“Jack, how am I to risk you in the arms of all
the strangers in that dance?
“It’s late. Listen!”
She cupped a hand at her ear and leaned to listen.
Up from the hollow below them came a faint strain
of music, a very light sound that was drowned a moment
later by the solemn rushing of the wind through the
great trees above them.
They looked up of one accord.
“Pierre, what was that?”
“Nothing; the wind in the branches, that’s
all.”
“It was a hushing sound. It was like—it
was like a warning, almost.”
But he was already turning away, and she followed
him hastily.
Jacqueline could never ride a horse in that gown,
or even sit sidewise in the saddle without hopelessly
crumpling it, so they walked to the schoolhouse.
It was a slow progress, for she had to step lightly
and carefully for fear of the slippers. He took
her bare arm and helped her; he would never have thought
of it under ordinary conditions, but since she had
put on this gown she was greatly changed to him, no
longer the wild, free rider of the mountain-desert,
but a defenseless, strangely weak being. Her
strength was now something other than the skill to
ride hard and shoot straight and quick.
So they came to the schoolhouse and reached the long
line of buggies, buckboards, and, most of all, saddled
horses. They crowded the horse-shed where the
school children stabled their mounts in the winter
weather. They were tethered to the posts of the
fence; they were grouped about the trees.
It was a prodigious gathering, and a great affair
for the mountain-desert. They knew this even
before they had set foot within the building.
They stopped here and adjusted their masks carefully.
They were made from a strip of black lining which
Jack had torn from one of the coats in the trunk which
lay far back in the hills.
Those masks had to be tied firmly and well, for some
jester might try to pull away that of Pierre, and
if his face were seen, it would be death—a
slaughter without defense, for he had not been able
to conceal his big Colt in these tight-fitting clothes.
Even as it was, there was peril from the moment that
the lights within should shine on that head of dark-red
hair.
As for Jack, there was little fear that she would
be recognized. She was strange even to Pierre
every time he looked down at her, for she had ceased
to be Jack and had become very definitely “Jacqueline.”
But the masks were on; the scarf adjusted about the
throat and bare, shivering shoulders of Jack, and
they stood arm in arm before the door out of which
streamed the voices and the music.
“Are you ready?”
“Yes.”
