CHAPTER XXX
THE WHISPER OF THE KNIFE
Not that she stayed there without a growing fear, but she still felt about her, like the protection of some invisible cloak, the presence of the strange guide who had followed her up the valley of the Old Crow.
It seemed as if the boy were reading her mind.
"See you got two horses. Come up alone?"
"Most of the way," said Mary, and tingled with a rather feline pleasure to see that her curtness merely sharpened the interest of Jack.
The boy puffed on his cigarette, not with long, slow breaths of inhalation like a practised smoker, but with a puckered face as though he feared that the fumes might drift into his eyes.
"Why," thought Mary, "he's only a child!"
Her heart warmed a little as she adopted this view-point of her surly host. Being warmed, and having much to say, words came of themselves. Surely it would do no harm to tell the story to this queer urchin, who might be able to throw some light on the nature of the invisible protector.
"I started with a man for guide." She fixed a searching gaze on the boy. "His name was Dick Wilbur."
She could not tell whether it was a tremble of the boy's hand or a short motion to knock off the cigarette ash.
"Did you say 'was' Dick Wilbur?"
"Yes. Did you know him?"
"Heard of him, I think. Kind of a hard one, wasn't he?"
"No, no! A fine, brave, gentle fellow—poor Dick!"
She stopped, her eyes filling with tears at many a memory.
"H-m!" coughed the boy. "I thought he was one of old Boone's gang? If he's dead, that made the last of 'em—except Red Pierre."
It was like the sound of a trumpet call at her ear.
Mary sat up with a start.
"What do you know of Red Pierre?"
The boy flushed a little, and could not quite meet her eye.
"Nothin'."
"At least you know that he's still alive?"
"Sure. Any one does. When he dies the whole range will know about it—damn quick. I know that much about Red Pierre; but who doesn't?"
"I, for one."
"You!"
Strangely enough, there was more of accusation than of surprise in the word.
"Certainly," repeated Mary. "I've only been in this part of the country for a short time. I really know almost nothing about the—the legends."
"Legends?" said the boy, and laughed with a voice of such rich, light music that it took the breath from Mary. "Legend? Say, lady, if Red Pierre is just a legend the Civil War ain't no more'n a fable. Legend? You go anywhere on the range an' get 'em talking about that legend, and they'll make you think it's an honest-to-goodness fact, and no mistake."
Mary queried earnestly: "Tell me about Red Pierre. It's almost as hard to learn anything of him as it is to find out anything about McGurk."
"What you doing?" asked the boy, keen with suspicion. "Making a study of them two for a book?"
He wiped a damp forehead.
'Take it from me, lady, it ain't healthy to join up them two even in talk!"
"Is there any harm in words?"
The boy was so upset for some unknown reason that he rose and paced up and down the room in a nervous tremor.
"Lots of harm in fool words."
He sat down again, and seemed a little anxious to explain his unusual conduct.
"Ma'am, suppose you had a well plumb full of nitroglycerin in your back yard; suppose there was a forest fire comin' your way from all sides; would you like to have people talk about the nitroglycerin and that forest fire meeting? Even the talk would give you chills. That's the way it is with Pierre and McGurk. When they meet there's going to be a fight that'll stop the hearts of the people that have to look on."
Mary smiled to cover her excitement.
"But are they coming your way?"
The question seemed to infuriate young Jack, who cried: "Ain't that a fool way of talkin'? Lady, they're coming every one's way. You never know where they'll start from or where they'll land. If there's a thunder-cloud all over the sky, do you know where the lightning's going to strike?"
"Excuse me," said Mary, but she was still eager with curiosity, "but I should think that a youngster like you wouldn't have anything to fear from even those desperadoes."
"Youngster, eh?" snarled the boy, whose wrath seemed implacable. "I can make my draw and start my gun as fast as any man—except them two, maybe"—he lowered his voice somewhat even to name them—"Pierre—McGurk!"
"It seems hopeless to find out anything about McGurk," said Mary, "but at least you can tell me safely about Red Pierre."
"Interested in him, eh?" said the boy dryly.
"Well, he's a rather romantic figure, don't you think?"
"Romantic? Lady, about a month ago I was talking with a lady that was a widow because of Red Pierre. She didn't think him none too romantic."
