made a cup of her hands and
drunk here.

Now she made out the fire clearly, the trees throwing out great spokes
of shadow on all sides, spokes of shadows that wavered and shook with
the flare of the small fire beyond them. She dropped to her hands and
knees and, parting the dense underbrush, began the last stealthy
approach.

CHAPTER XXXVI

A VOICE IN THE NIGHT

Up the same course which Jacqueline followed, Mary Brown had fled
earlier that night with the triumphant laughter of Jack still ringing
in her ears and following her like a remorseless, pointed hand of shame.

There is no power like shame to disarm the spirit. A dog will fight if
a man laughs at him; a coward will challenge the devil himself if he is
whipped on by scorn; and this proud girl shrank and moaned on the
saddle. She had not progressed far enough to hate Pierre. That would
come later, but now all her heart had room for was a consuming loathing
of herself.

Some of that torture went into the spurs with which she punished the
side of the bay, and the tall horse responded with a high-tossed head
and a burst of whirlwind speed. The result was finally a stumble over
a loose rock that almost flung Mary over the pommel of the saddle and
forced her to draw rein.

Having slowed the pace she became aware that she was very tired from
the trip of the day, and utterly exhausted by the wild scene with
Jacqueline, so that she began to look about for a place where she could
stop for even an hour or so and rest her aching body.

Thought of McGurk sent her hand trembling to her holster. Still she
knew she must have little to fear from him. He had been kind to her.
Why had this scourge of the mountain-desert spared her? Was it to
track down Pierre?

It was at this time that she heard the purl and whisper of running
water, a sound dear to the hearts of all travelers. She veered to the
left and found the little grove of trees with a thick shrubbery growing
between, fed by the water of that diminutive brook. She dismounted and
tethered the horses.

By this time she had seen enough of camping out to know how to make
herself fairly comfortable, and she set about it methodically, eagerly.
It was something to occupy her mind and keep out a little of that
burning sense of shame. One picture it could not obliterate, and that
was the scene of Jacqueline and Pierre le Rouge laughing together over
the love affair with the silly girl of the yellow hair