"But because we have failed," he said steadily, "is that a reason we should creep off and brood over our failure in silence? No, let's talk it out, man to man."

"You have a fine courage," said the girl. "But what is there we can say?"

He answered: "For my part, I am not so miserable as you think. For I feel as if this night had driven us closer together, you see; and I've caught a perspective on everything that has happened here."

"Tell me what you know."

"Only what I think I know. It may be painful to hear."

"I'm very used to pain."

"Well, a moment ago, when Barry was walking beside his dog, smiling, you murmured that he once was like that always. It gave me light. So I'd say that there was a time when Dan Barry lived here with you and your father. Am I right?"

"Yes, for years and years."

"And in those times he was not greatly different from other men. Not on the surface."

"No."

"You came to be very fond of him."

"We were to marry," answered Kate Cumberland, and Byrne winced.

He went on: "Then something happened—suddenly—that took him away from you, and you did not see him again until to-night. Am I right?"

"Yes. I thought you must have heard the story—from the outside. I'll tell you the truth. My father found Dan Barry wandering across the hills years ago. He was riding home over the range and he heard a strange and beautiful whistling, and when he looked up he saw on the western ridge, walking against the sky, a tattered figure of a boy. He rode up and asked the boy his name. He learned it was Dan Barry—Whistling Dan, he was called. But the boy could not, or would not, tell how he came to be there in the middle of the range without a horse. He merely said that he came from 'over there,' and waved his hand to the south and east. That was all. He didn't seem to be alarmed because he was alone, and yet he apparently knew nothing of the country; he was lost in this terrible country where a man could wander for days without finding a house, and yet the boy was whistling as he walked! So Dad took him home and sent out letters all about—to the railroad in particular—to find out if such a boy was missing.

"He received no answer. In the meantime he gave Dan a room in the house; and I remember how Dan sat at the table the first night—I was a very little girl then—and how I laughed at his strange way of eating. His knife was the only thing he was interested in and he made it serve for knife, fork, and spoon, and he held the meat in his fingers while he cut it. The next morning he was missing. One of Dad's range riders picked up Dan several miles to the north, walking along, whistling gayly. The next morning he was missing again and was caught still farther away. After that Dad had a terrible scene with him—I don't know exactly what happened—but Dan promised to run away no more, and ever since then Dad has been closer to Dan than anyone else.

"So Dan grew up. From the time I could first distinctly remember, he was very gentle and good-natured, but he was different, always. After a while he got Black Bart, you know, and then he went out with a halter and captured Satan. Think of capturing a wild mustang with nothing but a halter! He played around with them so much that I was jealous of them. So I kept with them until Bart and Satan were rather used to me. Bart would even play with me now and then when Dan wasn't near. And so finally Dan and I were to be married.

"Dad didn't like the idea. He was afraid of what Dan might become. And he was right. One day, in a saloon that used to stand on that hill over there, Dan had a fight—his first fight—with a man who had struck him across the mouth for no good reason. That man was Jim Silent. Of course you've heard of him?"

"Never."

"He was a famous long-rider—an outlaw with a very black record. At the end of that fight he struck Dan down with a chair and escaped. I went down to Dan when I heard of the fight—Black Bart led me down, to be exact—but Dan would not come back to the house, and he'd have no more to do with anyone until he had found Jim Silent. I can't tell you everything that happened. Finally he caught Jim Silent and killed him—with his bare hands. Buck Daniels saw it. Then Dan came back to us, but on the first night he began to grow restless. It was last Fall—the wild geese were flying south—and while they were honking in the sky Dan got up, said good-bye, and left us. We have never seen him again until to-night. All we knew was that he had ridden south—after the wild geese."

A long silence fell between them, for the doctor was thinking hard.

"And when he came back," he said, "Barry did not know you? I mean you were nothing to him?"

"You were there," said the girl, faintly.

"It is perfectly clear," said Byrne. "If it were a little more commonplace it might be puzzling, but being so extraordinary it clears itself up. Did you really expect the dog, the wolf-dog, Black Bart, to remember you?"

"I may have expected it."

"But you were not surprised, of course!"

"Naturally not."

"Yet you see that Dan Barry—Whistling Dan, you call him—was closer to Black Bart than he was to you?"

