“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, “you've 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 frozen hard around the butt.
He whispered: “You're Red Pierre?”
“The clothes,” repeated Pierre sternly, “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, as he did 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 threefold overpaid. At that little yellow heap he remained staring, unheeding the sound of the retreating outlaws.
“It ain't possible,” he said at last, “thieves have 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 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 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.
There was an interlude of more silk 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 caution to the winds and advanced on her. He found her kneeling above a pool of water fed by the soft sliding little stream from the spring. With one hand she held a burning branch 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.
“P-P-Pierre!”
“Yes?”
“Look!”
She stood with the torch high overhead, and he saw a beauty so glorious that he closed his eyes involuntarily and still he saw the vision in the dull-green gown, with the scarf of old gold about her dazzling white shoulders. 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 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 strange to him that he stepped back in a vague alarm, and then laughed. She stood with an expectant smile.
“Jack, how am I to risk you in the arms of all the strangers in that dance?
“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 moment 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 she followed him hastily.
CHAPTER 21
Jacqueline could never ride a horse in that gown, or even sit sidewise in the saddle without hopelessly crumpling it, so they walked to the schoolhouse. 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.
So they came to the schoolhouse and reached the long line of buggies, buckboards, and, most of all, saddled horses. They crowded the horse-shed where the school children stabled their 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 before they had set foot within the building.
They stopped here and adjusted their masks carefully. 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.