Max Brand

The Great West, prior to the century's turn, abounded in legend.
Stories were told of fabled gunmen whose bullets always magically
found their mark, of mighty stallions whose tireless gallop rivaled
the speed of the wind, of glorious women whose beauty stunned mind and
heart. But nowhere in the vast spread of the mountain-desert country
was there a greater legend told than the story of Red Pierre and the
phantom gunfighter, McGurk.

These two men of the wilderness, so unalike, of widely-differing
backgrounds, had in common a single trait: each was unbeatable. Fate
brought them clashing together, thunder to thunder, lightning to
lightning. They were destined to meet at the crossroads of a long,
long trail ... a trail which began in the northern wastes of Canada
and led, finally, to a deadly confrontation in the mountains of the
Far West.

It seemed that Father Anthony gathered all the warmth of the short
northern summer and kept it for winter use, for his good nature was an
actual physical force. From his ruddy face beamed such a kindliness
that people reached out toward him as they might extend their hands
toward a comfortable fire.

All the labors of his work as an inspector of Jesuit institutions
across the length and breadth of Canada could not lessen the good
father's enthusiasm; his smile was as indefatigable as his critical
eyes. The one looked sharply into every corner of a room and every
nook and hidden cranny of thoughts and deeds; the other veiled the
criticism and soothed the wounds of vanity.

On this day, however, the sharp eyes grew a little less keen and
somewhat wider, while that smile was fixed rather by habit than
inclination. In fact, his expression might be called a frozen
kindliness as he looked across the table to Father Victor.

It required a most indomitable geniality, indeed, to outface the rigid
piety of Jean Paul Victor. His missionary work had carried him far
north, where the cold burns men thin. The zeal which drove him north
and north and north over untracked regions, drove him until his body
failed, drove him even now, though his body was crippled.

A mighty yearning, and a still mightier self-contempt whipped him on,
and the school over which he was master groaned and suffered under his
régime. Father Anthony said gently: "Are there none among all your
lads, dear Father Victor, whom you find something more than imperfect
machines?"

The man of the north drew from a pocket of his robe a letter. His lean
fingers touched it almost with a caress.

"One. Pierre Ryder. He shall carry on my mission in the north. I, who
am silent, have done much; but Pierre will do more. I had to fight my
first battle to conquer my own stubborn soul, and the battle left me
weak for the great work in the snows, but Pierre will not fight that
battle, for I have trained him.

"This letter is for him. Shall we not carry it to him? For two days I
have not seen Pierre."

Father Anthony winced.

He said: "Do you deny yourself even the pleasure of the lad's company?
Alas, Father Victor, you forge your own spurs and goad yourself with
your own hands. What harm is there in being often with the lad?"

The sneer returned to the lips of Jean Paul Victor.

"The purpose would be lost—lost to my eyes and lost to his—the
purpose for which I have lived and for which he shall live. When I
first saw him he was a child, a baby, but he came to me and took one
finger of my hand in his small fist and looked up to me. Ah,
Gabrielle, the smile of an infant goes to the heart swifter than the
thrust of a knife! I looked down upon him and I knew that I was chosen
to teach the child. There was a voice that spoke in me. You will
smile, but even now I think I can hear it."

"I swear to you that I believe," said Father Anthony.

"Another man would have given Pierre a Bible and a Latin grammar and a
cell. I gave him the testament and the grammar; I gave him also the
wild north country to say his prayers in and patter his Latin. I
taught his mind, but I did not forget his body.

"He is to go out among wild men. He must have strength of the spirit.
He must also have a strength of the body that they will understand and
respect. He can ride a horse standing; he can run a hundred miles in a
day behind a dog-team. He can wrestle and fight with his hands, for
skilled men have taught 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!

"It is now hardly a six month since he saved a trapper from a bobcat
and killed the animal with a knife. 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."

Father Victor 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.

They staggered along against it until they came to a small house, long
and low. On the sheltered side they paused to take breath, and Father
Victor explained: "This is his hour in the gymnasium. To make the body
strong required thought and care. Mere riding and running and swinging
of the ax will not develop every muscle. Here Pierre works every day.
His teachers of boxing and wrestling have abandoned him."

