CHAPTER IX
RIDERS OF THE SILENCES
Down all the length of the mountain-desert and across its width ofrocks and mountains and valleys and stern plateaus there is a saying:"You can tell a man by the horse he rides." For most other importantthings are apt to go by opposites, which is the usual way in which aman selects his wife. With dogs, for instance--a quiet man is apt towant an active dog, and a tractable fellow may keep the most vicious ofwolf-dogs.
But when it comes to a horse, a man's heart speaks for itself, and ifhe has sufficient knowledge of the king of beasts he will choose asympathetic mount. A dainty woman loves a neat-stepping saddle-horse;a philosopher likes a nodding, stumble-footed nag which will jog allday long and care not a whit whether it goes up dale or down.
To know the six wild riders who galloped over the white reaches of themountain-desert this night, certainly their horses should be studiedfirst and the men secondly, for the one explained the other.
They came in a racing triangle. Even the storm at its height could notdaunt such furious riders. At the point of the triangle thundered amighty black stallion, his muzzle and his broad chest flecked withwhite foam, for he stretched his head out and champed at the bit withears laid flat back, as though even that furious pace gave him noopportunity to use fully his strength.
He was no cleanly cut beauty, but an ugly headed monster with asavagely hooked Roman nose and small, keen eyes, always red at thecorners. A medieval baron in full panoply of plate armor would havechosen such a charger among ten thousand steeds, yet the black stallionneeded all his strength to uphold the unarmored giant who bestrode him,a savage figure.
When the broad brim of his hat flapped up against the wind themoonshine caught at shaggy brows, a cruelly arched nose, thin, straightlips, and a forward-thrusting jaw. It seemed as if nature had hewn himroughly and designed him for a primitive age where he could fight hisway with hands and teeth.
This was Jim Boone. To his right and a little behind him galloped ariderless horse, a beautiful young animal continually tossing its headand looking as if for guidance at the big stallion.
To the left strode a handsome bay with pricking ears. A moundinterfered with his course, and he cleared it in magnificent style thatwould have brought a cheer from the lips of any English lover of thechase.
Straight in the saddle sat Dick Wilbur, and he raised his face a littleto the wind, smiling faintly as if he rejoiced in its fine strength, ashandsome as the horse he rode, as cleanly cut, as finely bred. Themoon shone a little brighter on him than on any others of the six starkriders.
Bud Mansie behind, for instance, kept his head slightly to one side andcursed beneath his breath at the storm and set his teeth at the wind.His horse, delicately formed, with long, slender legs, could not haveendured that charge against the storm save that it constantly edgedbehind the leaders and let them break the wind. It carried less weightthan any other mount of the six, and its strength was cunningly nursedby the rider so that it kept its place, and at the finish it would beas strong as any and swifter, perhaps, for a sudden, short effort, justas Bud Mansie might be numbed through all his nervous, slender body,but never too numb for swift and deadly action.
On the opposite wing of the flying wedge galloped a dust-colored gray,ragged of mane and tail, and vindictive of eye, like its down-headedrider, who shifted his glance rapidly from side to side and watched theground closely before his horse as if he were perpetually prepared fordanger.
He distrusted the very ground over which his mount strode. For allthis he seemed the least formidable of all the riders. To see him passnone could have suspected that this was Black Morgan Gandil.
Last of the crew came two men almost as large as Jim Boone himself, onstrong steady-striding horses. They came last in this crew, but amonga thousand other long-riders they would have ridden first, eitherred-faced, good-humored, loud-voiced Garry Patterson, or Phil Branch,stout-handed, blunt of jaw, who handled men as he had once hammered rediron at the forge.
Each of them should have ridden alone in order to be properlyappreciated. To see them together was like watching a flock of eaglesevery one of which should have been a solitary lord of the air. Butafter scanning that lordly train which followed, the more terribleseemed the rider of the great black horse.
