Page:RidersOfSilences - Max Brand.djvu/156

150 "Why do you harp on her?"

"Harp on her?"

"Every other word—nothing but yellow hair. I'm sick of it. I know the kind—faded corn color—dyed, probably. Pierre, you are all blind, and you most of all."

This being obviously childish, Pierre brushed the consideration of it from his mind.

"And for clothes, Jack?"

They were both dumb. It had been years since she had worn the clothes of a woman. She had danced with the men of her father's gang many a time while some one whistled or played on a mouth-organ, and there was the time they rode into Beulah Ferry and held up the dance-hall, and Jim Boone and Mansie lined up the crowd with their hands held high above their heads while the sweating musicians played fast and furious and Jack and Pierre danced down the center of the hall.

She had danced many a time, but never in the clothes of a woman; so they stared, mutely puzzled.

A thought came first to Jacqueline. It obliterated even the memory of the yellow-haired girl and set her eyes dancing. She stepped close and murmured her suggestion in the ear of Pierre. Whatever it was, it made his jaw set hard and brought grave lines into his face.

She stepped back, asking: "Well?"

"We'll do it. What a little demon you are, Jack!"

"Then we'll have to start now. There's barely time.

They ran from the room together, and as they