There was almost a smile on the lean face.

"The last man left with a swollen jaw and limping on one leg."

Here he opened the door, and they slipped inside. The air was warmed
by a big stove, and the room—for the afternoon was dark—lighted by
two swinging lanterns suspended from the low roof. By that
illumination Father Anthony saw two men stripped naked, save for a
loincloth, and circling each other slowly in the center of a ring
which was fenced in with ropes and floored with a padded mat.

Of the two wrestlers, one was a veritable giant, swarthy of skin,
hairy-chested. His great hands were extended to grasp or to parry—his
head lowered with a ferocious scowl—and across his forehead swayed a
tuft of black, shaggy hair. He might have stood for one of those
northern barbarians whom the Romans loved to pit against their native
champions in the arena. He was the greater because of the opponent he
faced, and it was upon this opponent that the eyes of Father
Anthony centered.

Like Father Victor, he was caught first by the bright hair. It was a
dark red, and where the light struck it strongly there were places
like fire. Down from this hair the light slipped like running water
over a lithe body, slender at the hips, strong-chested, round and
smooth of limb, with long muscles leaping and trembling at every move.

He, like the big fighter, circled cautiously about, but the impression
he gave was as different from the other as day is from night. His head
was carried high; in place of a scowl, he smiled with a sort of
eagerness, a light which was partly exultation and partly mischief
sparkled in his eyes. Once or twice the giant caught at the other, but
David slipped from under the grip of Goliath easily. It seemed as if
his skin were oiled. The big man snarled with anger, and lunged more
eagerly at Pierre.

The two, abandoning their feints, suddenly rushed together, and the
swarthy arms of the monster slipped around the white body of Pierre.
For a moment they whirled, twisting and struggling.

"Now!" murmured Father Victor; and as if in answer to a command,
Pierre slipped down, whipped his hands to a new grip, and the two
crashed to the mat, with Pierre above.

"Open your eyes, Father Anthony. The lad is safe. How Goliath grunts!"
The boy had not cared to follow his advantage, but rose and danced
away, laughing softly. The Canuck floundered up and rushed like a
furious bull. His downfall was only the swifter. The impact of the two
bodies sounded like hands clapped together, and then Goliath rose into
the air, struggling mightily, and pitched with a thud to the mat.

He writhed there, for the wind was knocked from his body by the fall.
At length he struggled to a sitting posture and glared up at the
conqueror. The boy reached out a hand to his fallen foe.

"You would have thrown me that way the first time," he said, "but you
let me change grips on you. In another week you will be too much for
me,
bon ami
."

The other accepted the hand after an instant of hesitation and was
dragged to his feet. He stood looking down into the boy's face with a
singular grin. But there was no triumph in the eye of Pierre—only a
good-natured interest.

"In another week," answered the giant, "there would not be a sound
bone in my body."

"You have seen him," murmured the tall priest. "Now let us go back and
wait for him. I will leave word."

He touched one of the two or three men who were watching the athletes,
and whispered his message in the other's ear. Then he went back with
Father Anthony. "You have seen him," he repeated, when they sat once
more in the cheerless room. "Now pronounce on him."

The other answered: "I have seen a wonderful body—but the mind,
Father Victor?"

"It is as simple as that of a child—his thoughts run as clear as
spring water."

"But suppose a strange thought came in the mind of your Pierre. It
would be like the pebbles in swift-running spring water. He would
carry it on, rushing. It would tear away the old boundaries of his
mind—it might wipe out the banks you have set down for him—it might
tear away the choicest teachings."

Father Victor sat straight and stiff with stern, set lips. He said
dryly: "Father Anthony has been much in the world."

"I speak from the best intention, good father. Look you, now, I have
seen that same red hair and those same lighted blue eyes before, and
wherever I have seen them has been war and trouble and unrest. I have
seen that same smile which stirs the heart of a woman and makes a man
reach for his revolver. This boy whose mind is so clear—arm him with
a single wrong thought, with a single doubt of the eternal goodness of
God's plans, and he will be a thunderbolt indeed, dear Father, but one
which even your strong hand could not control."