“Why don’t you speak, Kate?” called
her father.
“Dan!” she screamed, and pitched forward
to the floor.
THE PHANTOM RIDER
In the daytime the willows along the wide, level river
bottom seemed an unnatural growth, for they made a
streak of yellow-green across the mountain-desert
when all other verdure withered and died. After
nightfall they became still more dreary. Even
when the air was calm there was apt to be a sound
as of wind, for the tenuous, trailing branches brushed
lightly together, making a guarded whispering like
ghosts.
In a small clearing among these willows sat Silent
and his companions. A fifth member had just arrived
at this rendezvous, answered the quiet greeting with
a wave of his hand, and was now busy caring for his
horse. Bill Kilduff, who had a natural inclination
and talent for cookery, raked up the deft dying coals
of the fire over which he had cooked the supper, and
set about preparing bacon and coffee for the newcomer.
The latter came forward, and squatted close to the
cook, watching the process with a careful eye.
He made a sharp contrast with the rest of the group.
From one side his profile showed the face of a good-natured
boy, but when he turned his head the flicker of the
firelight ran down a scar which gleamed in a jagged
semi-circle from his right eyebrow to the corner of
his mouth. This whole side of his countenance
was drawn by the cut, the mouth stretching to a perpetual
grimace. When he spoke it was as if he were attempting
secrecy. The rest of the men waited in patience
until he finished eating. Then Silent asked:
“What news, Jordan?”
Jordan kept his regretful eyes a moment longer on
his empty coffee cup.
“There ain’t a pile to tell,” he
answered at last. “I suppose you heard
about what happened to the chap you beat up at Morgan’s
place the other day?”
“Who knows that I beat him up?”
asked Silent sharply.
“Nobody,” said Jordan, “but when
I heard the description of the man that hit Whistling
Dan with the chair, I knew it was Jim Silent.”
“What about Barry?” asked Haines, but
Jordan still kept his eyes upon the chief.
“They was sayin’ pretty general,”
he went on, “that you needed that chair,
Jim. Is that right?”
The other three glanced covertly to each other.
Silent’s hand bunched into a great fist.
“He went loco. I had to slam him.
Was he hurt bad?”
“The cut on his head wasn’t much, but
he was left lyin’ in the saloon that night,
an’ the next mornin’ old Joe Cumberland,
not knowin’ that Whistlin’ Dan was in
there, come down an’ touched a match to the old
joint. She went up in smoke an’ took Dan
along.”
No one spoke for a moment. Then Silent cried
out: “Then what was that whistlin’
I’ve heard down the road behind us?”
Bill Kilduff broke into rolling bass laughter, and
Hal Purvis chimed in with a squeaking tenor.
