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.
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 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. Someone touched his arm, and a voice, many voices, beset him.
"How's the chances for a dance with the girl, partner?"
"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 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 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 cover that long, twisting mark of white down his cheek, nor hide the square set of the jaw, nor dim the steady eyes.
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, following the old instinct, and touched beneath his throat where the cold cross lay.
He was saying easily: "This is your dance, isn't it?"
"Right, Bud," answered the big man in a mellow voice as great as his size. "Sorry I can't swap partners 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.
"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 with a red rage when he saw the hands of Wilbur about her.
Dick, in passing, marked Pierre's 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 fearing 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 her eyes widen. She 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 shuffling feet to cover them, they met. The hands she held to him were cold and trembling.
"Is it you?"
"It is I."
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, where can we go?"
"Outside."
"Let us go quickly!"
"Do you need a wrap?"
"No."
"But it is cold outside, and your shoulders are bare."
"Then take that cloak. But quickly, Pierre, before 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 before them. She tore away the mask.
"And yours, Pierre?"
"Not here."
"Why?"
"Because there are people. Hurry. Now here, with just the trees around us--"
And he tore off his 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. 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 the snow? Well, when the landslide moved, it carried 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. "The cross--for every good fortune it has brought me, it has brought bad luck to others. 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's nothing in it, Pierre, that I don't love."
His head was bowed as if with the weight of the words which he foresaw. "You have heard of the wild men of the mountains, 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 instant. 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--There's some ghost of a chance for us. Will you take that chance and come with me?"
He thought of many things, but what he answered was: "I will." "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 horror. When she looked up a great form was looming through the dark, and then the voice of Wilbur came, hard and cold.
"I've 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: "I think our friend has something to say to me. You can find your way easily. Tomorrow--"
"Tomorrow, Pierre?"
"Yes."
"I shall be waiting."
With what a voice she said it! And then 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'll help."
The big man stood with his hands gripped behind, 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 thing, and I'll believe you rather than my senses. Tell me you haven't stolen the girl I love away from me; tell me--"
"I love her, Dick."
"Damn you! And she?"
"She'll forget me; God knows I hope she'll forget 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?"
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 intervening space, dropped his gun and caught the other by the shoulders. Out of Pierre's nerveless fingers the revolver slipped to the ground.
"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?"
"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-bye, Dick?"
"Yes."
Their hands met.
"You forgive me, Dick?"
"With all my heart, old fellow."
"I'll try to wish you luck. Stay close to her. Perhaps 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 between you, Pierre? You've some sort of claim on her. What is it?" "I've said good-bye. Only one thing more. Never mention my name to her."
So he turned and walked out into the moonlight and Wilbur stared after him until he disappeared beyond the shoulder of a hill.
