In another moment Pierre found himself looking up to the giant. No mask could cover that long, twisting mark of white down his cheek, nor hide the square set of the jaw, nor dim the steady eyes. And there came to Pierre an exceedingly great uneasiness in his right hand, and a twitching of the fingers low down on his thigh where the familiar holster should have hung. His left hand rose, following the old instinct, and touched beneath his throat where the cold cross lay. He was saying easily: "This is your dance, isn't it?" "Right, Bud," answered the big man in a mellow voice as great as his size. "Sorry I can't swap partners with you, but I hunt alone." An overwhelming desire to get a distance between himself and this huge unknown came to Pierre. He said: "There goes the music. You're off." And the other, moving toward Jack, leaned down a little and murmured at the ear of the outlaw: "Thanks, Pierre." Then he was gone, and Jacqueline was laughing over his shoulder back to Pierre. Through his daze and through the rising clamor of the music, a voice said beside him: "You look sort of sick, dude. Who's your friend?" "Don't you know him?" asked Pierre. "No more than I do you; but I've ridden the range for ten years around here, and I know that he's new to these parts. If I'd ever glimpsed him before, I'd remember him. He'd be a bad man in a mix, eh?" And Pierre answered with devout earnestness: "He would." "But where'd you buy those duds, pal? Hey, look! Here's what I've been waiting for--the Barneses and the girl that's visitin' 'em from the East." "What girl?" "Look!" The Barnes group was passing through the door, and last came the unmistakable form of Dick Wilbur, masked, but not masked enough to hide his familiar smile or cover the well-known sound of his laughter as it drifted to Pierre across the hall, and on his arm was a girl in an evening dress of blue, with a small, black mask across her eyes, and deep-golden hair. Pausing before she swung into the dance with Wilbur, she made a gesture with the white arm, and looked up laughing to big, handsome Dick. Pierre trembled with a red rage when he saw the hands of Wilbur about her. Dick, in passing, marked Pierre's stare above the heads of the crowd, and frowned with trouble. The hungry eyes of Pierre followed them as they circled the hall again; and this time Wilbur, perhaps fearing that something had gone wrong with Pierre, steered close to the edge of the dancing crowd and looked inquisitively across. He leaned and spoke to the girl, and she turned her head, smiling, to Pierre. Then the smile went out, and even despite the mask, he saw her eyes widen. She stopped and slipped from the arm of Wilbur, and came step by step slowly toward him like one walking in her sleep. There, by the edge of the dancers, with the noise of the music and the shuffling feet to cover them, they met. The hands she held to him were cold and trembling. "Is it you?" "It is I."