CHAPTER XVII
BLACK GANDIL
The knowledge of the torment he was inflicting made the eye of BlackGandil bright with triumph.
He continued, and now every man in the room was sitting up, alert, withgloomy eyes fixed upon Pierre: "Patterson is the first, but he ain'tthe last. He's just the start. Who's next?" He looked slowly around.
"Is it you, Bud, or you, Phil, or you, Jim, or maybe me?"
And Pierre said: "What makes you think you know that trouble's coming,Morgan?"
"Because my blood runs cold in me when I look at you."
Red Pierre grew rigid and straightened in a way they knew.
"Damn you, Gandil, I've borne with you and your croaking too long, d'yehear? Too long, and I'll hear no more of it, understand?"
"Why not? You'll hear from me every time I sight you in the offing.You c'n lay to that!"
The others were tense, ready to spring for cover, but Boone reared uphis great figure.
"Don't answer him, Pierre. You, Gandil, shut your face or I'll breakye in two."
The fierce eyes of Pierre le Rouge never wavered from his victim, buthe answered: "Keep out of this. This is my party. I'll tell you whyyou'll stop gibbering, Gandil."
He made a pace forward and every man shrank a little away from him.
"Because the cold in your blood is part hate and more fear, BlackGandil."
The eyes of Gandil glared back for an instant. With all his soul heyearned for the courage to pull his gun, but his arm was numb; he couldnot move it, and his eyes wavered and fell.
The shaggy gray head of Jim Boone fell likewise, and he was murmuringto his savage old heart:
"The good days are over. They'll never rest till one of 'em is dead,and then the rest will take sides and we'll have gun-plays at night.Seven years, and then to break up!"
Dick Wilbur, as usual, was the pacifier. He strode across the room,and the sharp sound of his heels on the creaking floor broke thetension. He said softly to Pierre: "You've raised hell enough. Nowlet's go up and get Jack down here to undo what you've just finished.Besides, you've got to ask her for that dance, eh?"
The glance of Pierre still lingered on Gandil as he turned and followedWilbur up the complaining stairs to the one habitable room in thesecond story of the house. It was set aside for the use of Jacqueline.
At the door Wilbur said: "Shrug your shoulders back; you look as if youwere going to jump at something. And wipe the wolf-look off your face.After all, Jack's a girl, not a gun-fighter."
Then he knocked and opened the door.
She lay face down on her bunk, her head turned from them and toward thewall. Slender and supple and strong, it was still only the size of herboots and her hands that would make one look at her twice and thenguess that this was a woman, for she was dressed, from trousers even tothe bright bandanna knotted around her throat, like any prosperousrange rider.
Now, to be sure, the thick coils of black hair told her sex, but whenthe broad-brimmed sombrero was pulled well down on her head, when thecartridge-belt and the six-gun were slung about her waist, and most ofall when she spurred her mount recklessly across the hills, no onecould have suspected that this was not some graceful boy born and bredin the mountain-desert, wilful as a young mountain-lion, and asdangerous.
"Sleepy?" called Wilbur.
She waited a moment and then queried with exaggerated impudence: "Well?"
Ennui unspeakable was in that drawling monotone.
"Brace up; I've got news for you."
Her hand moved and all the graceful body, but it was only with a yawn.What need was there to speak? She wished to be alone.
"And I've brought Pierre along to tell you about it.
"Oh!"
And she sat bolt upright with shining eyes. Instantly she rememberedto yawn again, but her glance smiled on them above her hand.
She apologized. "Awfully sleepy, Dick."
But he was not deceived. He said: "There's a dance down near theBarnes place, and Pierre wants you to go with him."
Back tilted her head, and her throat stirred as if she were singing.
"Pierre! A dance?"
He explained: "Dick's lost his head over a girl with yellow hair, andhe wants me to go down and see her. He thought you might want to goalong."
Her face changed like the moon when a cloud blows across it. Beforeshe answered she slipped down on the bunk again, pillowed her headleisurely on her arm, and answered with another slow, insolent yawn:"Thanks! I'm staying home to-night."
Wilbur glared his rage covertly at Pierre, but the latter was blandlyunconscious that he had made any _faux pas_.
He said carelessly: "Too bad. It might be interesting, Jack?"
At his voice she looked up--a sharp and graceful toss of the head.
"What?"
"The girl with the yellow hair."
"Then go ahead and see her. I won't keep you. You don't mind if I goon sleeping? Sit down and be at home."
With this she calmly turned her back again and seemed thoroughlydisposed to carry out her word. Red Pierre flushed a little, watchingher, and he spoke his anger outright: "You're acting like a sulky kid,Jack, not like a man."