"Red Pierre had killed the woman's husband?" repeated Mary, with pale lips.
"Yep. He was one of the gang that took a chance with Pierre and got bumped off. Had three bullets in him and dropped without getting his gun out of the leather. Pierre sure does a nice, artistic job. He serves you a murder with all the trimmings. If I wanted to die nice and polite without making a mess, I don't know who I'd rather go to than Red Pierre."
"A murderer!" mused Mary, with bowed head.
The boy opened his lips to speak, but changed his mind and sat regarding the girl with a somewhat sinister smile.
"But might it not be," said Mary, "that he killed one man in self-defense and then his destiny drove him, and bad luck forced him into one bad position after another? There have been histories as strange as that, you know."
Jack laughed again, but most of the music was gone from the sound, and it was simply a low, ominous purr.
"Sure," he said. "You can take a bear-cub and keep him tame till he gets the taste of blood, but after that you got to keep him muzzled, you know. Pierre needs a muzzle, but there ain't enough gun-fighters on the range to put one on him."
Something like pride crept into the boy's voice while he spoke, and he ended with a ringing tone. Then, feeling the curious, judicial eyes of Mary upon him, he abruptly changed the subject.
"You say Dick Wilbur is dead?"
"I don't know. I think he is."
"But he started out with you. You ought to know."
"It was like this: We had camped on the edge of the trees coming up the Old Crow Valley, and Dick went off with the can to get water at the river. He was gone a long time, and when I went out to look for him I found the can at the margin of the river half filled with sand, and beside it there was the impression of the body of a big man. That was all I found, and Dick never came back."
They were both silent for a moment.
"Could he have fallen into the river?"
"Sure. He was probably helped in. Did you look for the footprints?"
"I didn't think of that."
Jack was speechless with scorn.
"Sat down and cried, eh?"
"I was dazed; I couldn't think. But he couldn't have been killed by some other man. There was no shot fired; I should have heard it."
Jack moistened his lips.
"Lady, a knife don't make much sound either going or coming out—not much more sound than a whisper, but that whisper means a lot. I got an idea that Dick heard it. Then the river covered him up."
He stopped short and stared at Mary with squinted eyes.
"D'you mean to tell me that you had the nerve to come all the way up the Old Crow by yourself?"
"Every inch of the way."
Jack leaned forward, sneering, savage.
"Then I suppose you put the hitch that's on that pack outside?"
"No."
Jack was dumfounded.
"Then you admit—"
"That first night when I went to sleep I felt as if there were something near me. When I woke up there was a bright fire burning in front of me and the pack had been lashed and placed on one of the horses. At first I thought that it was Dick, who had come back. But Dick didn't appear all day. The next night—"
"Wait!" said Jack. "This is gettin' sort of creepy. If you was the drinking kind I'd say you'd been hitting up the red-eye."
"The next evening," continued Mary steadily, "I came about dark on a camp-fire with a bed of twigs near it. I stayed by the fire, but no one appeared. Once I thought I heard a horse whinny far, away, and once I thought that I saw a streak of white disappear over the top of a hill."
The boy sprang up, shuddering with panic.
"You saw what?"
"Nothing. I thought for a minute that it was a bit of something white, but it was gone all at once."
"White—vanished at once—went into the dark as fast as a horse can gallop?"
"Something like that. Do you think it was some one?"
For answer the boy whipped out his revolver, examined it, and spun the cylinder with shaking hands. Then he said through set teeth: "So you come up here trailin' him after you, eh?"
"Who?"
"McGurk!"
The name came like a rifle shot and Mary rose in turn and shrank back toward the wall, for there was murder in the lighted black eyes which stared after her and crumbling fear in her own heart at the thought of McGurk hovering near,—of the peril that impended for Pierre. Of the nights in the valley of the Crow she refused to let herself think. Cold beads of perspiration stood out on her forehead.
"You fool—you fool! Damn your pretty pink-and-white face—you've done for us all! Get out!"
Mary moved readily enough toward the door, her teeth chattering with terror in the face of this fury.
Jack continued wildly: "Done for us all; got us all as good as under the sod. I wish you was in— Get out quick, or I'll forget—you're a woman!"
He broke into a shrill, hysterical laughter, which stopped short and finished in a heart-broken whisper: "Pierre!"