Red Pierre started, and then frowned.
"Irritates you a little, eh? Well, a woman is like a spur to most men."
He added, with a momentary gloom: "God knows, I bear the marks of 'em."
He raised his head, as if he looked up in response to his thought.
"But there's a difference with this girl. I've named the quality of her before—a fragrance, you know, that disarms a man, and like a fragrance there's just a touch of melancholy about her and an appeal that follows after you when she's gone."
Pierre looked to his friend with some alarm, for there was a saying among the followers of Boone that a woman would be the downfall of big Dick Wilbur again, as a woman had been his downfall before. The difference would be that this fall must be his last.
And Wilbur went on: "She's Eastern, Pierre, and out here visiting the daughter of old Barnes who owns about a thousand miles of range, you know. How long will she be here? That's the question I'm trying to answer for her. I met her riding over the hills—she was galloping along a ridge, and she rode her way right into my heart. Well, I'm a fool, of course, but about this girl I can't be wrong. To-night I'm taking her to a masquerade."
He pulled his horse to a full stop.
"Pierre, you have to come with me."