of enough of that. But
as she stepped forward, wondering, she looked at the holster at his
side and saw that it was empty. Then she understood.

Understood in a daze that Pierre had met the man and conquered him and
sent him out through the mountains disarmed. The white horse raised
his head and whinnied, and the sound gave a thought to her. She could
not kill this man, unarmed as he was; she could do a more shameful
thing.

"The bluff you ran was a strong one, McGurk," she said bitterly, "and
you had these parts pretty well at a standstill; but Pierre was a bit
too much for you, eh?"

The white face had not altered, and still it did not change, but the
sneer was turned steadily on her.

She cried: "Go on! Go on down the gorge!"

Like an automaton the man stepped forward, and after him paced the
white horse. She stepped between, caught the reins, and swung up to
the saddle, and sat there, controlling between her stirrups the
best-known mount in all the mountain-desert. A thrill of wild
exultation came to her. She cried: "Look back, McGurk! Your gun is
gone, your horse is gone; you're weaker than a woman in the mountains!"

Yet he went on without turning, not with the hurried step of a coward,
but still as one stunned. Then, sitting quietly in the saddle, she
forgot McGurk and remembered Pierre. He was happy by this time with
the girl of the yellow hair; there was nothing remaining to her from
him except the ominous cross which touched cold against her breast.
That he had abandoned as he had abandoned her.

What, then, was left for her? The horse of an outlaw for her to ride;
the heart of an outlaw in her breast.

She touched the white horse with the spurs and went at a reckless
gallop, weaving back and forth among the boulders down the gorge. For
she was riding away from the past.

The dawn came as she trotted out into a widening valley of the Old
Crow. To maintain even that pace she had to use the spurs continually,
for the white horse was deadly weary, and his head fell more and more.
She decided to make a brief halt, at last, and in order to make a fire
that would take the chill of the cold morning from her, she swung up to
the edge of the woods. There, before she could dismount, she saw a man
turn the shoulder of the slope. She drew the horse back deeper among
the trees and waited.

He came with a halting step, reeling now and again, a big man, hatless,
coatless, apparently at the last v