Page:RidersOfSilences - Max Brand.djvu/88

82 between was blotted from his memory. He fumbled at his throat. The cross was not there. He touched his pockets.

"Ease your hands away from your hip," said the cold voice of the boy, who had dropped his gun to the ready with a significant finger curled around the trigger, "or I'll drill you clean." Pierre obediently raised his hands to the level of his shoulders. The boy sneered, and a light of infinite scorn blazed into those great black eyes.

"This isn't a hold-up," he explained. "Put 'em down again, but watch yourself."

The sneer varied to a contemptuous smile.

"I guess you're tame, all right."

"Point that gun another way, will you, son?"

The boy started and flushed a little.

"Don't call me son."

"Is this a lockup—a jail?"

"This?"

"What is it, then? The last I remember I was lying in the snow with—"

"I wish to God you'd been let there," said the boy bitterly.

But Pierre, overwhelmed with the endeavor to recollect, rushed on with his questions and paid no heed to the tone.

"I had a cross in my hand—"

The scorn of the boy grew to mighty proportions.

"It's there in the breast-pocket of your shirt."

Pierre drew out the little cross, and the touch of it against his palm restored whatever of his strength was lacking. Very carefully he attached it to the