIFE 241
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 sus-
picion. "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?" , j
242 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
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, may-
be" he lowered his voice somewhat even to name
them "Pierre McGurk !"
"It seems hopeless to find out anything about Mc-
Gurk," 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 ro-
mantic."
"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
THE WHISPER OF THE KNIFE 243
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, omi-
nous 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
244 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
for him I found the can at the margin of the river
half filled with sand, and beside it there was the im-
pression 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 go-
ing 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 squint-
ed 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
THE WHISPER OF THE KNIFE 245
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, ex-
amined 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
246 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
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 val-
ley of the Crow she refused to let herself think.
Cold beads of perspiration stood out on her fore-
head.
"You fool you fool ! Damn your pretty pink-
and-white face youVe 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 whis-
per: "Pierre I"
CHAPTER XXXI
LAUGHTER
AT that Mary, who stood with her hand on the
latch, whirled and stood wide-eyed, her astonish-
ment 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 be-
tween reason and the heart, grew to an almost cer-
tain knowledge as she heard the whisper, the faint,
heartbroken whisper: "Pierre 1"
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 pres-
sure.
248 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
Now he cried: "Get out! YouVe 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 com-
panion 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 be-
tray 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 whisper-
ing 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 be-
cause of a strange superstition ; and so I've followed
LAUGHTER 249
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 school-
house. 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 go-
ing 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 be-
fore 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.
250 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
"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 jar-
ring, 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 be-
fore 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
LAUGHTER 251
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."
"Yorfd 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!"
2 5 2 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
And the girl answered steadily: "For every man
there is one woman, and for that woman the man
will do strange things."
"You poor, white-faced, whimpering fool,"
snarled the boy, gripping 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?"
Anft 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
LAUGHTER 253
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 ? n
Short step by step Mary went back, staring with
fascinated eyes as one who sees some devilish, mid-
night 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
2 S 4 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
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 val-
ley; 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 tta thick, soft
tresses about her head. Never before had she lin-
gered so over a toilet, patting each lock into place,
255
256 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
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 watchful-
ness remained with him.
Even when he spoke face to face with a man, he
A TALE OF A CARELESS MAN 257
never seemed to be giving more than half his at-
tention, 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?' 1 she asked.
"Nothing much. 11
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 r6ck, 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 hurried'y 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 care-
less 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 re-
ceive more encouragement before he would tell, and
258 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
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, Pierr-."
"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 under-
stand 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 sus-
pected, 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 chang-
ing the brands."
"Pierre"
A TALE OF A CARELESS MAN 259
"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."
"T :
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
260 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
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 mak-
ing 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 busi-
ness 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 sympa-
thized 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
A TALE OF A CARELESS MAN 261
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
262
A COUNT TO TEN 263
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 1"
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 vio-
lently 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.
264 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
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 in-
teresting story than that you could tell me."
A COUNT TO TEN 265
"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.
166 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
"So I got sympathetic "
"About the first time on record that youVe 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 afrafd, 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
A COUNT TO TEN 267
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 pro-
ceeded 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
268 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
cold and keen. Her hand had gathered to a hard-
balled fist.
"Eight nine "
She sprang up, screaming: "No, no, Pierre I"
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 1" 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 cruelest' 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
269
70 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
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 : u 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 be-
gin 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?"
TIGER-HEART 7i
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 i*
"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, drink-
ink 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 con-
trol: "Because she loathes you; because she hates
herself for ever having loved you; because she de-
spises 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?"
272 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
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 rea-
son even when you explained that you and I are
like brothers? 1 '
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 under-
stand. 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."
TIGER-HEART 273
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?
J*o? .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 I"
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
274 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
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 1"
"Why?"
"Because if you found her she's not alone."
"Say that slowly. I don't understand. She 1 *
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 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
TIGER-HEART 275
Wilbur without a sound there beside the river; per-
haps 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 disap-
peared 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.
276 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
"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 rocks 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
ralley 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 Mansic,
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 vil-
lainies 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
377
278 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
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 orer her rose the black pyramid of the western
peak of the Twin Bears like a monstrous nose point-
ing 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 won-
dered 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 4ost? 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
JACK HEARS A SMALL VOICE 279
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 au-
tumn 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 mo-
ment. 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 rid-
ing 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,
2o RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
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 some-
what 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 pic-
ture 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
JACK HEARS A SMALL VOICE 281
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 charac-
teristic 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, be-
cause the beat of the wind in her face raised her
courage, gave her a certain impulse which was al-
most 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 gallop-
ing, 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.
