ck again and found all a prospect of desert before him and
behind, until a sound, a vague sound out of the night startled him into
alertness. He slipped from beside the fire and into the shadow of a
steep rock, watching with eyes that almost pierced the dark on all
sides.

And there he saw her creeping up on the outskirts of the firelight,
prone on her hands and knees, dragging herself up like a young wildcat
hunting prey; it was the glimmer of her eyes that he caught first
through the gloom. A cold thought came to him that she had returned
with her gun ready.

Inch by inch she came closer, and now he was aware of her restless
glances probing on all sides of the camp-fire. Silence--only the
crackling of a pitchy stick. And then he heard a muffled sound, soft,
soft as the beating of a heart in the night, and regularly pulsing. It
hurt him infinitely, and he called gently: "Jack, why are you weeping?"

She started up with her fingers twisted at the butt of her gun.

"It's a lie," called a tremulous voice. "Why should I weep?"

And then she ran to him.

"Oh, Pierre, I thought you were gone!"

That silence which came between them was thick with understanding
greater than speech. He said at last:

"I've made my plan. I am going straight for the higher mountains and
try to shake McGurk off my trail. There's one chance in ten I may
succeed, and if I do then I'll wait for my chance and come down on him,
for sooner or later we have to fight this out to the end."

"I know a place he could never find," said Jacqueline. "The old cabin
in the gulley between the Twin Bears. We'll start for it to-night."

"Not we," he answered. "Jack, here's the end of our riding together."

She frowned with puzzled wonder.

He explained: "One man is stronger than a dozen. That's the strength
of McGurk--that he rides alone. He's finished your father's men.
There's only Wilbur left, and Wilbur will go next--then me!"

She stretched her hands to him. She seemed to be pleading for her very
life.

"But if he finds us and has to fight us both--I shoot as straight as a
man, Pierre!"

"Straighter than most. And you're a better pal than any I've ever
ridden with. But I must go alone. It's only a lone wolf that will
ever bring down McGurk. Think how he's rounded us up like a herd of
cattle and brought us down one by one."

"By getting each man alone and killing him from behind."

"From the front, Jack. No, he's fought s