rre."

Inspiration made her catch her breath.

"Listen! I can shoot as straight as almost any man. We will ride down
together. We will go through the doors together--me first to take his
fire, and you behind to shoot him down."

"I guess no man can be as brave as a woman, Jack. No; I have to see
McGurk alone. He faced my father alone and shot him down. I'll face
McGurk alone and live long enough to put my mark on him."

"But you don't know him. He can't be hurt. Do you think my father
and--and Dick Wilbur would fear any man who could be hurt? No, but
McGurk has been in a hundred fights and never been touched. There's a
charm over him, don't you see?"

"I'll break the charm, that's all."

"You're only a boy, Pierre."

"I, also, carry a charm with me. Good-by."

He was up in the saddle.

"Then I'll call dad--I'll call them all--if you die they shall all
follow you. I swear they shall, Pierre!"

He merely leaned forward and touched the horse with his spurs, but
after he had raced the first hundred yards he glanced back. She was
running hard for the house, and calling as she went. Pierre cursed and
spurred the horse again.

Yet even if Jim Boone and his men started out after him they could
never overtake him. Before they were in their saddles and up with him,
he'd be a full three miles out in the hills. Not even black Thunder
could make up as much ground as that.

So all the fifteen miles to Gaffney's place he urged his horse. The
excitement of the race kept the thought of McGurk back in his mind.
Only once he lost time when he had to pull up beside a buckboard and
inquire the way. After that he flew on again. Yet as he clattered up
to the door of Gaffney's crossroads saloon and swung to the ground he
looked back and saw a cluster of horsemen swing around the shoulder of
a hill and come tearing after him. Surely his time was short.

He thrust open the door of the place and called for a drink. The
bartender spun the glass down the bar to him.

"Where's McGurk?"

The other stopped in the very act of taking out the bottle from the
shelf, and his curious glance went over the face of Pierre le Rouge.
He decided, apparently, that it was foolish to hold suspicions against
so young a man.

"In that room," and he jerked his hand toward a door. "What do you
want with him?"

"Got a message for him."

"Tell it to me, and I'll pass it along."

Pierre met the eye of the other and smiled fai