face flushed as she stood glaring her scorn.

"The yellow streak took a long time in showin', but it's in you, all
right, Pierre le Rouge."

"You've hated me ever since the dance, Jack. Why?"

"Because I knew you were yellow--like this!"

He shrugged his shoulders like one who gives up the fight against a
woman, and seeing it, she changed suddenly and made a gesture with both
hands toward him, a sudden gesture filled with grace and a queer
tenderness.

She said: "Pierre, have you forgotten that when you were only a boy you
stood up to McGurk and drew blood from him? Are you afraid of him now?"

"I'll take my chance with any man--but McGurk--"

"He has no cross to bring him luck."

"Aye, and he has no friends for that luck to ruin. Look at Gandil,
Jack, and then speak to me of the cross."

"Pierre, that first time you met you almost beat him to the draw. Oh,
if I were a man, I'd--Pierre, it was to get McGurk that you rode out to
the range. You've been here six years, and McGurk is still alive, and
now you're ready to run from his shadow."

"Run?" he said hotly. "I swear to God that as I stand here I've no
fear of death and no hope for the life ahead."

She sneered: "You're white while you say it. Your will may be brave,
but your blood's a coward, Pierre. It deserts you."

"Jack, you devil--"

"Aye, you can threaten me safely. But if McGurk were here--"

"Let him come."

"Pierre!"

"I mean it."

"Then give me one promise."

"A thousand of 'em."

"Let me hunt him with you."

He stared at her with a mute wonder. She had never been so beautiful.

"Jack, what a heart you have! If you were a man we could rule the
mountains, you and I."

"Even as I am, what prevents us, Pierre?"

And looking at her he forgot the sorrow which had been his ever since
he looked up to the face framed with red-gold hair and the dark tree
behind and the cold stars steady above it. It would come to him again,
but now it was gone, and he murmured, smiling: "I wonder?"

They made their plans that night, sitting all three together. It was
better to go out and hunt the hunter than to wait there and be tracked
down. Jack, for she insisted on it, would ride out with Pierre the
next morning and hunt through the hills for the hiding-place of McGurk.

Some covert he must have, so as to be near his victims. Nothing else
could explain the ease with which he kept on their track. They would
take the trail, and Jim B