she met Pierre she could force
him to turn back with her.

Wilbur checked his horse to a trot; they climbed a hill, and just as
the rain broke on them with a rattling gust they swung into the valley
of the Old Crow. Above them in the sky the thunder rode; the rain
whipped against the rocks like the rattle of a thousand flying hoofs;
and now and again the lightning flashed across the sky.

Through that vast accompaniment they moved on in the night straight
toward the heart of the mountains which sprang into sight with every
flash of the lightning and seemed toppling almost above them, yet they
were weary miles away, as she knew.

By those same flashes she caught glimpses of the face of Wilbur. She
hardly knew him. She had seen him always big, gentle, handsome,
good-natured; now he was grown harder, with a stern set of the jaw, and
a certain square outline of face. It had seemed impossible. Now she
began to guess how the law could have placed a price upon his head.
For he belonged out here with the night and the crash of the storm,
with free, strong, lawless things about him.

An awe grew up in her, and she was filled half with dread and half with
curiosity at the thought of facing him, as she must many a time, across
the camp-fire. In a way, he was the ladder by which she climbed to an
understanding of Pierre le Rouge, Red Pierre. For that Pierre, she
knew, was to big Wilbur what Dick himself was to the great mass of
law-abiding men. Accident had cut Wilbur adrift, but it was more than
accident which started Pierre on the road to outlawry; it was the sheer
love of dangerous chance, the glory in fighting other men. This was
Pierre.

What was the man for whom Pierre hunted? What was McGurk? Not even
the description of Wilbur had proved very enlightening. Her thought of
him was vague, nebulous, and taking many forms. Sometimes he was tall
and dark and stern. Again he was short and heavy and somewhat deformed
of body. But always he was everywhere in the night about her.

She guessed at his voice rumbling through an echo of the thunder; she
heard the sound of his pursuing horse in the rattle of the following
rain. Her work was to keep this relentless lone rider away from
Pierre; it was as if she strove to keep the ocean tide away from the
shore. They seemed doomed to meet and shock.

All this she pondered as they began the ride up the valley, but as the
long journey continued, and the hours and the m