Yet the king was sad, and the reason for his sadness was the riderlesshorse which galloped so freely beside him. His son had ridden thathorse when they set out, and all the way down to the railroad HandsomeHal Boone had kept his mount prancing and curveting and had riddenaround and around tall Dick Wilbur, playing pranks, and had teased hisfather's black until the big stallion lashed out wildly with furiousheels.
It was the memory of this that kept the grave shadow of a smile on thefather's lips for all the sternness of his eyes. He never turned hishead, for, looking straight forward, he could conjure up the laughingvision; but when he glanced to the empty saddle he heard once more thelast unlucky shot fired from the train as they raced off with theirbooty, and saw Hal reel in his saddle and pitch forward; and how he hadtried to check his horse and turn back; and how big Dick Wilbur, andPatterson, and mighty-handed Phil Branch had forced him to go on andleave that form lying motionless on the snow.
At that he groaned, and spurred the black, and so the cavalcade rushedfaster and faster through the night.
They came over a sharp ridge and veered to the side just in time, forall the further slope was a mass of treacherous sand and rubble and rawrocks and mud, where a landslide had stripped the hill to the stone.
As they veered about the ruin and thundered on down to the foot of thehill, Jim Boone threw up his hand for a signal and brought his stallionto a halt on back-braced, sliding legs.
For a metallic glitter had caught his eye, and then he saw, halfcovered by the pebbles and dirt, the figure of a man. He must havebeen struck by the landslide and not overwhelmed by it, but rathercarried before it like a stick in a rush of water. At the outermostedge of the wave he lay with the rocks and dirt washed over him. Booneswung from the saddle and lifted Pierre le Rouge.
The gleam of metal was the cross which his fingers still gripped.Boone examined it with a somewhat superstitious caution, took it fromthe nerveless fingers, and slipped it into a pocket of Pierre's shirt.A small cut on the boy's forehead showed where the stone struck whichknocked him senseless, but the cut still bled--a small trickle--Pierrelived. He even stirred and groaned and opened his eyes, large anddeeply blue.
It was only an instant before they closed, but Boone had seen. Heturned with the figure lifted easily in his arms as if Pierre had beena child fallen asleep by the hearth and now about to be carried off tobed.
And the outlaw said: "I've lost my boy to-night. This here one wasgiven me by the will of--God."
Black Morgan Gandil reined his horse close by, leaned to peer down, andthe shadow of his hat fell across the face of Pierre.
"There's no good comes of savin' shipwrecked men. Leave him where youfound him, Jim. That's my advice. Sidestep a red-headed man. That'swhat I say."
The quick-stepping horse of Bud Mansie came near, and the rider wipedhis blue, stiff lips, and spoke from the side of his mouth, a prisonhabit of the line that moves in the lock-step: "Take it from me, Jim,there ain't any place in our crew for a man you've picked up withoutknowing him beforehand. Let him lay, I say."
But big Dick Wilbur was already leading up the horse of Hal Boone, andinto the saddle Jim Boone swung the inert body of Pierre. The argumentwas settled, for every man of them knew that nothing could turn Booneback from a thing once begun. Yet there were muttered comments thatdrew Black Morgan Gandil and Bud Mansie together.
And Gandil, from the South Seas, growled with averted eyes:
"This is the most fool stunt the chief has ever pulled."
"Right, pal," answered Mansie. "You take a snake in out of the cold,and it bites you when it comes to in the warmth; but the chief hasstarted, and there ain't nothing that'll m
ake him stop, except maybeGod or McGurk."
And Black Gandil answered with his evil, sudden grin: "Maybe McGurk,but not God."
They started on again with Garry Patterson and Dick Wilbur riding closeon either side of Pierre, supporting his limp body. It delayed thewhole gang, for they could not go on faster than a jog-trot. The wind,however, was falling off in violence. Its shrill whistling ceased, atlength, and they went on, accompanied only by the harsh crunching ofthe snow underfoot.