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 as she could take up her revolver.
She cried with a little burst of rage: “Pierre, you are making a game of me!”
But seeing that he did not change she altered swiftly and caught his hand in both of hers. She 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 crying: “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 picture, she saw him facing Gandil—saw their hands leap for the guns—saw Gandil pitch face forward on the floor. “Pierre—for God's sake!”
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 someone has broken you up. And 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.”
He took her face between his hands and frowned down into her eyes. “Tell me his name, Jack, and the dog—”
She said: “Let me go. Take your hands away, Pierre.”
He obeyed her, deeply worried, and she stood up for a moment with a hand pressed over her eyes, swaying. He had never seen her like this; he was like a pilot striving to steer his ship through an unfathomable fog. Following what had become an instinct with him, he raised his left hand and touched the cross beneath his throat. And inspiration came to him.
CHAPTER 19
“Whether you want to or not, Jack, we'll go to this dance tonight.”
Jacqueline's hand fell away from her eyes. 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 understanding 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; Wilbur 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 Wilbur will come through a woman. It was that that sent him on the long trail, you know. And this girl with the yellow hair—”
“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 someone 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 though came first to Jacqueline. 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 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 scattered the gravel down the hillside. Jacqueline rode a black stallion sired by her father's mighty Thunder, 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, nervous, 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 reading 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 following 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, winging 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. 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 response 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.