It was a habit of his to forget that she was a woman. Without turningher head she answered: "Do you want to know why?"
"You're like a cat showing your claws. Go on! Tell me what the reasonis."
"Because I get tired of you."
In all his life he had never been so scorned. He did not see thecovert grin of Wilbur in the background. He blurted: "Tired?"
"Awfully. You don't mind me being frank, do you, Pierre?"
He could only stammer: "Sometimes I wish to God you were a man, Jack!"
"You don't often remember that I'm a woman."
"What do you mean by that?"
She was silent, but there was a perceptible tremor in the graceful body.
He repeated: "Do you mean that I'm rude or rough with you, Jacqueline?"
Still the silence, but Wilbur was grinning broader than ever. "Answerme!"
She started up and faced him, her face convulsed with rage.
"What do you want me to say? Yes, you are rude--I hate you and yourlot. Go away from me; I don't want you; I hate you all."
And she would have said more, but furious sobs swelled her throat andshe could not speak, but dropped, face down, on the bunk and grippedthe blankets in each hard-set hand. Over her Pierre leaned, utterlybewildered, found nothing that he could say, and then turned andstrode, frowning, from the room. Wilbur hastened after him and caughthim just as the door was closing.
"Come back," he pleaded. "This is the best game I've ever seen. Comeback, Pierre! You've made a wonderful start."
Pierre le Rouge shook off the detaining hand and glared up at Wilbur.
"Don't try irony, Dick. I feel like murder. Think of it! All thistime she's been hating me; and now it's making her weep; think ofit--Jack--weeping!"
"Why, you're a child, Pierre. Go back and take her in your arms andtell her you're going to make her go to the dance."
"Take her in my arms? She'd stab me, there's that much of the devil inher. Don't grin at me and keep chuckling like an utter ass. What'sup, Dick?"
"Don't you see? No, you don't, but it's so plain that a baby of threeyears could understand. She's in love with you."
"With me?"
"With Red Pierre."
"You can't make a joke out of Jack with me. You ought to know that."
"Pierre, I'd as soon make a joke out of a wildcat."
"Grinning still? Wilbur, I'm taking more from you than I would fromany man on the ranges."
"I know you are, and that's why I'm stringing this out because I'mgoing to have a laugh--ha, ha, ha!--the rest of my life--ha, ha, ha,ha!--whenever I think of this--ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!"
The burst of merriment left him speechless, and Pierre, glowering, hisright hand twitching dangerously close to that hols
ter at his hip. Hesobered, and said: "Go in and talk to her and prove that I'm right."
"Ask Jack if she loves me? Why, I'd as soon ask any man the samequestion."
The big long rider was instantly curious.
"Has she never appealed to you as a woman, Pierre?"
"How could she? I've watched her ride; I've watched her use her gun;I've slept rolled in the same blankets with her, back to back; I'vewalked and talked and traveled with her as if she were my kid brother."
Wilbur nodded, as if the miracle were being slowly unfolded before hiseyes.
"And you've never noticed anything different about her? Never watcheda little lift and grace in her walk that no man could ever have; neverheard her laugh in a voice that no man could ever imitate; never seenher color change just because you, Pierre, came near or went far awayfrom her?"
"Because of me?" asked the bewildered Pierre.
"You fool, you! Why, lad, I've been kept amused by you two for a wholeevening, watching her play for your attention, saving her best smilesfor you, keeping her best attitudes for you, and letting all therichness of her voice go out for--a block--a stone. Gad, the thingstill doesn't seem possible! Pierre, one instant of that girl wouldgive romance to a man's whole life."
"This girl? This Jack of ours?"
"He hasn't seen it! Why, if I hadn't seen years ago that she had tiedher hands and turned her heart over to you, I'd have been down on myknees to her a thousand times, begging her for a smile, a shadow of ahope."
"If I didn't know you, Dick, I'd say that you were partly drunk andpartly a fool."
"Here's a hundred--a cold hundred that I'm right. I'll make it athousand, if you dare."
"Dare what?"
"Ask her to marry you."
"Marry--me?"
"Damn it all--well, then--whatever you like. But I say that if you goback into that room and sit still and merely look at her, she'll be inyour arms within five minutes."
"I hate to take charity, but a bet is a bet. That hundred is in mypocket already. It's a go!"
They shook hands.
"But what will be your proof, Dick, whether I win or lose?"
"Your face, blockhead, when you come out of the room."
Upon this Pierre pondered a moment, and then turned toward the door.He set his hand on the knob, faltered, and finally set his teeth andentered the room.