Brand, Max - Silvertip 13 Page 16

  That crowd flowed like a river to the Wilbur house. There it gave Henry Wilbur the news. It did more than that. It picked him up on its shoulders and cheered every step of the way that it carried him back to the bank. It picked up Ruth Wilbur, also, and with bad manners and much good nature, it swept her down to the bank, too.

  “You saved Jim Silver’s neck,” they told her, “and Jim Silver saved the neck of Crow’s Nest.”

  They brought her right into the bank; they presented her to Jim Silver with that speech; and then they began to recede, still shouting and roaring and applauding their act.

  As the roaring of the crowd withdrew from the big room and beat on the outside of the building like a sea, Henry Wilbur knew that his life work was saved. He knew that his bank had gained fame which was strength that could not fall.

  He said: “I want to gather my words, Taxi, so that I can try to thank you. Not to thank you, but to tell you a few of the things that this means. But where’s Jim Silver?”

  “Hush!” said Taxi. “Don’t call him. Don’t trouble him. Don’t even look at him!”

  In spite of that, Wilbur looked, and saw at the rear corner of the big room, half lost behind the forest of bronze-gilt steel bars, big Jim Silver and the girl standing face to face, she with her head thrown back, looking up with something more than a smile on her face.

  “What does it mean?” whispered Wilbur.

  “Don’t ask. Don’t think. Hold your breath!” whispered Taxi.

  Then they saw Silver bend far over and lift the girl’s hand and kiss it.

  And it did not seem like fancy manners, either.

  “The False Rider,” a later Pocket Book edition

  THE END