Riders of the Silences | Page 4

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 resting one elbow on the gleaming shoulder of Pierre and 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 will not be a sound bone in my body. This very night I shall go to Father Victor. I had rather starve for three days in the forest than stand up to you for three minutes, little brother."
CHAPTER II
IRENE
"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."
"Ah, but they are swift thoughts. Suppose the spring water gathers up a few stones and rushes on down the side of the mountain. Very soon it is wearing a deeper channel--then but a little space, and it is a raging torrent and tears down great trees from its banks and goes shouting and leaping out toward the sea.
"Suppose a strange thought came in the mind of your Pierre. It would be like the pebbles in the 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 whimsical 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."
"I have heard you," said the priest; "but you will see. He is coming now."
There was a knock at the door; then it opened and showed a modest novice in a simple gown of black serge girt at the waist with the flat encircling band. His head was downward; it was not till the blue eyes flashed inquisitively up that Father Anthony recognized Pierre.
The hard voice of Jean Paul Victor pronounced: "This is that Father Anthony of whom I have spoken."
The novice slipped to his knees and folded his hands. The two priests exchanged glances, one of triumph and one of wonder, while the plump fingers of Father Anthony poised over that dark red hair, pressed smooth on top where the skull-cap rested, and curling somewhat at the sides. The blessing which he spoke was Latin, and Father Victor looked somewhat anxiously toward his prot��g�� till the latter answered in a diction so pure that Cicero himself would have smiled to hear it:
"Father, I thank thee, and if my mind were as old as thine I might be able to wish blessings as great as these in return."
"Stand up!" cried Father Anthony. "By Heavens, Jean Paul, it is the purest Latin I have heard this twelvemonth."
And the lad answered: "It must be pure Latin; Father Victor has taught me."
Gabrielle Anthony stared, and to save him from too obvious confusion the other priest interrupted: "I have a letter for you, my son."
And he passed