te manner. It was to Mary
as if her clothes had been torn from her body and she were exposed to
the bold eyes of a crowd, like a slave put up for sale.

"No, I guess he thinks as much of you now as he ever did."

"You are lying to me," said the girl faintly, but the terror in her
eyes said another thing.

"He thinks as much of you as he ever did. He thinks as much of you as
he does of the rest of the soft-handed, pretty-faced fools who listen
to him and believe him. I suppose----"

He broke off to laugh heartily again, with a jarring, forced note which
escaped Mary.

"I suppose that he made love to you one minute and the next told you
that bad luck--something about the cross--kept him away from you?"

Each slow word, like a blow of a fist, drove the girl quivering back.
She closed her eyes to shut out the scorn of that handsome, boyish
face; closed her eyes to summon out from the dark of her mind the
picture of Pierre le Rouge as he had knelt before her and told her of
his love; of Pierre le Rouge as he had lain beside her with the small,
shining cross held high above his head, and waited for death to come
over them both. She saw all this, and then she heard the voice of
Pierre renouncing her.

She opened her eyes again. She cried:

"It is all a lie! If he is not true, there's no truth in the world."

"If you come down to that," said the boy coldly, "there ain't much
wasted this side of the Rockies. It's about as scarce as rain."

He continued in an almost kindly tone: "What would you do with a wild
man like Red Pierre? Run along; git out of here; grab your horse, and
beat it back to civilization; there ain't no place for you up here in
the wilderness."

"What would I do with him?" cried the girl.

"Love him!"

It seemed as though her words, like whips, lashed the boy back to his
murderous anger. He lay with blazing eyes, watching her for a moment,
too moved to speak. At last he propped himself on one elbow, shook a
small, white-knuckled fist under the nose of Mary, and cried: "Then
what would he do with you?"

He went on: "Would he wear you around his neck like a watch charm?"

"I'd bring him back with me--back into the East, and he would be lost
among the crowds and never suspected of his past."

"_You'd_ bring Pierre anywhere? Say, lady, that's like hearing the
sheep talk about leading the wolf around by the nose. If all the men
in the ranges can't catch him, or make him budge an inch