CHAPTER 30.
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.

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.
In her search for Pierre, Providence brought her to this place, and Providence could not be wrong.

This, a vague emotion stirring in her somewhere between reason and the heart, grew to an almost certain knowledge as she heard the whisper, the faint, heartbroken whisper: "Pierre!" And when she turned to the boy again, noting the shirts and the chaps hanging at the wall, she knew they belonged to Pierre as surely as if she had seen him hang them there.
The fingers of Jack were twisted around the butt of his revolver, white with the intensity of the pressure.
Now he cried: "Get out! You've done your work; get out!" But Mary stepped straight toward the murderous, pale face.

"I'll stay," she said, "and wait for Pierre." The boy blanched.
"Stay ?" he echoed.
The heart of Mary went out to this trusted companion who feared for his friend.
She said gently: "Listen; I've come all this way looking for Pierre, but not to harm him or to betray him, I'm his friend.

Can't you trust me Jack ?" "Trust you?
No more than I'll trust what came with you!" And the fierce black eyes lingered on Mary and then fled past her toward the door, as if the boy debated hotly and silently whether or not it would be better to put an end to this intruder, but stayed his hand, fearing that Power which had followed her up the valley of the Old Crow.
It was that same invisible guardian who made Mary strong now; it was like the hand of a friend on her shoulder, like the voice of a friend whispering reassuring words at her ear.