282 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES -
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 sad-
dle 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.
JACK HEARS A SMALL VOICE 283
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, cau-
tious 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 un-
derbrush, 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 stum-
ble 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
284
A VOICE IN THE NIGHT 285
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 grow-
ing 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 Jac-
queline 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 think-
ing, 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 incap-
able of human treachery. She had not been there
long when the tall bay, Wilbur's horse, stiffened,
286 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
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, tug-
ging 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 in-
A VOICE IN THE NIGHT 287
tensity 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 abnor-
mally 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 be-
hind 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 clear-
ing. In spite of herself the exclamation escaped
her "McGurk!"
The voice spoke again: u Do not be afraid. You
are safe, absolutely."
"What are you?"
"Your friend."
"Is it you who followed me up the valley?"
"Yes."
288 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
"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 pos-
sible 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 Jet 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."
A VOICE IN THE NIGHT 289
"And now?"
"I have come to say farewell to you."
"Let me see you once before you go."
u No ! You see, I fear you even more than you
fear me."
u 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 my-
self 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 her-
self.
290 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
"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 hol-
low. 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
291
292 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
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: "Friend-
ship? 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, be-
cause 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,
A MAN'S DEATH 293
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.
2o 4 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES .
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?"
A MAN'S DEATH 295
"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 pre-
served 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 mid-
dle of the battle to exchange greetings with a friend-
ly foe.
The other rider whirled alongside, his sombrero's
296
THE WAITING 297
brim flaring back from his forehead, so that Mo
Gurk caught the glare of the eyes beneath the
shadow.
"So for the third time, my friend " said Mc-
Gurk.
"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 Mc-
Gurk. 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
298 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
he was a child. McGurk moistened his white lips.
The white horse pawed the rocks as though impa-
tient 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, be-
cause 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 won-
der 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 un-
usually 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 WAITING 299
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 slip-
pery 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 naif-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 pur-
suing him. And now
The foot of the white horse lifted struck the
rock. The sound of its fall was lost in the explo-
300 RIDERS OF THE oiLENCES
sion 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.
It was luck, only luck, that placed that shot, and
his own bullet, which had started first, had travelled
wild for there stood Pierre le Rouge, Smiling
faintly, alert, calm. For the first time in his life
McGurk had missed. He set his teeth and waited
for death.
But that steady voice of Pierre said: "To shoot
you would be a pleasure ; it would even be a luxury,
but there wouldn't be any lasting satisfaction in it.
So there lies your gun at your feet. Well, here lies
mine."
He dropped his own weapon to a position corre-
sponding with that of McGurk's.
"We were both very wild that time. We must
do better now. We'll stoop for our guns, McGurk.
The signal? No, we won't wait for the horse to
stamp. The signal will be when you stoop for your
gun. You shall have every advantage, you see?
Start for that gun, McGurk, when you're ready
for the end."
The hand of McGurk stretched out and his arm
stiffened but it seemed as though all the muscles of
his back had grown stiff. He could not bend. It
was strange. It was both ludicrous and incompre-
hensible. Perhaps he had grown stiff with cold in
that position.
But he heard the voice of Pierre explaining gently:
THE WAITING 301
"You can't move, my friend. I understand. It's
fear that stiffened your back. It's fear that sends
the chill up and down your blood. It's fear that
makes you think back to your murders, one by one.
McGurk, you're done for. You're through. You're
ready for the discard. I'm not going to kill you.
I've thought of a finer hell than death, and that is to
live as you shall live. I've beaten you, McGurk,
beaten you fairly on the draw, and I've broken your
heart by doing it. The next time you face a man
you'll begin to think you'll begin to remember how
one other man beat you at the draw. And that
wonder, McGurk, will make your hand freeze to
your side, as you've made the hands of other men
before me freeze. D'you understand?"
The lips of McGurk parted. The whisper of his
dry panting reached Pierre, and the devil in him
smiled.
"In six weeks, McGurk, you'll take water from a
Chinaman. Now get out!"
And pace by pace McGurk drew back, with his
face still toward Pierre.
The latter cried: "Wait. Are you going to leave
your gun?"
Only the steady retreat continued.
"And go unarmed through the mountains? What
will men say when they see McGurk with an empty
holster?"
But the outlaw had passed out of view beyond
the corner of one of the monster boulders. After
him went the white horse, slowly, picking his steps*
302 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
as if he were treading on dangerous and unknown
ground and would not trust his leader. Pierre was
left to the loneliness of the gorge.
