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 stumble 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 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 growing 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 Jacqueline 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 thinking, 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 incapable of human treachery. She had not been there long when the tall bay, Wilbur's horse, stiffened, 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, tugging 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 intensity 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 abnormally 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 behind 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 clearing. In spite of herself the exclamation escaped her.—"McGurk!"
The voice spoke again: "Do not be afraid. You are safe, absolutely."
"What are you?"
"Your friend."
"Is it you who followed me up the valley?"
"Yes."
"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 possible 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 let 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."
"And now?"
"I have come to say farewell to you."
"Let me see you once before you go."
"No! You see, I fear you even more than you fear me."
"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 myself 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 herself.
"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."
"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 hollow. 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 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: "Friendship? 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, because 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, 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.
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?"
"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 preserved 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!"
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 middle of the battle to exchange greetings with a friendly foe.
The other rider whirled alongside, his sombrero's brim flaring back from his forehead, so that McGurk caught the glare of the eyes beneath the shadow.
"So for the third time, my friend—" said McGurk.
"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 McGurk. 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 he was a child. McGurk moistened his white lips. The white horse pawed the rocks as though impatient 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, because 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 wonder 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 unusually 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 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 slippery 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 hair-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 pursuing him. And now—
The foot of the white horse lifted—struck the rock. The sound of its fall was lost in the explosion 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 corresponding 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 incomprehensible. Perhaps he had grown stiff with cold in that position.
But he heard the voice of Pierre explaining gently: "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, 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 isolation. 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 McGurk. 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!"
And all at once he knew that the moon was broad and bright and fair, and the heavens clear and shining with golden points of light. Once more the cry. He raised his arms and waited.
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 culture 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 overstepped 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 craved. She rose; 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. McGurk 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 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: "Go on! Go on down the gorge!"
Like an automaton the man stepped forward, and after him paced the white horse. She stepped between, 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 mountains!"
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 McGurk 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 breast. That he had abandoned as he had abandoned 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 dismount, 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, 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 a 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-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 dismounted 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."
"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 another 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."