Page:RidersOfSilences - Max Brand.djvu/103

Rh and still the room, watching that little tragedy, was breathless.

"Jack, don't you love your old dad any more?"

She whirled and ran to him with outstretched arms and clung to him, sobbing.

"Oh, dad—dear dad," she groaned. "You've broken my heart; you've broken my heart!"

The others filed softly out of the room and stood bareheaded under the winter sky.

Bud Mansie, his meager face transformed with wonder, said: "Fellers, what d'you know about it? Our Jack's grown up."

And Black Gandil answered: "Look at this Pierre frowning at the ground. It was him that changed her."