"Why should I see that?"

"You watched him a moment ago when he was leaning over the dog."

He watched her draw her dressing gown closer about her, as though the cold bit more keenly then.

She said simply: "Yes, I saw."

"Don't you see that he is simply more in tune with the animal world? And it's really no more reasonable to expect Black Bart to remember you than it is to expect Dan Barry to remember you? It's quite plain. When you go back to the beginning man was simply an animal, without the higher senses, as we call them. He was simply a brute, living in trees or in caves. Afterwards he grew into the thing we all know. But why not imagine a throw-back into the earlier instincts? Why not imagine the creature devoid of the impulses of mind, the thing which we call man, and see the splendid animal? You saw in Dan Barry simply a biological sport—the freak—the thing which retraces the biological progress and comes close to the primitive. But of course you could not realise this. He seemed a man, and you accepted him as a man. In reality he was no more a man than Black Bart is a man. He had the face and form of a man, but his instincts were as old as the ages. The animal world obeys him. Satan neighs in answer to his whistle. The wolf-dog licks his hand at the point of death. There is the profound difference, always. You try to reconcile him with other men; you give him the attributes of other men. Open your eyes; see the truth: that he is no more akin to man than Black Bart is like a man. And when you give him your affection, Miss Cumberland, you are giving your affection to a wild wolf! Do you believe me?"

He knew that she was shaken. He could feel it, even without the testimony of his eyes to witness. He went on, speaking with great rapidity, lest she should escape from the influence which he had already gained over her.

"I felt it when I first saw him—a certain nameless kinship with elemental forces. The wind blew through the open door—it was Dan Barry. The wild geese called from the open sky—for Dan Barry. These are the things which lead him. These the forces which direct him. You have loved him; but is love merely a giving? No, you have seen in him a man, but I see in him merely the animal force."

She said after a moment: "Do you hate him—you plead against him so passionately?"

He answered: "Can you hate a thing which is not human? No, but you can dread it. It escapes from the laws which bind you and which bind me. What standards govern it? How can you hope to win it? Love? What beauty is there in the world to appeal to such a creature except the beauty of the marrow-bone which his teeth have the strength to snap?"

"Ah, listen!" murmured the girl. "Here is your answer!"

And Doctor Randall Byrne heard a sound like the muted music of the violin, thin and small and wonderfully penetrating. He could not tell, at first, what it might be. For it was as unlike the violin as it was like the bow and the rosined strings. Then he made out, surely, that it was the whistling of a human being.

It followed no tune, no reasoned theme. The music was beautiful in its own self. It rose straight up like the sky-lark from the ground, sheer up against the white light of the sky, and there it sang against heaven's gate. He had never heard harmony like it. He would never again hear such music, so thin and yet so full that it went through and through him, until he felt the strains take a new, imitative life within him. He would have whistled the strains himself, but he could not follow them. They escaped him, they soared above him. They followed no law or rhythm. They flew on wings and left him far below. The girl moved away from him as if led by an invisible hand, and now she stood at the extremity of the porch. He followed her.

"Do you hear?" she cried, turning to him.

"What is it?" asked the doctor.

"It is he! Don't you understand?"

"Barry? Yes! But what does the whistling mean; is it for his wolf-dog?"

"I don't know," she answered quickly. "All I understand is that it is beautiful. Where are your theories and explanations now, Doctor Byrne?".

"It is beautiful—God knows!—but doesn't the wolf-dog understand it better than either you or I?"

She turned and faced Byrne, standing very close, and when she spoke there was something in her voice which was like a light. In spite of the dark he could guess at every varying shade of her expression.

"To the rest of us," she murmured, "Dan has nothing but silence, and hardly a glance. Buck saved his life to-night, and yet Dan remembered nothing except the blow which had been struck. And now—now he pours out all the music in his soul for a dumb beast. Listen!"

He saw her straighten herself and stand taller.

"Then through the wolf—I'll conquer through the dumb beast!"

She whipped past Byrne and disappeared into the house; at the same instant the whistling, in the midst of a faint, high climax, broke, shivered, and was ended. There was only the darkness and the silence around Byrne, and the unsteady wind against his face.



