Ha, ha, ha! Sure I'll show you the way.
Take the northwest road out of town and go five miles till you see a
broken-backed shack lyin' over to the right. That's Mart
Ryder's place."
Out to the broken-backed shack rode Pierre le Rouge, Pierre the Red,
as everyone in the north country knew him. His second horse, staunch
cow-pony that it was, stumbled on with sagging knees and hanging head,
but Pierre rode upright, at ease, for his mind was untired.
Broken-backed indeed was the house before which he dismounted. The
roof sagged from end to end, and the stove pipe chimney leaned at a
drunken angle. Nature itself was withered beside that house; before
the door stood a great cottonwood, gashed and scarred by lightning,
with the limbs almost entirely stripped away from one side. Under this
broken monster Pierre stepped and through the door. Two growls like
the snarls of watch-dogs greeted him, and two tall, unshaven men
barred his way. Behind them, from the bed in the corner, a feeble
voice called: "Who's there?"
"In the name of God," said the boy gravely, for he saw a hollow-eyed
specter staring toward him from the bed in the corner, "let me pass! I
am his son!"
It was not that which made them give back, but a shrill, faint cry of
triumph from the sick man toward which they turned.
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