Page:RidersOfSilences - Max Brand.djvu/20

14 teach him. I have made him a thunderbolt to hurl among the ignorant and the unenlightened; and this is the hand which shall wield it. Ha!"

A flash of cold fire came for a single instant in his eyes as he stood with upturned face. He changed.

"Yet he is gentle as a woman. He goes out through the villages and comes back unharmed, and after him come letters from girls and old men and dames. Even strong men come many miles to see him and they write to him. He is known. It is now hardly a six month since he saved a trapper from a bobcat and killed the animal with a knife."

His heart failed him at the thought, and he murmured: "It must have been my prayers which saved him from the teeth and the claws."

Good Father Anthony rose.

"You have described a young David. I am eager to see him. Let us go."

"Wait. Before you go you must know that he does not suspect that he differs from other youths. Women have looked lewdly upon him and written him letters with singing words, but Pierre being of a simple nature, he answers them briefly and commends them to God. In fact, the flattery of women he does not understand, and the flattery of men he thinks is mere kindliness. Are you prepared to meet him, father?"

Father Anthony nodded, and the two went out together. The chill of the open was hardly more than the bitter cold inside the building, but there was a wind that drove the cold through the blood and bones of a man.