Silvertip (1942) by Max Brand Read Free Book Online

handsome, dark, about twenty or twenty-two years old."
    "That was Pedro Monterey," said the girl. "His father will see you."
    She turned about. One of the vaqueros hurried to take her arm, but she paused and said in her distinct, quiet voice: "I can walk very well by myself. Call the senior."
    Then she passed out of view with the same unhurried step.

    Chapter VII
    Don Artur o SILVER looked around on the stricken faces of the Mexicans who surrounded him. That sorrow was not strange to him, nor the blow which the girl had received so calmly and so deeply. It was right that the man he had killed should have come from such a place as this, with the air of a manor about it. Perhaps the girl was his sister, and these were the adherents of the house. The dead face had been that of an aristocrat, and it was from such a setting as this that he must have come. Long generations of breeding and culture will carve the features with more delicacy, and refine the body itself.
    And the very soul of Silver expanded. If he had undertaken a great task, it was in a worthy cause. But more than ever he was baffled and bewildered. For how could he set his great hands to any task that had been important in the life of that dead man who now had a name-Pedro Mon-terey? Pedrillo, the vaqueros had called him, with an affectionate intonation.
    They still pressed close, watching Silver like so many wolves about a helpless elk. He had put away his useles s gun. Against such numbers it was a folly to show any sign of resistance. The least gesture in such a moment as this would bring the end of him, he knew that perfectly well.
    He made a cigarette, lighted, and began to smoke it.
    The news he brought had entered the house. These vaqueros who stood on guard about him had endured the shock steadily enough, but there were women in the big, sprawling house, and now voices rang out here and there in wild peals of grief that came through the walls as though through compressed lips.
    The vaqueros began to be moved by those audible signs of woe. Some of them started swaying a little from side to side. Voices rose half audibly, bubbling and moaning, struggling in their throats, wordlessly.
    But other words came. He heard them say: "The gringo!" and again: "The gringo dog! The dog!"
    He was the messenger of bad news, and that was enough to insure him a bad reception. Lucky for him if the reaction consisted of words only.
    The hinges of a heavy door grated. And then a slow footfall came across the patio.
    "It is Don Arturo-God help him! God be merciful to him!" Silver heard one of the men murmur.
    All of the Mexicans drew back a little, as though in respect, and in sympathy, while an old man with sweeping silver hair and a pointed gray beard came out into the patio. Time had pinched his shoulders a little, and perhaps it was the flow of hair that made the head seem disproportionately large. All his features were accented, together with the whiteness of his hair, by a band of black cloth which passed across his forehead, to be lost immediately under the flow of his hair. He would be a more imposing figure seated than standing; but even as he stood, he was a man of mark. He walked with a slim cane in his hand, his meager fingers spread out on the round head of it. And as he came to a halt, he stood very straight, as if at attention.
    The blow had fallen on him, and, like the girl, he had received it calmly. The weight of it had not broken him. No doubt there was a deeper shadow under his brows now than there had been a few moments before. Perhap s his lips were pressed more tightly together. But his voice was calm as he said:
    "You are Senor Silver?"
    "I am," said Silver.
    "You come to tell me that Pedro Monterey is dead?"
    "The man who rode that horse-a young man-dark, handsome-" began Silver.
    But the other lifted his hand.
    "What was the manner of his dying, Senior Silver?" he asked.
    The girl had come out from the house. She stood in the shadow of the arcade that