"No, I guess he thinks as much of you now as he ever did." "You are lying to me," said the girl faintly, but the terror in her eyes said another thing. "He thinks as much of you as he ever did. He thinks as much of you as he does of the rest of the soft-handed, pretty-faced fools who listen to him and believe him. I suppose--" He broke off to laugh heartily again, with a jarring, forced note which escaped Mary. "I suppose that he made love to you one minute and the next told you that bad luck--something about the cross--kept him away from you?" Each slow word was like a blow of a fist. Mary closed her eyes to shut out the scorn of that handsome, boyish face; closed her eyes to summon out from the dark of her mind the picture of Pierre le Rouge as he had told her of his love; and then she heard the voice of Pierre renouncing her. She opened her eyes again. She cried: "It is all a lie! If he is not true, there's no truth in the world." "If you come down to that," said the boy coldly, "there ain't much wasted this side of the Rockies. It's about as scarce as rain." He continued in an almost kindly tone: "What would you do with a wild man like Red Pierre? Run along; git out of here; grab your horse, and beat it back to civilization; there ain't no place for you up here in the wilderness." "What would I do with him?" cried the girl. "Love him!" It seemed as though her words, like whips, lashed the boy back to his murderous anger. He lay with blazing eyes, watching her for a moment, too moved to speak. At last he propped himself on one elbow, shook a small, white-knuckled fist under the nose of Mary, and cried: "Then what would he do with you?" He went on: "Would he wear you around his neck like a watch charm?" "I'd bring him back with me--back into the East, and he would be lost among the crowds and never suspected of his past." "_You'd_ bring Pierre anywhere? Say, lady, that's like hearing the sheep talk about leading the wolf around by the nose. If all the men in the ranges can't catch him, or make him budge an inch out of the way he's picked, do you think you could stir him?" Jeering laughter shook him; it seemed that he would never be done with his laughter, yet there was a hint of the hysterically mirthless in it. It came to a jarring stop. He said: "D'you think he's just bein' driven around by chance? Lady, d'you think he even _wants_ to get out of this life of his? No, he loves it! He loves the danger. D'you think a man that's used to breathing in a whirlwind can get used to living in calm air? It can't be done!" And the girl answered steadily: "For every man there is one woman, and for that woman the man will do strange things." "You poor, white-faced, whimpering fool," snarled the boy, gripping at his gun again, "d'you dream that you're the one that's picked out for Pierre? No, there's another!" "Another? A woman who--"