The moonlight only served to make more visible
its rocky nakedness, and like that nakedness was the
life of Pierre under his hopeless inward eye. Over
him loomed from either side the gleaming pinnacles
of the Twin Bears, and he remembered many a time
when he had looked up toward them from the crests
of lesser mountains looked up toward them as a
man looks to a great and unattainable ideal.
Here he was come to the crest of all the ranges;
here he was come to the height and limit of his life,
and what had he attained? Only a cruel, cold isola-
tion. It had been a steep ascent; the declivity of
the farther side led him down to a steep and certain
.ruin and the dark night below. But he stiffened
suddenly and threw his head high as if he faced his
fate; and behind him the cream-colored mare raised
her head with a toss and whinnied softly.
It seemed to him that he had heard something
calling, for the sound was lost against the sweep of
wind coming up the gorge. Something calling there
in the night of the mountains as he himself had
called when he rode so wildly in the. quest for Mc-
Gurk. How long ago had that been?
But it came once more, clear beyond all doubt.
He recognized the voice in spite of the panting
which shook it; a wild wail like that of a heart-
broken child, coming closer to him like some one,
running: "Pierre! Oh, Pierre I"
THE WAITING 303
And all at once he knew that the moon was broad
and bright and fair, and the heavens clear and shin-
ing with golden points of light. Once more the
cry. He raised his arms and waited.
CHAPTER XXXIX
THE CROSS GOES ON
So Mary, running through the wilderness of
boulders, was guided straight and found Pierre, and
before the morning came, they were journeying
east side by side, east and down to the cities of cul-
ture and a new life; but Jacqueline, a thousand times
quicker of foot and surer of eye and ear, missed
her goal, went past it, and still on and on, running
finally at a steady trot.
Until at last she knew that she had far over-
stepped her mark and sank down against one of
the rocks to rest and think out what next she must
do. There seemed nothing left. Even the sound
of a gun fired she might not hear, for that sharp
call would not travel far against the wind.
It was while she sat there, burying Pierre in
her thoughts, a white shape came glimmering down
to her through the moonlight. She was on her feet
at once, alert and gun in hand. It could only be
one horse, only one rider, McGurk coming down
from his last killing with the sneer on his pale lips.
Well, he would complete his work this night and
kill her fighting face to face.
A man's death ; that was all she crave3. She rose ;
THE CROSS GOES ON 305
she stepped boldly out into the center of the trail
between the rocks.
There she saw the greatest wonder she had ever
looked on. It was McGurk walking with bare,
bowed head, and after him, like a dog after the
master, followed the white horse. She shoved the
revolver back into the holster. This should be a
fair fight.
"McGurk!"
Very slowly the head went up and back, and there
he stood, not ten paces from her, with the white
moon full on his face. The sneer was still there;
the eyelid fluttered in scornful derision. And the
heart of Jacqueline came thundering in her throat.
But she cried in a strong voice: "McGurk, d'you
know me?"
He did not answer.
"You murderer, you night-rider! Look again:
it's the last of the Boones!"
The sneer, it seemed to her, grew bitterer, but
still the man did not speak. Then the thought of
Pierre, lying dead somewhere among the rocks,
burned across her mind. Her hand leaped for the
revolver, and whipped it out in a blinding flash
to cover him, but with her finger curling on the
trigger she checked herself in the nick of time. Mc-
Gurk had made no move to protect himself.
A strange feeling came to her that perhaps the
man would not war against women; the case of
Mary was almost proof enough of that. But as
she stepped forward, wondering, she looked at the
306 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
holster at his side and saw that it was empty. Then
she understood.
Understood in a daze that Pierre had met the
man and conquered him and sent him out through
the mountains disarmed. The white horse raised
his head and whinnied, and the sound gave a thought
to her. She could not kill this man, unarmed as he
was ; she could do a more shameful thing.
"The bluff you ran was a strong one, McGurk,"
she said bitterly, "and you had these parts pretty
well at a standstill; but Pierre was a bit too much
for you, eh?"
The white face had not altered, and still it did
not change, but the sneer was turned steadily on
her.
She cried: "Goon! Go on down the gorge !"
Like an automaton the man stepped forward, and
after him paced the white horse. She stepped be-
tween, caught the reins, and swung up to the saddle,
and sat there, controlling between her stirrups the
best-known mount in all the mountain-desert. A
thrill of wild exultation came to her. She cried:
"Look back, McGurk ! Your gun is gone, your horse
is gone; you're weaker than a woman in the moun-
tains!"
Yet he went on without turning, not with the
hurried step of a coward, but still as one stunned.
