ut of Jack with me. You ought to know that."

"Pierre, I'd as soon make a joke out of a wildcat."

"Grinning still? Wilbur, I'm taking more from you than I would from
any man on the ranges."

"I know you are, and that's why I'm stringing this out because I'm
going to have a laugh--ha, ha, ha!--the rest of my life--ha, ha, ha,
ha!--whenever I think of this--ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!"

The burst of merriment left him speechless, and Pierre, glowering, his
right hand twitching dangerously close to that holster at his hip. He
sobered, and said: "Go in and talk to her and prove that I'm right."

"Ask Jack if she loves me? Why, I'd as soon ask any man the same
question."

The big long rider was instantly curious.

"Has she never appealed to you as a woman, Pierre?"

"How could she? I've watched her ride; I've watched her use her gun;
I've slept rolled in the same blankets with her, back to back; I've
walked and talked and traveled with her as if she were my kid brother."

Wilbur nodded, as if the miracle were being slowly unfolded before his
eyes.

"And you've never noticed anything different about her? Never watched
a little lift and grace in her walk that no man could ever have; never
heard her laugh in a voice that no man could ever imitate; never seen
her color change just because you, Pierre, came near or went far away
from her?"

"Because of me?" asked the bewildered Pierre.

"You fool, you! Why, lad, I've been kept amused by you two for a whole
evening, watching her play for your attention, saving her best smiles
for you, keeping her best attitudes for you, and letting all the
richness of her voice go out for--a block--a stone. Gad, the thing
still doesn't seem possible! Pierre, one instant of that girl would
give romance to a man's whole life."

"This girl? This Jack of ours?"

"He hasn't seen it! Why, if I hadn't seen years ago that she had tied
her hands and turned her heart over to you, I'd have been down on my
knees to her a thousand times, begging her for a smile, a shadow of a
hope."

"If I didn't know you, Dick, I'd say that you were partly drunk and
partly a fool."

"Here's a hundred--a cold hundred that I'm right. I'll make it a
thousand, if you dare."

"Dare what?"

"Ask her to marry you."

"Marry--me?"

"Damn it all--well, then--whatever you like. But I say that if you go
back into that room and sit still and merely look at her, she'll be in
your arms within five minutes."