Free Riders of the Silences by John Frederick

try till rattlers got tame, but it'd take ten like you to make one
like Hal. He was dad's own sonhe was my brother."
    The sob came openly now, and the tears were a bright mist in the boy's eyes.
    "What's your name?"
    "Pierre."
    "Pierre? I suppose I got to learn it."
    "I suppose so." And he edged farther forward, so that he was sitting only on
the edge of the bunk.
    "Please do." And he gathered his feet under him, ready for a spring forward
and a grip at the boy's threatening rifle.
    Jack had canted his head a little to one side, smiling faintly for the joy of
the memory.
    "Did you ever see a horse that was gentle and yet had never been ridden, or
his spirit broke, Pierre"
    Here Pierre made his leap swift as some bobcat of the northern woods; his
hand whipped out as lightning fast as the striking paw of the lynx, and the gun
was jerked from the hands of Jack. Not before the boy clutched at it with a cry
of horror, but the force of the pull sent him lurching to the floor and broke
his grip.
    He was up in an instant, however, and a knife of ugly length glittered in his
hand; as he sprang at Pierre his lips were as white as the teeth over which they
snarled.
    Pierre tossed aside the rifle and met the attack bare-handed. Deadly swift
was the thrust of the knife, but compared with the motion of Pierre it was as
slow as tame things are when they are likened to the wild.
    He caught the knife-bearing hand at the wrist and under his grip the hand
loosened its hold and the steel tinkled on the floor. His other arm caught the
body of Jack in a mighty vise.
    There was a brief and futile struggle, and a hissing of breath in the silence
till the hat tumbled from the head of Jack and down over the shoulders streamed
a torrent of silken black hair.
    Pierre stepped back. This was the meaning, then, of the strangely small feet
and hands and the low music of the voice. It was the body of a girl that he had
held, and his arm still tingled from the finger-tips to the shoulder.
     
     
     
CHAPTER XI
JACK GROWS UP
    It was not fear nor shame that made the eyes of Jacqueline so wide as she
stared past Pierre toward the door. He glanced across his shoulder, and blocking
the entrance to the room, literally filling the doorway, was the bulk of Jim
Boone.
    "Seems as if I was sort of steppin' in on a little family party," he said.
"I'm sure glad you two got acquainted so quick. Jack, how did you and What the
hell's your name, lad?"
    "He tricked me, dad, or he would never have got the gun away from me.
Thisthis Pierrethis beasthe got me to talk of Hal till my eyes filled up and
I couldn't see. Then he stole"
    "The point," said Jim Boone coldly, "is that he got the gun. Run along, Jack.
You ain't so growed up as I was thinkin'. Or hold onmaybe you're more grown up.
Which is it? Are you turnin' into a woman, Jack?"
    She whirled on Pierre in a white fury.
    "You see? You see what you've done? He'll never trust me againnever! Pierre,
I hate you. I'll always hate you. And if Hal were here"
    A storm of sobs and tears cut her short, and she disappeared through the
door. Boone and Pierre stood regarding each other critically.
    The boy spoke first: "You're not as big as I expected."
    "I'm plenty big; but you're older than I thought."
    "Too old for what you want of me. The girl told me what that was."
    "Not too old to be made what I want."
    And his hands passed through a significant gesture of moulding the empty air.
The boy met his eye dauntlessly.
    "I suppose," he said, "that I've a pretty small chance of getting away."
    "Just about none, Pierre. Come here."
    Pierre stepped closer and looked down the hall into another room. There,
about a table, sat the five grimmest riders of the mountain desert that he had
even seen. They were such men as one could judge at a glance, and Pierre made
that instinctive motion for his six-gun.
    "The girl," Jim Boone was saying, "kept you pretty busy tryin' to make a
break, and if she could do