"It would be useless--utterly useless. There are ways of becoming
invisible in the mountains. But before I go, tell me one thing: Have
you left the cabin to search for Pierre le Rouge in another place?"

"No. I do not search for him."

There was an instant of pause. Then the voice said sharply: "Did
Wilbur lie to me?"

"No. I started up the valley to find him."

"But you've given him up?"

"I hate him--I hate him as much as I loathe myself for ever
condescending to follow him."

She heard a quick breath drawn in the dark, and then a murmur; "I am
free, then, to hunt him down!"

"Why?"

"Listen: I had given him up for your sake; I gave him up when I stood
beside you that first night and watched you trembling with the cold in
your sleep. It was a weak thing for me to do, but since I saw you,
Mary, I am not as strong as I once was."

"Now you go back on his trail? It is death for Pierre?"

"You say you hate him?"

"Ah, but as deeply as that?" she questioned herself.

"It may not be death for Pierre. I have ridden the ranges many years
and met them all in time, but never one like him. Listen: six years
ago I met him first and then he wounded me--the first time any man has
touched me. And afterward I was afraid, Mary, for the first time in my
life, for the charm was broken. For six years I could not return, but
now I am at his heels. Six are gone; he will be the last to go."

"What are you?" she cried. "Some bloodhound reincarnated?"

He said: "That is the mildest name I have ever been called."

CHAPTER XXXVII

A MAN'S DEATH

"Give up the trail of Pierre."

And there, brought face to face with the mortal question, even her fear
burned low in her, and once more she remembered the youth who would not
leave her in the snow, but held her in his arms with the strange cross
above them.

She said simply: "I still love him."

A faint glimmer came to her through the dark and she could see deeper
into the shrubbery, for now the moon stood up on the top of the great
peak above them and flung a faint radiance into the hollow. That
glimmer she saw, but no face of a man.

And then the silence held; every second of it was more than a hundred
spoken words.

Then the calm voice said: "I cannot give him up."

"For the sake of God!"

"God and I have been strangers for a good many years."

"For my sake."

"But you see, I have been lying to myself. I told myself that I was
coming merel