CHAPTER 34.
It came back to her like a threat; it beat at her ears and roused her, that continually diminishing cry: "McGurk!" It went down the valley, and Mary Brown, and McGurk with her, perhaps, had gone up the gorge, but it would be a matter of a short time before Pierre le Rouge discovered that there was no camp-fire to be sighted in the lower valley and whirled to storm back up the canyon with that battle-cry: "McGurk!" still on his lips.
And if the two met she knew the result.

Seven strong men had ridden together, fought together, and one by one they had fallen, disappeared like the white smoke of the camp-fire, jerked off into thin air by the wind, until only one remained.
How clearly she could see them all! Bud Mansie, meager, lean, with a shifting eye; Garry Patterson, of the red, good-natured face; Phil Branch, stolid and short and muscled like a giant; Handsome Dick Wilbur on his racing bay; Black Gandil, with his villainies from the South Seas like an invisible mantle of awe about him; and her father, the stalwart, gray Boone.
All these had gone, and there remained only Pierre le Rouge to follow in the steps of the six who had gone before.
She crawled to the door, feeble in mind and shuddering of body like a runner who has spent his last energy in a long race, and drew it open.
The wind blew up the valley from the Old Crow, but no sound came back to her, no calling from Pierre; and over her rose the black pyramid of the western peak of the Twin Bears like a monstrous nose pointing stiffly toward the stars.
She closed the door, dragged herself back to her feet, and stood with her shoulders leaning against the wall.

Her weakness was not weariness--it was as if something had been taken from her.

She wondered at herself somewhat vaguely.

Surely she had never been like this before, with the singular coldness about her heart and the feeling of loss, of infinite loss.
What had she lost?
She began to search her mind for an answer.