Pierre smiled: it was an answer after his own heart. Liddall remembered
it very well in the future.
"What is the thing to do in such a case?" Pierre asked.
"It is not good to stand still."
"But what if you are stunned, or do not care?"
"You should care. It is not wise to strain a situation."
Pierre rose, walked up and down the room once or twice, then stood still,
his arms folded, and spoke in a low tone. "Once in the Rockies I was
lost. I crept into a cave at night. I knew it was the nest of some wild
animal; but I was nearly dead with hunger and fatigue. I fell asleep.
When I woke--it was towards morning--I saw two yellow stars glaring where
the mouth of the cave had been. They were all hate: like nothing you
could imagine: passion as it is first made--yes. There was also a
rumbling sound. It was terrible, and yet I was not scared. Hate need
not disturb you.--I am a quick shot. I killed that mountain lion, and I
ate the haunch of deer I dragged from under her . . . "
He turned now, and, facing the doorway, looked out upon the village, to
the roof of a house which they both knew. "Hate," he said, "is not the
most wonderful thing. I saw a woman look once as though she could lose
the whole world--and her own soul. She was a good woman. The man was
bad--most: he never could be anything else. A look like that breaks the
nerve. It is not amusing. In time the man goes to pieces. But before
that comes he is apt to do strange things. Eh-so!"
He sat down, and, with his finger, wrote musingly in the dust upon the
table.
Liddall looked keenly at him, and replied more brusquely than he felt:
"Do you think it fair to stay--fair to her?"
"What if I should take her with me?" Pierre flashed a keen, searching
look after the words.
"It would be useless devilry."
"Let us drink," said Pierre, as he came to his feet quickly: "then for
the House of Lords" (the new and fashionable tavern).
They separated in the street, and Pierre went to the House of Lords
alone. He found a number of men gathered before a paper pasted on a
pillar of the veranda. Hearing his own name, he came nearer. A ranch
man was reading aloud an article from a newspaper printed two hundred
miles away. The article was headed, "A Villainous Plunderer." It had
been written by someone at Guidon Hill. All that was discreditable in
Pierre's life it set forth with rude clearness; he was credited with
nothing pardonable. In the crowd there were mutterings unmistakable to
Pierre. He suddenly came among them, caught a revolver from his pocket,
and shot over the reader's shoulder six times into the pasted strip of
newspaper.
The men dropped back. They were not prepared for warlike measures at
the moment. Pierre leaned his back against the pillar and waited. His
silence and coolness, together with an iron fierceness in his face, held
them from instant demonstration against him; but he knew that he must
face active peril soon. He pocketed his revolver and went up the hill to
the house of Kitty Cline's mother. It was the first time he had ever
been there. At the door he hesitated, but knocked presently, and was
admitted by Kitty, who, at sight of him, turned faint with sudden joy,
and grasped the lintel to steady herself.
Pierre quietly caught her about the waist, and shut the door. She
recovered, and gently disengaged herself. He made no further advance,
and they stood looking at each other for a minute: he, as one who had
come to look at something good he was never to see again; she, as at
something she hoped to see for ever. They had never before been where
no eyes could observe them. He ruled his voice to calmness.
"I am going away," he said, "and I have come to say good-bye."
Her eyes never wavered from his. Her voice was scarce above a whisper.
"Why do you go? Where are you going?"
"I have been here too long. I am what they call a villain and a
plunderer. I am going to-mon Dieu, I do not know!" He shrugged his
shoulders, and smiled with a sort of helpless disdain.
She leaned her hands on the table before her. Her voice was still that
low, clear murmur.
"What people say doesn't matter." She staked her all upon her words.
She must speak them, though she might hate herself afterwards. "Are you
going--alone?"
"Where I may have to go I must travel alone."
He could not meet her eyes now; he turned his head away. He almost hoped
she would not understand. "Sit down," he added; "I want to tell you of
my life."
He believed that telling it as he should, she would be horror-stricken,
and that the deep flame would die out of her eyes. Neither he nor she
knew how long they sat there, he telling with grim precision of the life
he had led. Her hands were clasped before her, and she shuddered once or
twice, so that he paused; but she asked him firmly to go on.
