Riders of the Silences Part 40

"Why, Jack, you're red and white in patches. I'm interested."

He sat up.

"I'm more than interested. The story, Jack."

"Well, I suppose I have to tell you. I did a fool thing today. Took a little gallop down the trail, and on my way back I met a girl sitting in her saddle with her face in her hands, crying her heart out. Poor kid! She'd come up in a hunting party and got separated from the rest.

"So I got sympathetic--"

"About the first time on record that you've been sympathetic with another girl, eh?"

"Shut up, Pierre! And I brought her in here--right into your cabin, without thinking what I was doing, and gave her a cup of coffee. Of course it was a pretty greenhorn trick, but I guess no harm will come of it. The girl thinks it's a prospector's cabin--which it was once.

She went on her way, happy, because I told her of the right trail to get back with her gang. That's all there is to it. Are you mad at me for letting anyone come into this place?"

"Mad?" He smiled. "No, I think that's one of the best lies you ever told me, Jack."

Their eyes met, hers very wide, and his keen and steady. Then she gripped at the b.u.t.t of her gun, an habitual trick when she was very angry, and cried: "Do I have to sit here and let you call me--that?

Pierre, pull a few more tricks like that and I'll call for a new deal. Get me?"

She rose, whirled, and threw herself sullenly on her bunk. "Come back," said Pierre. "You're more scared than angry. Why are you afraid, Jack?"

"It's a lie--I'm not afraid!"

"Let me see that glove again."

"You've seen it once--that's enough."

He whistled carelessly, rolling a cigarette. After he lighted it he said: "Ready to talk yet, partner?"

She maintained an obstinate silence, but that sharp eye saw that she was trembling. He set his teeth and then drew several long puffs on his cigarette.

"I'm going to count to ten, pal, and when I finish you're going to tell me everything straight. In the meantime don't stay there thinking up a new lie. I know you too well, and if you try the same thing on me again--"

"Well?" she snarled, all the tiger coming back in her voice.

"You'll talk, all right. Here goes the count: One--two--three--four--"

As he counted, leaving a long drag of two or three seconds between numbers, there was not a change in the figure of the girl. She still lay with her back turned on him, and the only expressive part that showed was her hand. First it lay limp against her hip, but as the monotonous count proceeded it gathered to a fist.

"Five--six--seven--"

It seemed that he had been counting for hours, his will against her will, the man in him against the woman in her, and during the pauses between the sound of his voice the very air grew charged with waiting.

To the girl the wait for every count was like the wait of the doomed traitor when he stands facing the firing-squad, watching the glimmer of light go down the aimed rifles.

For she knew the face of the man who sat there counting; she knew how the firelight flared in the dark red of his hair and made it seem like another fire beneath which the blue of the eyes was strangely cold.

Her hand had gathered to a hard-balled fist.

"Eight--nine--"

She sprang up, screaming: "No, no, Pierre!" And threw out her arms to him.

"Ten."

She whispered: "It was the girl with yellow hair--Mary Brown."

CHAPTER 33

It was as if she had said: "Good morning!" in the calmest of voices.

There was no answer in him, neither word nor expression, and out of ten sharp-eyed men, nine would have pa.s.sed him by without noting the difference; but the girl knew him as the monk knows his prayers or the Arab his horse, and a solemn, deep despair came over her. She felt like the drowning, when the water closes over their heads for the last time.

He puffed twice again at the cigarette and then flicked the b.u.t.t into the fire. When he spoke it was only to say: "Did she stay long?"

But his eyes avoided her. She moved a little so as to read his face, but when he turned again and answered her stare she winced. "Not very long, Pierre."

"Ah," he said. "I see! It was because she didn't dream that this was the place I lived in."

It was the sort of heartless, torturing questioning which was once the crudest weapon of the inquisition. With all her heart she fought to raise her voice above the whisper whose very sound accused her, but could not. She was condemned to that voice as the man bound in nightmare is condemned to walk slowly, slowly, though the terrible danger is racing toward him, and the safety which he must reach lies only a dozen steps, a dozen mortal steps away.

She said in that voice: "No; of course she didn't dream it."

"And you, Jack, had her interests at heart--her best interests, poor girl, and didn't tell her?"

Her hands went out to him in mute appeal.

"Please, Pierre--don't!"

"Is something troubling you, Jack?"

"You are breaking my heart."

"Why, by no means! Let's sit here calmly and chat about the girl with the yellow hair. To begin with--she's rather pleasant to look at, don't you think?"

"I suppose she is."

"Hm! Rather poor taste not to be sure of it. Well, let it go. You've always had rather queer taste in women, Jack; but, of course, being a long-rider, you haven't seen much of them. At least her name is delightful--Mary Brown! You've no idea how often I've repeated it aloud to myself--Mary Brown!"

"I hate her!"

"You two didn't have a very agreeable time of it? By the way, she must have left in rather a hurry to forget her glove, eh?"

"Yes, she ran--like a coward."

"Ah?" "Like a trembling coward. How can you care for a white-faced little fool like that? Is she your match? Is she your mate?"

He considered a moment, as though to make sure that he did not exaggerate.