Page:RidersOfSilences - Max Brand.djvu/198

192 smile of Black Gandil and a rapid volley of questions.

"Where's Patterson?"

"No more idea than you have."

"And Branch?"

"What's become of Branch? Hasn't he returned?"

"No. And Dick Wilbur?"

"Boys, he's done with this life and I'm glad of it. He's starting on a new track."

"After a woman?" sneered Bud Mansie.

"Shut up, Bud," broke in Boone, and then slowly to Pierre: "Patterson is gone for two days now. You ought to know what that means. Branch ought to have returned from looking for him, and Branch is still out. Wilbur is gone. Out of seven we're only four left. Who's next?"

He stared gloomily from face to face, and Gandil snarled: "A fellow who saves a shipwrecked man—"

"Damn you, keep still, Gandil."

"Don't damn me, Pierre le Rouge, but damn the luck you've brought to Jim Boone."

"Jim, do you chalk all this up against me?"

"I, lad? No, no! But it's queer. Patterson's done for; there's no doubt of that. Good-natured Garry Patterson. God, boy, how we'll miss him! And Branch seems to have gone the same way. If neither of them show up before morning we can cross 'em off the list. Now Wilbur has gone and Jack has ridden home looking like a small-sized thunder storm, and now you come with a white face and a blank eye. What hell is trailin' us, Pierre, what