GOLD HAIR
Those who are curious about the period which followed during which the
title "Le Rouge" was forgotten and he became known only as "Red" Pierre
through all the mountain-desert, can hear the tales of his doing from
the analists of the ranges. This story has to do only with his
struggle with McGurk, and must end where that struggle ended.
The gap of six years which occurs here is due to the fact that during
that period McGurk vanished from the mountain-desert. He died away
from the eyes of men and in their minds he became that tradition which
lives still so vividly, the tradition of the pale face, the sneering,
bloodless lips, and the hand which never failed.
During this lapse of time there were many who claimed that he had
ridden off into some lonely haunt and died of the wound which he
received from Pierre's bullet. A great majority, however, would never
accept such a story, and even when the six years had rolled by they
still shook their heads and "had their doubt on the matter" like
_Wouter Van Twiller_ of immortal memory.
They awaited his return just as certain stanch old Britons await the
second coming of Arthur from the island of Avalon. In the mean time
the terror of his name passed on to him who had broken the "charm" of
McGurk.
Not all that grim significance passed on to "Red" Pierre, indeed,
because he never impressed the public imagination as did the terrible
ruthlessness of McGurk. At that he did enough to keep tongues wagging.
Cattlemen loved to tell those familiar exploits of the "two sheriffs,"
or that "thousand-mile pursuit of Canby," with its half-tragic,
half-humorous conclusion, or the "Sacking of Two Rivers," or the
"three-cornered battle" against Rodriguez and Blond.
But men could not forget that in all his work there rode behind Red
Pierre six dauntless warriors of the mountain-desert, while McGurk had
been always a single hand against the world, a veritable lone wolf.
Whatever kept him away through those six years, the memory of the wound
he received at Gaffney's place never left McGurk, and now he was coming
back with a single great purpose in his mind, and in his heart a
consuming hatred for Pierre and all the other of Boone's men.
Certainly if he had sensed the second coming of McGurk, Pierre would
not have ridden so jauntily through the hills this day, or whistled so
carelessly, or swept the hills with such a complacent, lordly eye. A
man of mark cannot bear himself too modestly, and Pierre, from boots to
high-peaked, broad-brimmed sombrero, was the last word in elegance for
a rider of the mountain-desert.
Even his mount seemed to sense the pride of his master. It was a
cream-colored mustang, not one of the lump-headed, bony-hipped species
common to the ranges, but one of those rare reversions to the Spanish
thoroughbreds from which the Western cow-pony is descended. The mare
was not over-large, but the broad hips and generous expanse of chest
were hints, and only hints, of her strength and endurance. There was
the speed of the blooded racer in her and the tirelessness of the
mustang.
Now, down the rocky, half broken trail she picked her way as daintily
as any debutante tiptoeing down a great stairway to the ballroom. Life
had been easy for Mary since that thousand-mile struggle to overtake
Canby, and now her sides were sleek from good feeding and some casual
twenty miles a day, which was no more to her than a canter through the
park is to the city horse.
The eye which had been so red-stained and fierce during the long ride
after Canby was now bright and gentle. At every turn she pricked her
small sharp ears as if she expected home and friends on the other side
of the curve. And now and again she tossed her head and glanced back
at the master for a moment and then whinnied across some echoing ravine.
It was Mary's way of showing happiness, and her master's acknowledgment
was to run his gloved left hand up through her mane and with his
ungloved right, that tanned and agile hand, pat her shoulder lightly.
Passing to the end of the down-grade, they reached a slight upward
incline, and the mare, as if she had come to familiar ground, broke
into a gallop, a matchless, swinging stride. Swerving to right and to
left among the great boulders, like a football player running a broken
field, she increased the gallop to a racing pace.
That twisting course would have shaken an ordinary horseman to the
toes, but Pierre, swaying easily in the saddle, dropped the reins into
the crook of his left arm and rolled a cigarette in spite of the motion
and the wind. It was a little feat, but it would have drawn applause
from a circus crowd.
He spoke to the mare while he lighted a match and she dropped to an
easy canter, the pace which she could maintain from dawn to dark,
eating up the gray miles of the mountain and the desert, and it was
then that Red Pierre heard a gay voice singing in the distance.
His attitude changed at once. He caught a shorter grip on the reins
and swung forward a little in the saddle, while his right hand touched
the butt of the revolver in its holster and made sure that it was
loose; for to those who hunt and are hunted every human voice in the
mountain-desert is an ominous token.
The mare, sensing the change of her master through that weird
telegraphy which passed down the taut bridle reins, held her head high
and flattened her short ears against her neck.
The song and the singer drew closer, and the vigilence of Pierre ceased
as he heard a mellow barytone ring out:
"They call me poor, yet I am rich
In the touch of her golden hair,
My heart is filled like a miser's hands
With the red-gold of her hair.
The sky I ride beneath all day
Is the blue of her dear eyes;
The only heaven I desire
Is the blue of her dear eyes."
And here Dick Wilbur rode about the shoulder of a hill, broke off his
song at the sight of Pierre le Rouge, and shouted a welcome. They came
together and continued their journey side by side. The half-dozen
years had hardly altered the blond, handsome face of Wilbur, and now,
with the gladness of his singing still flushing his face, he seemed
hardly more than a boy--younger, in fact, than Red Pierre, into whose
eyes there came now and then a grave sternness.
"After hearing that song," said Pierre smiling, "I feel as if I'd
listened to a portrait."
"Right!" said Wilbur, with unabated enthusiasm. "It's the bare and
unadorned truth, Prince Pierre. My fine _Galahad_, if you came within
eye-shot of her there'd be a small-sized hell raised."
"No. I'm immune there, you know."
"Nonsense. The beauty of a really lovely woman is like a fine perfume.
It strikes right to a man's heart; there's no possibility of
resistance. I know. You, Pierre, act like a man already in love or a
boy who has never known a woman. Which is it, Pierre?"
The other made a familiar gesture with those who knew him, a touching
of his left hand against his throat where the cross lay.
He said: "I suppose it seems like that to you."
"Like what? Dodging me, eh? Well, I never press the point, but I'd
give the worth of your horse, Pierre, to see you and Mary together."
Red Pierre started, and then frowned.
"Irritates you a little, eh? Well, a woman is like a spur to most men."
He added, with a momentary gloom: "God knows, I bear the marks of 'em."
He raised his head, as if he looked up in response to his thought.
"But there's a difference with this girl. I've named the quality of
her before--a fragrance, you know, that disarms a man, and like a
fragrance there's just a touch of melancholy about her and an appeal
that follows after you when she's gone."
Pierre looked to his friend with some alarm, for there was a saying
among the followers of Boone that a woman would be the downfall of big
Dick Wilbur again, as a woman had been his downfall before. The
difference would be that this fall must be his last.
And Wilbur went on: "She's Eastern, Pierre, and out here visiting the
daughter of old Barnes who owns about a thousand miles of range, you
know. How long will she be here? That's the question I'm trying to
answer for her. I met her riding over the hills--she was galloping
along a ridge, and she rode her way right into my heart. Well, I'm a
fool, of course, but about this girl I can't be wrong. To-night I'm
taking her to a masquerade."
He pulled his horse to a full stop.
"Pierre, you have to come with me."