Page:RidersOfSilences - Max Brand.djvu/131

Rh who knew him, a touching of his left hand against his throat where the cross lay.

He said: "I suppose it seems like that to you."

"Like what? Dodging me, eh? Well, I never press the point, but I'd give the worth of your horse, Pierre, to see you and Mary together."

Red Pierre started, and then frowned.

"Irritates you a little, eh? Well, a woman is like a spur to most men."

He added, with a momentary gloom: "God knows, I bear the marks of 'em."

He raised his head, as if he looked up in response to his thought.

"But there's a difference with this girl. I've named the quality of her before—a fragrance, you know, that disarms a man, and like a fragrance there's just a touch of melancholy about her and an appeal that follows after you when she's gone."

Pierre looked to his friend with some alarm, for there was a saying among the followers of Boone that a woman would be the downfall of big Dick Wilbur again, as a woman had been his downfall before. The difference would be that this fall must be his last.

And Wilbur went on: "She's Eastern, Pierre, and out here visiting the daughter of old Barnes who owns about a thousand miles of range, you know. How long will she be here? That's the question I'm trying to answer for her. I met her riding over the hills she was galloping along a ridge, and she rode her way right into my heart. Well, I'm a fool,