The Man From Mustang by Max Brand

Author:Max Brand [Brand, Max]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-4405-4938-0
Publisher: Prologue Books
Published: 1970-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 15

It is possible to be grateful even to a rogue. Silver was grateful to Lorens. He knew the man was a scoundrel, as dangerous as a snake with poisonous craft, and still he was grateful because Lorens had defended him.

But as Silver drew back into the night again, he kept wondering what might be that happiness for which the girl was willing to do so much.

Now he began to make his rounds of the place, sliding shadowy among the brush and through the trees, rousing up every animal instinct to the keenest pitch of alertness. Nervous hands, as it were, began to reach out from him, and make him aware of everything near by. And yet, for all his caution, for all his spying, when he saw the figure standing at the door of the shack, it was as though the form had risen out of the ground.

He started toward the cabin, swiftly.

For one thing, they had talked about a horseman arriving, and there had not been a hoofbeat even in the distance for a long time. Silver was halfway to the door of the cabin when the shadowy form slipped suddenly through the door into the lighted cabin. Silver had a sight of a man of middle height, of rather a strong build — and as the fellow disappeared from view, the voice of the girl split the very eardrum of Silver with a scream.

He came at the cabin as fast as a tiger runs at easy prey. Through the doorway he leaped with the Colt ready in his hand — and saw Edith Alton Kenyon wrapped in the arms of the stranger, while Lorens conveniently turned his back and had started toward the door.

When Lorens saw the drawn gun, he snapped out a revolver of his own with wonderful speed, but by that time it was apparent that Silver was simply amazed, not attacking. As for the stranger, his face was visible in profile, and it clearly showed the features of the escaped criminal, the pursued murderer, David Holman!

Silver drew back toward the door, entranced. Lorens was beckoning to him to go outside again. And the last he saw was that Holman had made the girl sit down, while he kneeled in front of her and kissed her hands, and looked constantly, hungrily, into her face.

Pale from the prison confinement, his eyes deeply sunk in shadow, it seemed to Silver that David Holman could easily be capable of a murder — but hardly a murder by stealth. It was as strong a face as Silver ever had seen. There was a stonelike quality about the flesh, and there seemed to be a stonelike quality about the stare which he fixed on the girl. He was not speaking. His jaws were hard set. But it seemed to Silver that he had never seen passion so mute or so powerful. That was the index and the key of the man — power, power, and more power!

Looking at him now,

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