He laughed without mirth, and the sound stopped abruptly.
"This is the message in her own words: 'I love him, Dick, and there's nothing in the world for me without him. Bring him back to me. I don't care how; but bring him back.' So tell Jack to ride the trail alone to-day and go back with me. I give her up, not freely, but because I know there's no hope for me."
But Pierre answered: "Wherever I've gone there's been luck for me and hell for every one around me. I lived with a priest, Dick, and left him when I was nearly old enough to begin repaying his care. I came South and found a father and lost him the same day. I gambled for money with which to bury him, and a man died that night and another was hurt. I escaped from the town by riding a horse to death. I was nearly killed in a landslide, and now the men who saved me from that are done for.
"It's all one story, the same over and over. Can I carry a fortune like that back to her? Dick, it would haunt me by day and by night. She would be the next. I know it as I know that I'm sitting in the saddle here. That's my answer. Carry it back to her."
"I won't lie and tell you I'm sorry, because I'm a fool and still have a ghost of a hope, but this will be hard news to tell her, and I'd rather give five years of life than face the look that will come in her eyes."
"I know it, Dick."
"But this is final?"
"It is."
"Then good-bye again, and—God bless you, Pierre."
"And you, old fellow."