ierre?"

"The clothes," repeated Pierre sternly, "on the jump, McGuire."

And with a jump McGuire obeyed. His hands trembled so that he could
hardly remove the scarf from the shoulders of the model, but afterward
fear made his fingers supple. He lifted up the green gown; white,
filmy clothes showed underneath.

There came a sharp cry from Jack: "Turn away, Pierre; turn quick and
don't dare to look. I'll take care of McGuire."

And Pierre le Rouge turned, grinning. When she told him that he could
look again, he found her with a bright spot of color in either cheek,
and her eyes avoided his. It thrilled Pierre, and yet it troubled him,
for she seemed changed, all at once, less of a comrade, and strangely
aloof. McGuire was doing up the clothes in two bundles.

Jacqueline took one of them and Pierre the other under his left arm;
with his right hand he drew out some yellow coins.

"I didn't buy these clothes because I didn't have the time to dicker
with you, McGuire. I've heard you talk prices before, you know. But
here's what the clothes are worth to us."

And into the quaking hands of McGuire he poured a chinking stream of
gold pieces.

Relief, amazement, and a very wholesome fear struggled in the face of
McGuire as he saw himself threefold overpaid. At that little yellow
heap he remained staring, unheeding the sound of the retreating
outlaws. At it he still stared with fascinated eyes while the door
banged and the clatter of galloping hoofs began.

"It ain't possible," he said at last, "thieves have begun to pay."

His eyes sought the ceiling.

"So that's Red Pierre?" said McGuire.

As for Pierre and Jacqueline, they were instantly safe in the black
heart of the mountains. Many a mile of hard riding lay before them,
however, and already the dance must be nearly ready to begin in the
Crittenden schoolhouse. There was no road, not even a trail that they
could follow. They had never even seen the Crittenden schoolhouse;
they knew its location only by vague descriptions.

But they had ridden a thousand times in places far more bewildering and
less known to them. Like all true denizens of the mountain-desert,
they had a sense of direction as uncanny as that of an Eskimo. Now
they struck off confidently through the dark and trailed up and down
through the mountains until they reached a hollow in the center of
which shone a group of dim lights. It was the schoolhouse near the
Barnes place, the sc