CHAPTER XXV

WERE-WOLF

Doctor Byrne, pacing the front veranda with his thoughtful head bowed, saw Buck Daniels step out with his quirt dangling in his hand, his cartridge belt buckled about his waist, and a great red silk bandana knotted at his throat.

He was older by ten years than he had been a few days before, when the doctor first saw him. To be sure, his appearance was not improved by a three days' growth of beard. It gave his naturally dark skin a dirty cast, but even that rough stubble could not completely shroud the new hollows in Daniels' cheeks. His long, black, uncombed hair, sagged down raggedly across his forehead, hanging almost into his eyes; the eyes themselves were sunk in such formidable cavities that Byrne caught hardly more than two points of light in the shadows. All the devil-may-care insouciance of Buck Daniels was quite, quite gone. In its place was a dogged sullenness, a hang-dog air which one would not care to face of a dark night or in a lonely place. His manner was that of a man whose back is against the wall, who, having fled some keen pursuit, has now come to the end of his tether and prepares for desperate even if hopeless battle. There was that about him which made the doctor hesitate to address the cowpuncher.

At length he said: "You're going out for an outing, Mr. Daniels?"

Buck Daniels started violently at the sound of this voice behind him, and whirled upon the doctor with such a set and contorted expression of fierceness that Byrne jumped back.

"Good God, man!" cried the doctor, "What's up with you?"

"Nothin'," answered Buck, gradually relaxing from his first show of suspicion. "I'm beating it. That's all."

"Leaving us?"

"Yes."

"Not really!"

"D'you think I ought to stay?" asked Buck, with something of a sneer.

The doctor hesitated, frowning in a puzzled way. At length he threw out his hands in a gesture of mute abandonment.

"My dear fellow," he said with a faint smile, "I've about stopped trying to think."

At this Buck Daniels grinned mirthlessly.

"Now you're talkin' sense," he nodded. "They ain't no use in thinking."

"But why do you leave so suddenly?"

Buck Daniels shrugged his broad shoulders.

"I am sure," went on Byrne, "that Miss Cumberland will miss you."

"She will not," answered the big cowpuncher. "She's got her hands full with—him."

"Exactly. But if it is more than she can do, if she makes no headway with that singular fellow—she may need help——"

He was interrupted by a slow, long-drawn, deep-throated curse from Buck Daniels.

"Why in hell should I help her with—him?"

"There is really no reason," answered the doctor, alarmed, "except, I suppose, old friendship——"

"Damn old friendship!" burst out Buck Daniels. "There's an end to all things and my friendship is worn out—on both sides. It's done!"

He turned and scowled at the house.

"Help her to win him over? I'd rather stick the muzzle of my gun down my throat and pull the trigger. I'd rather see her marry a man about to hang. Well—to hell with this place. I'm through with it. S'long, doc."

But Doctor Byrne ran after him and halted him at the foot of the steps down from the veranda.

"My dear Mr. Daniels," he urged, touching the arm of Buck. "You really mustn't leave so suddenly as this. There are a thousand questions on the tip of my tongue."

Buck Daniels regarded the professional man with a hint of weariness and disgust.

"Well," he said, "I'll hear the first couple of hundred. Shoot!"

"First: the motive that sends you away."

"Dan Barry."

"Ah—ah—fear of what he may do?"

"Damn the fear. At least, it's him that makes me go."

"It seems an impenetrable mystery," sighed the doctor. "I saw you the other night step into the smoking hell of that barn and keep the way clear for this man. I knew, before that, how you rode and risked your life to bring Dan Barry back here. Surely those are proofs of friendship!"

Buck Daniels laughed unpleasantly. He laid a large hand on the shoulder of the doctor and answered: "If them was the only proofs, doc, I wouldn't feel the way I do. Proofs of friendship? Dan Barry has saved me from the—rope!—and he's saved me from dyin' by the gun of Jim Silent. He took me out of a rotten life and made me a man that could look honest men in the face!"

He paused, swallowing hard, and the doctor's misty, overworked eyes lighted with some comprehension. He had felt from the first a certain danger in this big fellow, a certain reckless disregard of laws and rules which commonly limit the actions of ordinary men. Now part of the truth was hinted at. Buck Daniels, on a time, had been outside the law; and Barry had drawn him back to the ways of men. That explained some of the singular bond that lay between them.

