“But if he finds us and has to fight us both—I
shoot as straight as a man, Pierre!”
“Straighter than most. And you’re
a better pal than any I’ve ever ridden with.
But I must go alone. It’s only a lone wolf
that will ever bring down McGurk. Think how he’s
rounded us up like a herd of cattle and brought us
down one by one.”
“By getting each man alone and killing him from
behind.”
“From the front, Jack. No, he’s fought
square with each one. The wounds of Black Gandil
were all in front, and when McGurk and I meet it’s
going to be face to face.”
Her tone changed, softened: “But what of
me, Pierre?”
“You have to leave this life. Go down to
the city, Jack. Live like a woman; marry some
lucky fellow; be happy.”
“Can you leave me so easily?”
“No, it’s hard, devilish hard to part
with a pal like you, Jack; but all the rest of my
life I’ve got hard things to face, partner.”
“Partner!” she repeated with an indescribable
emphasis. “Pierre, I can’t leave
you.”
“Why?”
“I’m afraid to go: Let me stay!”
He said gloomily: “No good will come of
it.”
“I’ll never trouble you—never!”
“No, the bad luck comes on the people who are
with me, but never on me. It’s struck them
all down, one by one; your turn is next, Jack.
If I could leave the cross behind—”
He covered his face and groaned: “But I
don’t dare; I don’t dare! I have
to face McGurk. Jack, I hate myself for it, but
I can’t help it. I’m afraid of McGurk,
afraid of that damned white face, that lowered, fluttering
eyelid, that sneering mouth. Without the cross
to bring me luck, how could I meet him? But while
I keep the cross there’s ruin and hell without
end for everyone with me.”
She was white and shaking. She said: “I’m
not afraid. I’ve one friend left; there’s
nothing else to care for.”
“So it’s to be this way, Jack?”
“This way, and no other.”
“Partner, I’m glad. My God, Jack,
what a man you would have made!”
Their hands met and clung together, and her head had
drooped, perhaps in acquiescence.
Dick Wilbur, telling Mary how Pierre had cut himself
adrift, did not even pretend to sorrow, and she listened
to him with her eyes fixed steadily on his own.
As a matter of fact, she had shown neither hope nor
excitement from the moment he came back to her and
started to tell his message. But if she showed
neither hope nor excitement for herself, surely she
gave Dick still fewer grounds for any optimistic foresights.
So he finished gloomily: “And as far as
I can make out, Pierre is right. There’s
some rotten bad luck that follows him. It may
not be the cross—I don’t suppose
you believe in superstition like that, Miss Brown?”
She said: “It saved my life.”
