Jacqueline could never ride 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.
So they came to the schoolhouse and reached the long line of buggies,
buckboards, and, most of all, saddled horses. They crowded 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."
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, practiced, suspicious eyes, accustomed to search
into all things and take nothing for granted; eyes of men who, when a
rap came at the 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 a 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.
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 tomorrow; 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.
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.
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 by painting after the
fashion of an Indian on the warpath, 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.
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 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.
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.
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 smiles to each other, and it was "Pierre?"
"Jack?" Then a nod, and she was in his arms, and they glided into
the dance.