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 puzzled 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 resumed 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 dollars 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 unsportsmanlike to leave without some effort.
The effort which he finally made was that suggested 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 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, crying: "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 tugging at the reins and holding a racing horse in check with an ease which a man would envy; but never before had he seen it turned palm up, to his knowledge; 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, delicate, made for beauty, not for use. It was all he could do to keep from exclaiming.
She made a quick step toward him, eager, uncertain:
"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 a 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 as 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 moment. 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!"
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—writhe all his limbs—and then lie still. "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 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 whoever 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? 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 almost 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 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.
"Whether you want to or not, Jack, we'll go to this dance to-night."
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 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 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, 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 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 patience which carries a man endlessly after one purpose, 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 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.
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 over her shoulder, and then brought her spurs into 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—I'm 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 cañon that dropped on their right:
"My partner's horse is my horse, bunky—From his fetlock to the bucking-strap,From his flying hoofs to the saddle-flap—My partner'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 hell—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 suppose that I am."
He did not hear the low voice, for he was looking out over the cañon 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 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 matchless horsemanship where man and horse were only one piece of strong brawn and muscle, one daring spirit. Many a time the chances seemed too desperate to her, but she followed blindly where he led, 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.
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 swallowed 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 lightest step. Nevertheless, these fantoms had appeared 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 descended 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 somewhat 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 ventured 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 loveliness. 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, pleasant voice: "Just what we want. But how'll I get away with all that fluffy stuff, eh?"
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 samples. But right over here—"
"This isn't a question of selling," said the red-headed man. "We've come to accept a little donation, 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 '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, "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. A mighty sickness overwhelmed McGuire, and before his eyes there swam a dark mist.
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. 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 threefold overpaid. At that little yellow heap he remained staring, unheeding the sound of the retreating outlaws. At it he still stared with fascinated eyes while the door banged and the clatter of galloping hoofs began.
"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 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 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."
"I'll come help you."
"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-tied!"
"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."
"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 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 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!"
"Yes?"
"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 involuntarily 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 fragrant, 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 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 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.
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 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.
Greatest wonder of all, she accepted the new relation tacitly, and leaned more and more weight on his hand, and even looked up and laughed with pleasure 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 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.
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 shoulders 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 excitement, 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, practised, 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 six-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. Moreover, 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 responded. 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 community, contained two rooms; this smaller room, used by the little ones of the school, was now converted 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, something 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 courage. 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 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 pleasing 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 himself horribly by painting after the fashion of an Indian 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 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 laughing 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 mountain-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 rattling 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.
One could close his ears to the rest of the noise, if he strove to do so, and hear nothing but that harmonious 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.