It was as if she had said: "Good morning!" in the calmest of voices. There was no answer in him, neither word nor expression, and out of ten sharp-eyed men, nine would have passed him by without noting the difference; but the girl knew him as the monk knows his prayers or the Arab his horse, and a solemn, deep despair came over her. She felt like the drowning, when the water closes over their heads for the last time.
He puffed twice again at the cigarette and then flicked the butt into the fire. When he spoke it was only to say: "Did she stay long?"
But his eyes avoided her. She moved a little so as to read his face, but when he turned again and answered her stare she winced. "Not very long, Pierre."
"Ah," he said. "I see! It was because she didn't dream that this was the place I lived in."
It was the sort of heartless, torturing questioning which was once the crudest weapon of the inquisition. With all her heart she fought to raise her voice above the whisper whose very sound accused her, but could not. She was condemned to that voice as the man bound in nightmare is condemned to walk slowly, slowly, though the terrible danger is racing toward him, and the safety which he must reach lies only a dozen steps, a dozen mortal steps away.
She said in that voice: "No; of course she didn't dream it."
"And you, Jack, had her interests at heart--her best interests, poor girl, and didn't tell her?"
Her hands went out to him in mute appeal.
"Please, Pierre--don't!"
"Is something troubling you, Jack?"
"You are breaking my heart."
"Why, by no means! Let's sit here calmly and chat about the girl with the yellow hair. To begin with--she's rather pleasant to look at, don't you think?"
"I suppose she is."
"Hm! Rather poor taste not to be sure of it. Well, let it go. You've always had rather queer taste in women, Jack; but, of course, being a long-rider, you haven't seen much of them. At least her name is delightful--Mary Brown! You've no idea how often I've repeated it aloud to myself--Mary Brown!"
"I hate her!"
"You two didn't have a very agreeable time of it? By the way, she must have left in rather a hurry to forget her glove, eh?"
"Yes, she ran--like a coward."
"Ah?" "Like a trembling coward. How can you care for a white-faced little fool like that? Is she your match? Is she your mate?"
He considered a moment, as though to make sure that he did not exaggerate.
"I love her, Jack, as men love water when they've ridden all day over hot sand without a drop on their lips--you know when the tongue gets thick and the mouth fills with cotton--and then you see clear, bright water, and taste it?
"She is like that to me. She feeds every sense; and when I look in her eyes, Jack, I feel like the starved man on the desert, as I was saying, drinking that priceless water. You knew something of the way I feel, Jack. Isn't it a little odd that you didn't keep her here?"
She had stood literally shuddering during this speech, and now she burst out, far beyond all control: "Because she loathes you; because she hates herself for ever having loved you; because she despises herself for having ridden up here after you. Does that fill your cup of water, Pierre, eh?"
His forehead was shining with sweat, but he set his teeth, and, after a moment, he was able to say in the same hard, calm voice: "I suppose there was no real reason for her change. She can be persuaded back to me in a moment. In that case just tell me where she has gone and I'll ride after her."
He made as if to rise, but she cried in a panic, and yet with a wild exultation: "No, she's done with you forever, and the more you make love to her now the more she'll hate you. Because she knows that when you kissed her before--when you kissed her--you were living with a woman."
"I--living with a woman?"
Her voice had risen out of the whisper for the outbreak. Now it sank back into it.
"Yes--with me!" "With you? I see. Naturally it must have gone hard with her--Mary! And she wouldn't see reason even when you explained that you and I are like brothers?"
He leaned a little toward her and just a shade of emotion came in his voice.
"When you carefully explained, Jack, with all the eloquence you could command, that you and I have ridden and fought and camped together like brothers for six years? And how I gave you your first gun? And how I've stayed between you and danger a thousand times? And how I've never treated you otherwise than as a man? And how I've given you the love of a blood-brother to take the place of the brother who died? And how I've kept you in a clean and pure respect such as a man can only give once in his life--and then only to his dearest friend? She wouldn't listen--even when you talked to her like this?"
"For God's sake--Pierre!"
