Argosy, Vol. 112, No. 2 — page 146: what you’re looking at

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

O12 be; but you are too beautiful to be only that to me.” “ Listen to me—” But she stopped in the midst of her speech, because a white head loomed beside the dim form. It was the head of a horse, with pricking ears, which now nosed the shoulder of its master, and she saw the firelight glimmering in the great eyes. “Your horse,” she said in a trembling voice, “ loves you and trusts you.” “ Tt is the only thing which has not feared me. When it was a colt it came out of the herd and nosed my hand. It is the only thing which has not fought me, as all men have done—as you are doing now, Mary.” The wind that blew up the gorge came in gusts, not any steady current, but fitful rushes of air, and on one of these brief blasts it seemed to Mary that she caught the sound of a voice blown to whistling murmur. It was a vague thing of which she could not be sure, as faint as a thought. Yet the head of the white horse disap- peared, and the glimmer of the man’s face went out. She called: ‘“ Whatever you are, wait! Let me speak!”’ But no answer came, and she knew that the form was gone forever. She cried again: ‘‘ Who’s there?”’ ‘Tt is.I,” said a voice at her elbow, and she turned to look into the dark eyes of Jacqueline. “So he’s gone?”’ asked Jack bitterly. She fingered the butt of her gun. ‘“T thought—well, my chance at him is gone.” ‘But what is he?” “The same man who followed you up the valley, fool!” “ But what—”’ “ Bah, if you knew you’d die of fear. Listen to what I have to say. All the things I told you in the cabin were lies.”’ “Lies?” said Mary evenly. “ No, they proved themselves.” © “Be still till I’ve finished, because if you talk you may make me forget—vwell, your throat’s temptingly soft and small, and my hands—” The gesture which finished the sentence was so eloquent of hate that Mary shrank THE ARGOSY. away and put the embers of the fire be- tween them. She remembered the strength of those hands; they had lifted the rock which she could not budge. “I tell you, it was all a lie, and Pierre le Rouge has never loved anything but you, you milk-faced, yellow-livered—”’ She stopped again, fighting against her passion. The pride of Mary held her stiff and straight, though her voice shook. ‘Has he sent you after me with mock- ery?” “No, he’s given up the hope of you.” “The hope?”’ ‘Don’t you see? Are you going to make me crawl to explain? It always seemed to me that God meant Pierre for me. It always seemed to me that a girl like me was what he needed. But Pierre had never seen it. Maybe, if my hair was yel- low an’ my eyes blue, he might have felt ‘different; but the way it is, he’s always treated me like a kid brother—”’ ? ‘““And lived with you?” said the other sternly. ‘Like two men, fool! D’you understand how a woman could be the bunky of a man an’ yet be no more to him than—than aman would be. You don’t? Neither do I, but that’s what I’ve been to Pierre le Rouge. What’s that?”’ She lifted her head and stood poised as if for flight. Once more the vague sound blew up to them upon the wind. Mary ran to her and grasped both of her hands in her own. “Tf it’s true—” But Jack snatched her hands away and looked on the other with a mighty hatred and a mightier contempt. “True? Why, it damn near finishes Pierre with me to think he’d take up with—- a thing like you. But it’s true. If some- body else had told me I’d of laughed at ’em. But it’s true. Tell me: what ‘Il you do with him?” “Take him back—if I can reach to him —take him back to the East and to God’s country.” | ‘“'Yes—maybe he’d be happy there. But when the spring comes to the city, Mary, —— wait till the wind blows in the night and ° the rain comes tappin’ on the roof. Then Gomichbooks (e (EO) im