"That ain't all," went on Buck. "Blood is thick, and I've loved him better nor a brother. I've gone to hell and back for him. For him I took Kate Cumberland out of the hands of Jim Silent, and I left myself in her place. I took her away and all so's she could go to him. Damn him! And now on account of him I got to leave this place."

His voice rose to a ringing pitch.

"D'you think it's easy for me to go? D'you think it ain't like tearing a finger-nail off'n the flesh for me to go away from Kate? God knows what she means to me! God knows, but if He does, He's forgotten me!"

Anguish of spirit set Buck Daniels shaking, and the doctor looked on in amazement. He was like one who reaches in his pocket for a copper coin and brings out a handful of gold-pieces.

"Kind feelin's don't come easy to me," went on Buck Daniels. "I been raised to fight. I been raised to hard ridin' and dust in the throat. I been raised on whiskey and hate. And then I met Dan Barry, and his voice was softer'n a girl's voice, and his eyes didn't hold no doubt of me. Me that had sneaked in on him at night and was goin' to kill him in his sleep—because my chief had told me to! That was the Dan Barry what I first knew. He give me his hand and give me the trust of his eyes, and after he left me I sat down and took my head between my hands and my heart was like to bust inside me. It was like the clouds had blowed away from the sun and let it shine on me for the first time in my life. And I swore that if the time come I'd repay him. For every cent he give me I'd pay him back in gold. I'd foller to the end of the world to do what he bid me do."

His voice dropped suddenly, choked with emotion.

"Oh, doc, they was tears come in my eyes; and I felt sort of clean inside, and I wasn't ashamed of them tears! That was what Dan Barry done for me!

"And I did pay him back, as much as I could. I met Kate Cumberland and she was to me among girls what Dan Barry was to me among men. I ain't ashamed of sayin' it. I loved her till they was a dryness like ashes inside me, but I wouldn't even lift up my eyes to her, because she belonged to him. I follered her around like a dog. I done her bidding. I asked no questions. What she wanted—that was law to me, and all the law I wanted. All that I done for the sake of Dan Barry. And then I took my life in my hands for him—not once, but day after day.

"Then he rode off and left her and I stayed behind. D'you think it's been easy to stay here? Man, man, I've had to hear her talkin' about Dan Barry day after day, and never a word for me. And I had to tell her stories about Dan and what he'd used to do, and she' sit with her eyes miles away from me, listenin' an smilin' and me there hungerin' for just one look out of her eyes—hungerin' like a dyin' dog for water. And then for her and Joe I rode down south and when I met Dan Barry d'you think they was any light in his eyes when he seen me?

"No, he'd forgotten me the way even a hoss won't forget his master. Forgot me after a few months—and after all that'd gone between us! Not even Kate—even she was nothin' to him. But still I kept at it and I brought him back. I had to hurt him to do it, but God knows it wasn't out of spite that I hit him—God knows!

"And when I seen Dan go into that burnin' barn I says to myself: 'Buck, if nothin' is done that wall will fall and there's the end of Dan Barry. There's the end of him, that ain't any human use, and when he's finished after a while maybe Kate will get to know that they's other men in the world besides Dan.' I says that to myself, deep and still inside me. And then I looked at Kate standin' in that white thing with her yaller hair all blowin' about her face—and I wanted her like a dyin' man wants heaven! But then I says to myself again: 'No matter what's happened, he's been my friend. He's been my pal. He's been my bunkie.'

"Doc, you ain't got a way of knowin' what a partner is out here. Maybe you sit in the desert about a thousand miles from nowhere, and across the little mesquite fire, there's your pal, the only human thing in sight. Maybe you go months seein' only him. If you're sick he takes care of you. If you're blue he cheers you up. And that's what Dan Barry was to me. So I stands sayin' these things to myself, and I says: 'If I keep that wall from fallin' Dan'll know about it, and they won't be no more of that yaller light in his eyes when he looks at me. That's what I says to myself, poor fool!

"And I went into the fire and I fought to keep that wall from fallin'. You know what happened. When I come out, staggerin' and blind and three parts dead, Dan Barry looks up to me and touches his face where I'd hit him, and the yaller comes up glimmerin' and blazin' in his eyes. Then I went back to my room and I fought it out.

