"When I see you out here on your horse with your rifle in the boot and your six-gun swinging low in the scabbard, and riding the fastest bit of horseflesh on the ranges," explained Wilbur, "I get to thinking that you're pretty much king of the mountains; but in certain respects, Pierre, you're a child." Pierre stirred uneasily in his saddle. A man must be well over thirty before he can withstand ridicule. He said dryly: "I've an idea that I know Jack's about as well as the next man." "Let it drop," said Wilbur, sober again, for he 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 of the wind, and the southern portion of the house, though still erect, seemed tottering and rotten throughout and holding together until at a final blow the whole structure would crumple at once. To the stables, hardly less ruinous than the big house, Pierre and Wilbur took their horses, and a series of whinnies greeted them from the stalls. To look down that line of magnificent heads raised above the partitions of the stalls was like glancing into the stud of some crowned head who made hunting and racing his chief end in life, for these were animals worthy of the sport of kings. They were chosen each from among literal hundreds, and they were cared for far more tenderly than the masters cared for themselves. There was a reason in it, for upon their speed and endurance depended the life of the outlaw. Moreover, the policy of Jim Boone was one of actual "long riding."