Argosy, Vol. 112, No. 2 — page 141: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

LUCK. She whispered: ‘“ Down the valley, Pierre; gown 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!” CHAPTER XXXYV. JACK HEARS A SMALL VOICE. T came back to her like a threat; it beat at her ears and roused her, that con- tinually diminishing cry: “ McGurk!” It went down the valley, and Mary Brown, and McGurk with her, perhaps, had gone up the gorge, but it would be a matter of a short time before Pierre le Rouge discovered that there was no camp-fire to be sighted in the lower valley and whirled to storm back up the canon with that battle-cry: “ Mc- Gurk!”’ still on his lips. And if the two met she knew the result. Seven strong men had ridden together, fought together, and one by one they had fallen, disappeared like the white smoke of the camp-fire, jerked off into thin air by the wind, until only one remained. How clearly she could see them all! Bud Mansie, meager, lean, with a shifting eye; Garry Patterson, of the red, good-natured face; Phil Branch, stolid and short and muscled like a giant; Handsome Dicia, Wil- bur on his racing bay; Black Gandil, with his villainies from the South Seas like an invisible mantle of awe about him; and her father, the stalwart, gray Boone. All these had gone, and there remained only Pierre le Rouge to follow in the steps of the six who had gone before. She crawled to the door, feeble in mind and shuddering of body like a runner who has spent his last energy in a long race, and drew it open. The wind blew up the valley from the Old Crow, but no sound came back to her, no calling from Pierre; and over her rose the black pyramid of the western peak of the Twin Bears like a monstrous nose pointing stiffly toward the stars. She closed the door, dragged herself back to her feet, and stood with her shoulders leaning against the wall. Her weakness was 307 not weariness—it was as if something had been taken from her. She wondered at her- self somewhat vaguely. Surely she had never been like this before, with the singular coldness about her heart and the feeling of loss, of infinite loss. What had she lost? She began to search her mind for an answer. Then she smiled uncertainly, a wan, small smile. It was very clear; what she had lost was all in- terest in life and all hope for the brave to- morrow. Nothing remained of all those lovely dreams which she had built up by day and night about the figure of Pierre le Rouge. He was gone, and the bright-colored bubble she had blown vanished at once. She felt a slight pain at her forehead and then remembered the cross which Pierre had thrown into her face. Casting that away he had thrown his faintest chance of victory with it; it would be a slaughter, not a battle, and red-handed. McGurk would leave one more foe behind him. But looking down she found the cross and picked up the shining bit of metal; it seemed as if she held the greater part of Pierre le Rouge in her hands. She raised the cross to her lips. When she fastened the cross about her throat it was with no exultation, but™like one who places over his heart a last me- morial of the dead; a consecration, like the red sign or the white which the crusaders wore on the covers of their shields. Then she took from her breast the spray of autumn leaves. He had not noticed them, © yet perhaps they had helped to make him gay when he came into the cabin that night, so she placed the spray on the table. Next she unpinned the great rubies from her throat and let her eye linger over them for a moment. They were chosen stones, each as deeply lighted as an eye, if there ever were eyes of this blood-red, and they looked up at her with a lure and a challenge at once. : The first thought of what she must do came to Jacqueline then, but not in an over- whelming tide—it was rather a smali voice that whispered in her heart. Last, she took from her bosom the glove of the yellow-haired girl. Compared with her stanch riding gloves, how small was Eom Eomicbooks ; 7 —~ ‘ = io” | se a) a8