"And here's where I stand now. If I stay here, if I see that yaller light once more, they won't be no waitin'. Him and me'll have to have it out right then. Am I a dog, maybe, that I got to stand around and jump when he calls me?"

"My dear fellow—my dear Mr. Daniels!" cried the horrified Doctor Byrne. "Surely you're wrong. He wouldn't go so far as to make a personal attack upon you!"

"Wouldn't he? Bah! Not if he was a man, no. I tell you, he ain't a man; he's what the canuks up north call a were-wolf! There ain't no mercy or kindness in him. The blood of a man means nothin' to him. The world would be better rid of him. Oh, he can be soft and gentle as a girl. Mostly he is. But cross him once and he forgets all you done for him. Give him a taste of blood and he jumps at your throat. I tell you, I've seen him do it!"

He broke off with a shudder.

"Doc," he said, in a lower and solemn voice. "Maybe I've said too much. Don't tell Kate nothin' about why I'm goin'. Let her go on dreamin' her fool dream. But now hear what I'm sayin'; If Dan Barry crosses me once more, one of us two dies, and dies damned quick. It may be me, it may be him, but I've come to the end of my rope. I'm leavin' this place till Barry gets a chance to come to his senses and see what I've done for him. That's all. I'm leavin' this place because they's a blight on it, and that blight is Dan Barry. I'm leaving this place because—doc—because I can smell the comin' of bloodshed in it. They's a death hangin' over it. If the lightnin' was to hit and burn it up, house and man, the range would be better for it!"

And he turned on his heel and strode slowly down towards the corral. Doctor Byrne followed his progress with starting eyes.



CHAPTER XXVI

THE BATTLE

The chain which fastened Black Bart had been passed around the trunk of a tree that stood behind the ranch house, and there the great dog lay tethered. Doctor Byrne had told Whistling Dan, with some degree of horror, that the open air was in the highest degree dangerous to wounds, but Whistling Dan had returned no answer. So Black Bart lay all day in the soft sand, easing himself from time to time into a new position, and his thoughtful eyes seemed to be concentrated on the desire to grow well. Beside him was the chair in which Dan Barry sat for many an hour of the day and even the night.

Kate Cumberland watched the animal from the shadow of the house; his eyes were closed, and the long, powerful head lay inert on the sand, yet she knew that the wolf-dog was perfectly aware of her presence. Day after day since he lay there, she had attempted to approach Black Bart, and day after day he had allowed her to come within reaching distance of him, only to drive her back at the last moment by a sudden display of the murderous, long fangs; or by one of those snarls which came out of the black depths of his heart. Now, a dog snarls from not far down in its throat, but the noise of an angered wild beast rolls up out of its very entrails—a passion of hate and defiance. And when she heard that sound, or when she saw the still more terrible silent rage of the beast, Kate Cumberland's spirit failed, and she would shrink back again to a safe distance.

She was not easily discouraged. She had that grim resolution which comes to the gambler after he has played at the same table night after night, night after night, and lost, lost, lost, until, playing with the last of his money, he begins to mutter through his set teeth: "The luck must change!" So it was with Kate Cumberland. For in Black Bart she saw the only possible clue to Whistling Dan. There was the stallion, to be sure, but she knew Satan too well. Nothing in the wide world could induce that wild heart to accept more than one master—more than one friend. For Satan there was in the animal world Black Bart, and in the world of men, Dan Barry. These were enough. For all the rest he kept the disdainful speed of his slender legs or the terror of his teeth and trampling hoofs. Even if she could have induced the stallion to eat from her hand she could never have made him willing to trust himself to her guidance. Some such thing she felt that she must accomplish with Black Bart. To the wild beast with the scarred and shaggy head she must become a necessary, an accepted thing.

One repulse did not dishearten her. Again and again she made the trial. She remembered having read that no animal can resist the thoughtful patience of thinking man, and hour after hour she was there, until a new light in the eye of the wolf-dog warned her that the true master was coming.

