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128 shared with all of Boone's crew a deep-rooted unwillingness to press Red Pierre beyond a certain point. "The one subject I won't quarrel about is Jack, God bless her."

"She's the best pal," said Pierre soberly, "and the nearest to a man I've ever met."

"Nearest to a man?" queried Wilbur, and smiled, but so furtively that even the sharp eye of Red Pierre did not perceive the mockery. He went on: "But the dance, what of that? It's a masquerade. There'd be no fear of being recognized."

Pierre was silent a moment more. Then he said: "This girl—what did you call her?"

"Mary."

"And about her hair—I think you said it was black?"

"Golden, Pierre."

"Mary, and golden hair," mused Red Pierre. "I think I'll go to that dance."

"With Jack? She dances wonderfully, you know."

"Well—with Jack."

So they reached a tumbled ranch-house squeezed between two hills so that it was sheltered from the storms of the winter but held all the heat of the summer.

Once it had been a goodly building, the home of some cattle-king. But bad times had come.

A bullet in a saloon brawl put an end to the cattle-king, and now his home was a wreck of its former glory. The northern wing shelved down to the ground as if the building were kneeling to the power