Page:RidersOfSilences - Max Brand.djvu/137

Rh mouth of each were lines which in such silent moments as this one gave an expression of infinite and wistful yearning.

"What's up? What's wrong?" asked Wilbur from the door, but since no answer was deigned he said no more.

But Pierre, like a charmed man who dares to walk among lions, strolled easily through the room, and looked into the face of big Boone, who smiled faintly up to him, and Black Gandil, who scowled doubly dark, and Bud Mansie, who shifted uneasily in his chair and then nodded, and finally to Branch. He dropped a hand on the massive shoulder of the blacksmith.

"Well?" he asked.

Branch let himself droop back into his chair. His big, dull, colorless eyes stared up to his friend.

"I dunno, lad. I'm just weary with the sort of tired that you can't help by sleepin'. Understand?"

Pierre nodded, slowly, because he sympathized. "And the trouble?"

Branch stared about as if searching for a reason.

"Jack's up-stairs sulking; Patterson hasn't come home yet."

And Black Gandil, who heard all things, said without looking up: "A man that saves a shipwrecked fellow, he gets bad luck for thanks."

Pierre turned a considering eye on him, and Gandil scowled back.

"You've been croaking for six years, Morgan, about the bad luck that would come to Jim from