oone, no longer agile enough to be effective
on the trail, would guard the house and the body of Gandil in it.

There was little danger that even McGurk would try to rush a hostile
house, but they took no chances. The guns of Jim Boone were given a
thorough overhauling, and he wore as usual at his belt the
heavy-handled hunting knife, a deadly weapon in a hand-to-hand fight.
Thus equipped, they left him and took the trail.

They had not ridden a hundred yards when a whistle followed them, the
familiar whistle of the gang. They reined short and saw big Dick
Wilbur riding his bay after them, but at some distance he halted and
shouted: "Pierre!"

"He's come back to us!" cried Jack.

"No. It's only some message."

"Do you know?"

"Yes. Stay here. This is for me alone."

And he rode back to Wilbur, who swung his horse close alongside.
However hard he had followed in the pursuit of happiness and the golden
hair of Mary Brown, his face was drawn with lines of age and his eyes
circled with shadows.

He said: "I've kept close on her trail, Pierre, and the nearest she has
come to kindness has been to send me back with a message to you."

He laughed without mirth, and the sound stopped abruptly.

"This is the message in her own words: 'I love him, Dick, and there's
nothing in the world for me without him. Bring him back to me. I
don't care how; but bring him back.' So tell Jack to ride the trail
alone to-day and go back with me. I give her up, not freely, but
because I know there's no hope for me."

But Pierre answered: "Wherever I've gone there's been luck for me and
hell for every one around me. I lived with a priest, Dick, and left
him when I was nearly old enough to begin repaying his care. I came
South and found a father and lost him the same day. I gambled for
money with which to bury him, and a man died that night and another was
hurt. I escaped from the town by riding a horse to death. I was
nearly killed in a landslide, and now the men who saved me from that
are done for.

"It's all one story, the same over and over. Can I carry a fortune
like that back to her? Dick, it would haunt me by day and by night.
She would be the next. I know it as I know that I'm sitting in the
saddle here. That's my answer. Carry it back to her."

"I won't lie and tell you I'm sorry, because I'm a fool and still have
a ghost of a hope, but this will be hard news to tell her, and I'd
rather give five years of