"Ah, but you talked well enough to pave the way for me. You talked so eloquently that with a little more persuasion from me she will know and understand. Come, I must be gone after her. Which way did she ride--up or down the valley?"
"You could talk to her forever and she'd never listen. Pierre, I told her that I was--your woman--that you'd told me of your scenes with her--and that we'd laughed at them together."
She covered her eyes and crouched, waiting for the wrath that would fall on her, but he only smiled bitterly on the bowed head, saying: "Why have I waited so long to hear you say what I knew already? I suppose because I wouldn't believe until I heard the whole abominable truth from your own lips. Jack, why did you do it?"
"Won't you see? Because I've loved you always, Pierre!"
"Love--you--your tiger-heart? No, but you were like a cruel, selfish child. You were jealous because you didn't want the toy taken away. I knew it. I knew that even if I rode after her it would be hopeless. Oh, God, how terribly you've hurt me, partner!"
It wrung a little moan from her. He said after a moment: "It's only the ghost of a chance, but I'll have to take it. Tell me which way she rode? No? Then I'll try to find her."
She leaped between him and the door, flinging her shoulders against it with a crash and standing with outspread arms to bar the way.
"You must not go!"
He turned his head somewhat.
"Don't stand in front of me, Jack. You know I'll do what I say, and just now it's a bit hard for me to face you."
"Pierre, I feel as if there were a hand squeezing my heart small, and small, and small. Pierre, I'd die for you!"
"I know you would. I know you would, partner. It was only a mistake, and you acted the way any coldhearted boy would act if--if someone were to try to steal his horse, for instance. But just now it's hard for me to look at you and be calm."
"Don't try to be! Swear at me--curse--rave--beat me; I'd be glad of the blows, Pierre. I'd hold out my arms to 'em. But don't go out that door!"
"Why?"
"Because--if you found her--she's not alone."
"Say that slowly. I don't understand. She's not alone?"
"I'll try to tell you from the first. She started out for you with Dick Wilbur for a guide."
"Good old Dick, God bless him! I'll fill all his pockets with gold for that; and he loves her, you know."
"You'll never see Dick Wilbur again. On the first night they camped she missed him when he went for water. She went down after a while and saw the mark of his body on the sand. He never appeared again."
"Who was it?"
"Listen. The next morning she woke up and found that someone had taken care of the fire while she slept, and her pack was lashed on one of the saddles. She rode on that day and came at night to a camp-fire with a bed of boughs near it and no one in sight. She took that camp for herself and no one showed up.
"Don't you see? Someone was following her up the valley and taking care of the poor baby on the way. Someone who was afraid to let himself be seen. Perhaps it was the man who killed Dick Wilbur without a sound there beside the river; perhaps as Dick died he told the man who killed him about the lonely girl and this other man was white enough to help Mary.
"But all Mary ever saw of him was that second night when she thought she saw a streak of white, traveling like a galloping horse, that disappeared over a hill and into the trees--"
"A streak of white--"
"Yes, yes! The white horse--McGurk!"
"McGurk!" repeated Pierre stupidly; then: "And you knew she would be going out to him when she left this house?"
"I knew--Pierre--don't look at me like that--I knew that it would be murder to let you cross with McGurk. You're the last of seven--he's a devil--no man--"
"And you let her go out into the night--to him."
She clung to a last thread of hope: "If you met him and killed him with the luck of the cross it would bring equal bad luck on someone you love--on the girl, Pierre!"
He was merely repeating stupidly: "You let her go out--to him--in the night! She's in his arms now--you devil--you tiger--"
She threw herself down and clung about his knees with hysterical strength.
He tore the little cross from his neck and flung it into her upturned face.
"Don't make me put my hands on you, Jack. Let me go!" There was no need to tear her grasp away. She crumpled and slipped sidewise to the floor. He leaned over and shook her violently by the shoulder.
"Which way did she ride? Which way did they ride?"
She whispered: "Down the valley, Pierre; down the valley; I swear they rode that way."
And as she lay in a half swoon she heard the faint clatter of galloping hoofs over the rocks and a wild voice yelling, fainter and fainter with distance: "McGurk!"
