A cry of delight answered him. He threw caution to the winds and advanced on her. He found her kneeling above a pool of water fed by the soft sliding little stream from the spring. With one hand she held a burning branch by way of a torch, and with the other she patted her hair into shape and finally thrust the comb into the glittering, heavy coils. She started, as if she felt his presence. "P-P-Pierre!" "Yes?" "Look!" She stood with the torch high overhead, and he saw a beauty so glorious that he closed his eyes involuntarily and still he saw the vision in the dull-green gown, with the scarf of old gold about her dazzling white shoulders. And there were two lights, the barbaric red of the jewels in her hair, and the black shimmer of her eyes. He drew back a step more. It was a picture to be looked at from a distance. She ran to him with a cry of dismay: "Pierre, what's wrong with me?" His arms went round her of their own accord. It was the only place they could go. And all this beauty was held in the circle of his will. "It isn't that, but you're so wonderful, Jack, so glorious, that I hardly know you. You're like a different person." He felt the warm body trembling, and the thought that it was not entirely from the cold set his heart beating like a trip-hammer. What he felt was so strange to him that he stepped back in a vague alarm, and then laughed. She stood with an expectant smile. "Jack, how am I to risk you in the arms of all the strangers in that dance? "It's late. Listen!" She cupped a hand at her ear and leaned to listen. Up from the hollow below them came a faint strain of music, a very light sound that was drowned a moment later by the solemn rushing of the wind through the great trees above them. They looked up of one accord. "Pierre, what was that?" "Nothing; the wind in the branches, that's all." "It was a hushing sound. It was like--it was like a warning, almost." But he was already turning away, and she followed him hastily. CHAPTER 21 Jacqueline could never ride a horse in that gown, or even sit sidewise in the saddle without hopelessly crumpling it, so they walked to the schoolhouse. It was a slow progress, for she had to step lightly and carefully for fear of the slippers. He took her bare arm and helped her; he would never have thought of it under ordinary conditions, but since she had put on this gown she was greatly changed to him, no longer the wild, free rider of the mountain-desert, but a defenseless, strangely weak being. Her strength was now something other than the skill to ride hard and shoot straight and quick. So they came to the schoolhouse and reached the long line of buggies, buckboards, and, most of all, saddled horses. They crowded the horse-shed where the school children stabled their mounts in the winter weather. They were tethered to the posts of the fence; they were grouped about the trees.