out of the way
he's picked, do you think you could stir him?"

Jeering laughter shook him; it seemed that he would never be done with
his laughter, yet there was a hint of the hysterically mirthless in it.
It came to a jarring stop.

He said: "D'you think he's just bein' driven around by chance? Lady,
d'you think he even wants to get out of this life of his? No, he loves
it! He loves the danger. D'you think a man that's used to breathing
in a whirlwind can get used to living in calm air? It can't be done!"

And the girl answered steadily: "For every man there is one woman, and
for that woman the man will do strange things."

"You poor, white-raced, whimpering fool," snarled the boy, gripping at
his gun again, "d'you dream that _you're_ the one that's picked out for
Pierre? No, there's another!"

"Another? A woman who----"

"Who loves Pierre--a woman that's fit for him. She can ride like a
man; she can shoot almost as straight and as fast as Pierre; she can
handle a knife; and she's been through hell for Pierre, and she'll go
through it again. She can ride the trail all day with him and finish
it less fagged than he is. She can chop down a tree as well as he can,
and build a fire better. She can hold up a train with him or rob a
bank and slip through a town in the middle of the night and laugh with
him about it afterward around a camp-fire. I ask you, is that the sort
of a woman that's meant for Pierre?"

And the girl answered, with bowed head: "She is."

She cried instantly afterward, cutting short the look of wild triumph
on the face of the boy: "But there's no such woman; there's no one who
could do these things! I know it!"

The boy sprang to his feet, flushing as red as the girl was white.

"You fool, if you're blind and got to have your eyes open to see, look
at the woman!"

And she tore the wide-brimmed sombrero from her head. Down past the
shoulders flooded a mass of blue-black hair. The firelight flickered
and danced across the silken shimmer of it. It swept wildly past the
waist, a glorious, night-dark tide in which the heart of a strong man
could be tangled and lost. With quivering lips Jacqueline cried: "Look
at me! Am I worthy of him?"

Short step by step Mary went back, staring with fascinated eyes as one
who sees some devilish, midnight revelry, and shrinks away from it lest
the sight should blast her. She covered her eyes with her hands but
instantly strong grips fell on