The moment he raised that cross the bull throat of Jim Boone bellowed a command, the poised guns of the gang enforced it, and all the crowd dropped to their knees, leaving the six outlaws scattered about the edges of the mob like sheep dogs around a folding flock, while in the center stood Pierre with white, upturned face and the raised cross. So Martin Ryder was buried with "trimmings," and the gang rode back, laughing and shouting, through the town and up into the safety of the mountains. Election day was fast approaching and therefore the rival candidates for sheriff hastily organized posses and made the usual futile pursuit. In fact, before the pursuit was well under way, Boone and his men sat at their supper table in the cabin. The seventh chair was filled; all were present except Jack, who sulked in her room. Pierre went to her door and knocked. He carried under his arm a package which he had secured in the General Merchandise Store of Morgantown. "We're all waiting for you at the table," he explained. "Just keep on waiting," said the husky voice of Jacqueline. "I've brought you a present." "I hate your presents!" "It's a thing you've wanted for a long time, Jacqueline." Only a stubborn silence. "I'm putting your door a little ajar." "If you dare to come in I'll--" "And I'm leaving the package right here at the entrance. I'm so sorry, Jacqueline, that you hate me." And then he walked off down the hall--cunning Pierre--before she could send her answer like an arrow after him. At the table he arranged an eighth plate and drew up a chair before it. "If that's for Jack," remarked Dick Wilbur, "you're wasting your time. I know her and I know her type. She'll never come out to the table tonight--nor tomorrow, either. I know!" In fact, he knew a good deal too much about girls and women also, did Wilbur, and that was why he rode the long trails of the mountain-desert with Boone and his men. Far south and east in the Bahamas a great mansion stood vacant because he was gone, and the dust lay thick on the carpets and powdered the curtains and tapestries with a common gray. He had built it and furnished it for a woman he loved, and afterward for her sake he had killed a man and fled from a posse and escaped in the steerage of a west-bound ship. Still the law followed him, and he kept on west and west until he reached the mountain-desert, which thinks nothing of swallowing men and their reputations. There he was safe, but someday he would see some woman smile, catch the glimmer of some eye, and throw safety away to ride after her. It was a weakness, but what made a tragic figure of handsome Dick Wilbur was that he knew his weakness and sat still and let fate walk up and overtake him. Yet Pierre le Rouge answered this man of sorrowful wisdom: "In my part of the country men say: 'If you would speak of women let money talk for you.'" And he placed a gold piece on the table. "She will come out to the supper table."