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."

CHAPTER XVI

ENNUI

Pierre stared at his companion with almost open-mouthed astonishment.

"I? A dance?"

And then his head tilted back and he laughed.

"My good times, Dick, come out of the hills and the sky-line, and the
gallop of Mary. But as for women, they bore me, Dick."

"Even Jack?"

"She's more man than woman."

It was the turn of Wilbur to laugh, and he responded uproariously until
Pierre frowned and flushed a little.

"When I see you out here on your horse with your rifle in the boot and
your six-gun swinging low in the scabbard, and riding the fastest bit
of horse-flesh on the ranges," explained Wilbur, "I get to thinking
that you're pretty much king of the mountains; but in certain respects,
Pierre, you're a child. Ha, ha, ha! a regular infant."

Pierre stirred uneasily in his saddle. A man must be well over thirty
before he can withstand ridicule.

He said dryly: "I've an idea that I know Jack about as well a