Riders of the Silences by John Frederick Read Free Book Online

helplessly. He had stepped in some hole and the
bone was broken cleanly across.
    The rider slipped from the saddle and stood facing the roan, which pricked
its ears forward and struggled once more to regain its feet. The effort was
hopeless, and Pierre took the broken leg and felt the rough edges of the
splintered bone through the skin. The animal, as if it sensed that the man was
trying to do it some good, nosed his shoulder and whinnied softly.
    Pierre stepped back and drew his revolver. The bullet would do quickly what
the cold would accomplish after lingering hours of torture, yet, facing those
pricking ears and the brave trust of the eyes, he was blinded by a mist and
could not aim. He had to place the muzzle of the gun against the roan's temple
and pull the trigger. When he turned his back he was the only living thing
within the white arms of the hills.
    Yet, when the next hill was behind him, he had already forgotten the second
life which he put out that night, for regret is the one sorrow which never
dodges the footsteps of the hunted. Like all his brotherhood of Cain, Pierre le
Rouge pressed forward across the mountain-desert with his face turned toward the
brave to-morrow. In the evening of his life, if he should live to that time, he
would walk and talk with God.
    Now he had no mind save for the bright day coming.
    He had been riding with the wind and had scarcely noticed its violence in his
headlong course. Now he felt it whipping sharply at his back and increasing with
each step. Overhead the sky was clear, pitilessly clear. It seemed to give
vision for the wind and cold to seek him out, and the moon made his following
shadow long and black across the snow.
    The wind quickened rapidly to a gale that cut off the surface of the snow and
whipped volleys of the small particles level with the surface. It cut the neck
of Red Pierre, and the gusts struck his shoulders with staggering force like
separate blows, twisting him a little from side to side.
    Coming from the direction of Morgantown, it seemed as if the vengeance for
Diaz was following the slayer. Once he turned and laughed hard and short in the
teeth of the wind, and shook his fist back at Morgantown and all the avenging
powers of the law.
    Yet he was glad to turn away from the face of the storm and stride on
down-wind. Even traveling with the gale grew more and more impossible. The
snowdrifts which the wind picked up and hurried across the hills pressed against
Pierre's back like a great, invisible hand, bowing him as if beneath a burden.
In the hollows the labor was not so great, but when he approached a summit the
gale screamed in his ear and struck him savagely.
    For all his optimism, for all his young, undrained strength, a doubt began to
grow in the mind of Pierre le Rouge. At length, remembering how that weight of
gold came in his pockets, he slipped his left hand into the bosom of his shirt
and touched the icy metal of the cross. Almost at once he heard, or thought he
heard, a faint, sweet sound of singing.
    The heart of Red Pierre stopped. For he knew the visions which came to men
perishing with cold; but he grew calmer again in a moment. This touch of cold
was nothing compared with whole months of hard exposure which he had endured in
the northland. It had not the edge. If it were not for the wind it was scarcely
a threat to life. Moreover, the singing sounded no more. It had been hardly more
than a phrase of music, and it must have been a deceptive murmur of the wind.
    After all, a gale brought wilder deceptions than that. Some men had actually
heard voices declaiming words in such a wind. He himself had heard them tell
their stories. So he leaned forward again and gave his stanch heart to the task.
Yet once more he stopped, for this time the singing came clearly, sweetly to
him.
    There was no doubt of it now. Of course it was wildly impossible, absurd; but
beyond all question he heard the voice of a woman,