When all was told he stood up. He could not see her face, but he heard
her say:
"You have forgotten many things that were not bad. Let me say them."
She named things that would have done honour to a better man. He was
standing in the moonlight that came through the window. She stepped
forward, her hands quivering out to him. "Oh, Pierre," she said, "I know
why you tell me this: but it makes no difference-none! I will go with
you wherever you go."
He caught her hands in his. She was stronger than he was now. Her eyes
mastered him. A low cry broke from him, and he drew her almost fiercely
into his arms.
"Pierre! Pierre!" was all she could say.
He kissed her again and again upon the mouth. As he did so, he heard
footsteps and muffled voices without. Putting her quickly from him, he
sprang towards the door, threw it open, closed it behind him, and drew
his revolvers. A half-dozen men faced him. Two bullets whistled by his
head, and lodged in the door. Then he fired swiftly, shot after shot,
and three men fell. His revolvers were empty. There were three men
left. The case seemed all against him now, but just here a shot, and
then another, came from the window, and a fourth man fell. Pierre sprang
upon one, the other turned and ran. There was a short sharp struggle:
then Pierre rose up--alone.
The girl stood in the doorway. "Come, my dear," he said, you must go
with me now."
"Yes, Pierre," she cried, a mad light in her face, "I have killed men
too--for you."
Together they ran down the hillside, and made for the stables of the
Fort. People were hurrying through the long street of the town, and
torches were burning, but they came by a roundabout to the stables
safely. Pierre was about to enter, when a man came out. It was Liddall.
He kept his horses there, and he had saddled one, thinking that Pierre
might need it.
There were quick words of explanation, and then, "Must the girl go too?"
he asked. "It will increase the danger--besides--"
"I am going wherever he goes," she interrupted hoarsely. "I have killed
men; he and I are the same now."
Without a word Liddall turned back, threw a saddle on another horse, and
led it out quickly. "Which way?" he asked; "and where shall I find the
horses?"
"West to the mountains. The horses you will find at Tete Blanche Hill,
if we get there. If not, there is money under the white pine at my
cottage. Goodbye!"
They galloped away. But there were mounted men in the main street, and
one, well ahead of the others, was making towards the bridge over which
they must pass. He reached it before they did, and set his horse
crosswise in its narrow entrance. Pierre urged his mare in front of the
girl's, and drove straight at the head and shoulders of the obstructing
horse. His was the heavier animal, and it bore the other down. The
rider fired as he fell, but missed, and, in an instant, Pierre and the
girl were over. The fallen man fired the second time, but again missed.
They had a fair start, but the open prairie was ahead of them, and there
was no chance to hide. Riding must do all, for their pursuers were in
full cry. For an hour they rode hard. They could see their hunters not
very far in the rear. Suddenly Pierre started and sniffed the air.
"The prairie's on fire," he said exultingly, defiantly. Almost as he
spoke, clouds ran down the horizon, and then the sky lighted up. The
fire travelled with incredible swiftness: they were hastening to meet it.
It came on wave-like, hurrying down at the right and the left as if to
close in on them. The girl spoke no word; she had no fear: what Pierre
did she would do. He turned round to see his pursuers: they had wheeled
and were galloping back the way they came. His horse and hers were
travelling neck and neck. He looked at her with an intense, eager gaze.
"Will you ride on?" he asked eagerly. "We are between two fires." He
smiled, remembering his words to Liddall.
"Ride on," she urged in a strong, clear voice, a kind of wild triumph in
it. "You shall not go alone."
There ran into his eyes now the same infinite look that had been in hers
--that had conquered him. The flame rolling towards them was not
brighter or hotter.
"For heaven or hell, my girl!" he cried, and they drove their horses on
--on.
Far behind upon a Divide the flying hunters from Guidon Hill paused for a
moment. They saw with hushed wonder and awe a man and woman, dark and
weird against the red light, ride madly into the flickering surf of fire.