Then she fled, and from a post of vantage in the house she would watch the two. An intimacy surpassing the friendships and devotions of human beings existed between them. She had seen the wolf lie with his great head on the foot of his master and the unchanging eyes fixed on Barry's face—and so for an hour at a stretch in mute worship. Or she had watched the master go to the great beast to change the dressing—a thing which could not be done too often during the day. She had seen the swift hands remove the bandages and she had seen the cleansing solution applied. She knew what it was; it stung even the unscratched skin, and to a wound it must be torture, but the wolf lay and endured—not even shuddering at the pain.

It had seemed to her that this was the great test. If she could make the wolf lie like this for her, then, truly, she might feel herself in some measure admitted to that mystic fellowship of the three—the man, the stallion, and the wolf. If she could, with her own unaided hands, remove the bandages and apply that solution, then she could know many things, and she could feel that she was nearer to Whistling Dan than ever before.

So she had come, time and again, with the basin and the roll of cloth in her arm, and she had approached with infinite patience, step by step, and then inch by inch. Once it had taken a whole hour for her to come within a yard of the beast. And all that time Black Bart had lain with closed eyes. But at the critical instant always there was the silent writhing up of the lips and the gleam of hate—or the terrible snarl while the eyes fastened on her throat. Her heart had stopped in mid-beat; and that day she ran back into the house and threw herself on her bed, and would not come from her room till the following morning.

Now, as she watched from the shadow of the house, with the basin of antiseptic under her arm, the gambler's desperation rose stronger and stronger. She came out, at length, and walked steadily towards Black Bart. She had grown almost heedless of fear at this moment, but when she was within a pace, once more the head reared back; the teeth flashed. And the heart of Kate Cumberland, as always, stopped. Yet she did not retreat this time. All the colour left her face, so that her eyes seemed amazingly blue and wide. One foot drew back, tremblingly ready to spring to safety; yet she held her place. She moved—and it was towards Black Bart.

At that came a snarl that would have made the heart of a lone grizzly quake and leave his new-found nuts. One further pace she made—and the beast plunged up, and braced itself with its one strong fore leg. A devil of yellow-green gleamed in either eye, and past the grinning fangs she saw the hot, red throat, and she saw the flattened ears, the scars on the bony forehead, the muscles that bulged on the base of the jaw. Ay, strength to drive those knife-like teeth through flesh and bone at a single snap. More—she had seen their effect, and the throat of a bull cut at a single slash. And yet—she sank on her knees beside the monster.

His head was well nigh as high as hers, then; if he attacked there could be no dream of escape for her. Or she might drag herself away from the tearing teeth—a disfigured horror forever. Think not that an iota of all these terrors missed her mind. No, she felt the fangs buried in her throat and heard the snarl of the beast stifled with blood. Yet—she laid her hand on the bandage across the shoulder of Black Bart.

His head whirled. With those ears flattened, with that long, lean neck, it was like the head of a striking snake. Her sleeve was rolled up to the elbow, and over the bare skin the teeth of the wolf-dog were set. The snarl had grown so deep and hideous that the tremor of it fairly shook her, and she saw that the jaws of the beast slavered with hunger. She knew—a thousand things about Black Bart, and among the rest that he had tasted human blood. And there is a legend which says that once a wild beast has tasted the blood of man he will taste it a second time before he dies. She thought of that—she dared not turn her head lest she should encounter the hellfire of Bart's eyes. Yet she had passed all ordinary fear. She had reached that exquisite frenzy of terror when it becomes one with courage. The very arm over which the wolf's teeth were set moved—raised—and with both hands she untied the knot of the bandage.

The snarling rose to a pitch of maniacal rage; the teeth compressed—if they broke the skin it was the end; the first taste of blood would be enough!—and drew away her arm. If she had started then, all the devil in the creature would be loosed, for her terror taught her that. And by some mysterious power that entered her at that moment she was able to turn her head, slowly, and look deep into those terrible eyes.

Her arm was released.

But Black Bart crouched and the snakelike head lowered; he was quivering throughout that steel-muscled body to throw himself at her throat. The finger was on the hair-trigger; it needed a pressure not greater than a bodiless thought. And still she looked into the eyes of the wolf-dog; and her terror had made her strangely light of body and dizzy of mind. Then the change came, suddenly. The yellow-green changed, swirled in the eyes of Black Bart; the eyes themselves wavered, and at last looked away; the snarl dropped to a sullen growl. And Black Bart lay down as he had been before.

