Alcatraz

Alcatraz

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Alcatraz, by Max Brand This eBook
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Title: Alcatraz
Author: Max Brand
Release Date: February 20, 2004 [EBook #11195]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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ALCATRAZ ***

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MAX BRAND
Alcatraz
1922

CONTENTS

CHAPTER
I.--CORDOVA

II.--THE COMING OF DAVID
III.--CONCERNING FIGHTERS
IV.--THE STRENGTH OF THE WEAK
V.--RETRIBUTION
VI.--FREEDOM
VII.--THE PROMISED LAND
VIII.--MURDER
IX.--THE STAMPEDE
X.--THE THIEF
XI.--THE FAILURE
XII.--FROM THE HIP
XIII.--THE BARGAIN
XIV.--STRATEGY
XV.--THE KING
XVI.--RED PERRIS: ADVOCATE
XVII.--INVISIBLE DANGER
XVIII.--VICTORY
XIX.--HERVEY TAKES A TRICK
XX.--THE TRAP SHUTS
XXI.--THE BATTLE

XXII.--MCGUIRE SLEEPS
XXIII.--LOBO
XXIV.--THE CRISIS
XXV.--THE LITTLE SMOKY
XXVI.--PARTNERS
XXVII.--THE END OF THE RACE

ALCATRAZ
_The characters, places, incidents and situations in this book are
imaginary and have no relation to any person, place or actual
happening._

CHAPTER I
CORDOVA
The west wind came over the Eagles, gathered purity from the
evergreen slopes of the mountains, blew across the foothills and league
wide fields, and came at length to the stallion with a touch of coolness
and enchanting scents of far-off things. Just as his head went up, just as
the breeze lifted mane and tail, Marianne Jordan halted her pony and
drew in her breath with pleasure. For she had caught from the chestnut
in the corral one flash of perfection and those far-seeing eyes called to
mind the Arab belief.
Says the Sheik: "I have raised my mare from a foal, and out of love for
me she will lay down her life; but when I come out to her in the
morning, when I feed her and give her water, she still looks beyond me
and across the desert. She is waiting for the coming of a real man, she
is waiting for the coming of a true master out of the horizon!"

Marianne had known thoroughbreds since she was a child and after
coming West she had become acquainted with mere "hoss-flesh," but
today for the first time she felt that the horse is not meant by nature to
be the servant of man but that its speed is meant to ensure it sacred
freedom. A moment later she was wondering how the thought had
come to her. That glimpse of equine perfection had been an illusion
built of spirit and attitude; when the head of the stallion fell she saw the
daylight truth: that this was either the wreck of a young horse or the sad
ruin of a fine animal now grown old. He was a ragged creature with
dull eyes and pendulous lip. No comb had been among the tangles of
mane and tail for an unknown period; no brush had smoothed his coat.
It was once a rich red-chestnut, no doubt, but now it was sun-faded to
the color of sand. He was thin. The unfleshed backbone and withers
stood up painfully and she counted the ribs one by one. Yet his body
was not so broken as his spirit. His drooped head gave him the
appearance of searching for a spot to lie down. He seemed to have been
left here by the cruelty of his owner to starve and die in the white heat
of this corral--a desertion which he accepted as justice because he was
useless in the world.
It affected Marianne like the resignation of a man; indeed there was
more personality in the chestnut than in many human beings. Once he
had been a beauty, and the perfection which first startled her had been a
ghost out of his past. His head, where age or famine showed least, was
still unquestionably fine. The ears were short and delicately made, the
eyes well-placed, the distance to the angle of the jaw long--in brief, it
was that short head of small volume and large brain space which speaks
most eloquently of hot blood. As her expert eye ran over the rest of the
body she sighed to think that such a creature had come to such an end.
There was about him no sign of life save the twitch of his skin to shake
off flies.
Certainly this could not be the horse she had been advised to see and
she was about to pass on when she felt eyes watching her from the
steep shadow of the shed which bordered the corral. Then she made out
a dapper olive-skinned fellow sitting with his back against the wall in
such a position of complete relaxation as only a Mexican