The name came like a rifle shot and Mary rose in turn and shrank back toward the wall, for there was murder in the lighted black eyes which stared after her and crumbling fear in her own heart at the thought of McGurk hovering near,—of the peril that impended for Pierre. Of the nights in the valley of the Crow she refused to let herself think. Cold beads of perspiration stood out on her forehead.
"You fool—you fool! Damn your pretty pink-and-white face—you've done for us all! Get out!"
Mary moved readily enough toward the door, her teeth chattering with terror in the face of this fury.
Jack continued wildly: "Done for us all; got us all as good as under the sod. I wish you was in— Get out quick, or I'll forget—you're a woman!"
He broke into a shrill, hysterical laughter, which stopped short and finished in a heart-broken whisper: "Pierre!"
CHAPTER XXXI
LAUGHTER
At that Mary, who stood with her hand on the latch, whirled and stood wide-eyed, her astonishment greater than her fear, for that whisper told her a thousand things.
Through her mind all the time that she stayed in the cabin there had passed a curious surmise that this very place might be the covert of Pierre le Rouge—he of the dark red hair and the keen blue eyes. There was a fatality about it, for the invisible Power which had led her up the valley of the Old Crow surely would not make mistakes.