Then, sitting quietly in the saddle, she forgot Mc-
Gurk and remembered Pierre. He was happy by
this time with the girl of the yellow hair; there was
nothing remaining to her from him except the
ominous cross which touched cold against her
THE CROSS GOES ON 307
breast. That he had abandoned as he had aban-
doned her.
What, then, was left for her? The horse of an
outlaw for her to ride; the heart of an outlaw in
her breast.
She touched the white horse with the spurs and
went at a reckless gallop, weaving back and forth
among the boulders down the gorge. For she was
riding away from the past.
The dawn came as she trotted out into a widening
valley of the Old Crow. To maintain even that
pace she had to use the spurs continually, for the
white horse was deadly weary, and his head fell more
and more. She decided to make a brief halt, at last,
and in order to make a fire that would take the chill
of the cold morning from her, she swung up to the
edge of the woods. There, before she could dis-
mount, she saw a man turn the shoulder of the slope.
She drew the horse back deeper among the trees
and waited.
He came with a halting step, reeling now and
again, a big man, hatless, coatless, apparently at the
last verge of exhaustion. Now his foot apparently
struck a small rock, and he pitched to his face. It
required a long struggle before he could regain his
feet; and now he continued his journey at the same
gait, only more uncertainly than ever, close and
closer. There was something familiar now about
the fellow's size, and something in the turn of his
head. Suddenly she rode out, crying: "Wilbur!"
He swerved, saw the white horse, threw up his
hands high above his head, and went backward,
308 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
reeling, with a hoarse scream which Jacqueline
would never forget. She galloped to him and swung
to the ground.
"It's me Jack. D'you hear?"
He would not lower those arms, and his eyes
stared wildly at her. On his forehead the blood had
caked over a cut; his shirt was torn to rags, and
the hair matted wildly over his eyes. She caught
his hands and pulled them down.
"It's not McGurk! Don't you hear me? It's
Jack!"
He reached out, like a blind man who has to see
by the sense of touch, and stroked her face.
"Jack!" he whispered at last. "Thank God!"
"What's happened?"
"McGurk"
A violent palsy shook him, and he could not go
on.
"I know I understand. He took your guns
and left you to wander in this hell ! Damn him ! I
wish"
She stopped.
"How long since you've eaten?"
"Years!"
"We'll eat McGurk's food!"
But she had to assist him up the slope to the
trees, and there she left him propped against P.
trunk, his arms fallen weakly at his sides, while she
built the fire and cooked the food. Afterward she
could hardly eat, watching him devour what she
placed before him; and it thrilled all the woman
in her to a strange warmth to take care of the long-
THE CROSS GOES ON 309
rider. Then, except for the disfigured face and the
bloodshot eyes, he was himself.
"Up there? What happened?"
He pointed up the valley.
"The girl and Pierre. They're together."
"She found him?"
"Yes."
He bowed his head and sighed.
"And the horse, Jack?" He said it with awe.
"I took the horse from McGurk."
"You!"
She nodded. After all, it was not a lie.
"You killed McGurk?"
She said coolly : "I let him go the way he let you,
Dick. He's on foot in the mountains without a
horse or a gun."
"It isn't possible!"
"There the horse for proof."
He looked at her as if she were something more
than human.
"Our Jack did this?"
"We've got to start on. Can you walk, Dick?"
"A thousand miles now."
Yet he staggered when he tried to rise, and she
made him climb up to the saddle. The white horse
walked on, and she kept her place close at the stirrup
of the rider. He would have stopped and dis-
mounted for her a hundred times, but she made him
keep his place.
"What's ahead of us, Jack? We're the last of
the gang?"
"The last of Boone's gang. We are."
310 RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
"The old life over again?"
"What else?"
"Yes; what else?"
"Are you afraid, Dick?"
"Not with you for a pal. Seven was too many;
with two we can rule the range."
"Partners, Dick?"
How could he tell that her voice was gone so
gentle because she was seeing in her mind's eye an-
other face than his? He leaned toward her,
thrilling.
"Why not something more than partners, after
a while, Jack?"
She smiled strangely up to him.
"Because of this, Dick."
And fumbling at her throat, she showed him the
glittering metal of the cross; an instinct made him
swerve the horse away from her.
"The cross goes on, but what of you Jack?"
A long silence fell between them. Words died
in the making.
The great weight pressing down on that slender
throat was like the iron hand of a giant, but slowly
one by one the sounds marshalled themselves :
"... God knows . . . ' It was the passing of
Judgment. "God knows . . . not I."
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