His head was still turned towards her, to be sure. And the teeth were still bared, as with rapid, deft fingers she undid the bandage; and from instant to instant, as the bandage in spite of her care pressed against the wound, the beast shivered and wicked glances flashed up at her face. The safe-blower who finds his "soup" cooling and dares not set it down felt as Kate Cumberland felt then.

She never knew what kept her hands steady, but steady they were. The cloth was removed, and now she could see the red, angry wound, with the hair shaven away to a little distance on every side. She dipped her cloth into the antiseptic; it stung her fingers! She touched the cloth lightly against the wound; and to her astonishment the wolf-dog relaxed every muscle and let his head fall to the ground; also the growl died into a soft whine, and this in turn ended.

She had conquered! Ay, when the wound was thoroughly cleansed and when she started to wind the bandage again, she had even the courage to touch Black Bart's body and make him rise up so that she could pass the cloth freely. At her touch he shuddered, to be sure, as a man might shudder at the touch of an unclean thing, but there was no snarl, and the teeth were not bared.

As she tied the knot which secured the bandage in its place she was aware that the eyes of Bart, no longer yellow-green, watched her; and she felt some vague movement of the wonder that was passing through the brute mind. Then the head of the wolf-dog jerked up; he was staring at something in the distance, and there was nothing under heaven that Bart would raise his head to look at in this manner except one thing. The fingers of Kate grew stiff, and trembled. Slowly, in a panic, she finished the knot, and then she was aware of someone who had approached without sound and now stood behind her.

She looked up, at length, before she rose to her feet.

Thankfulness welled up warm in her heart to find her voice steady and commonplace when she said: "The wound is much better. Bart will be well in a very few days now."

Whistling Dan did not answer, and his wondering eyes glanced past her own. She saw that he was staring at a double row of white indentations on her forearm, where the teeth of Black Bart had set. He knew those marks, and she knew he knew. Strength was leaving her, and weakness went through her—water where blood should have been. She dared not stay. In another moment she would be hopelessly in the grip of hysteria.

So she rose, and passed Dan without a word, and went slowly towards the house. She tried to hurry, indeed, but her legs would not quicken their pace. Yet at length she had reached shelter and no sooner was she past the door of the house than her knees buckled; she had to steady herself with both hands as she dragged herself up the stairs to her room. There, from the window, she looked down and saw Whistling Dan standing as she had left him, staring blankly at the wolf-dog.



CHAPTER XXVII

THE CONQUEST

There was no star-storming confidence in Kate Cumberland after that first victory. Rather she felt as the general who deploys his skirmishers and drives in the outposts of an enemy. The advantage is his, but it has really only served to give him some intimation of the strength of the enemy. At the supper table this night she found Whistling Dan watching her—not openly, for she could never catch his eye—but subtly, secretly, she knew that he was measuring her, studying her; whether in hostility, amity, or mere wonder, she could not tell. Finally a vast uneasiness overtook her and she turned to the doctor for relief. Doctor Randall Byrne held a singular position in the attention of Kate. Since the night of the fire and her open talk with him, the doctor knew "everything," and women are troubled in the presence of a man who knows the details of the past.

The shield behind which they hide in social intercourse is a touch of mystery—or at least a hope of mystery. The doctor, however, was not like other men; he was more similar to a precocious child and she comforted herself in his obvious talent for silence. If he had been alert, strong, self-confident, she might have hated him because he knew so much about her; but when she noted the pale, thoughtful face, the vast forehead outbalancing the other features, and the wistful, uncertain eyes, she felt nothing towards him stronger than pity.

It is good for a woman to have something which she may pity, a child, an aged parent, or a house-dog. It provides, in a way, the background against which she acts; so Kate, when in doubt, turned to the doctor, as on this night. There was a certain cruelty in it, for when she smiled at him the poor doctor became crimson, and when she talked to him his answers stumbled on his tongue; and when she was silent and merely looked at him that was worst of all, for he became unable to manage knife and fork and would sit crumbling bread and looking frightened. Then he was apt to draw out his glasses and make a move to place them on his nose, but he always caught and checked himself in time—which added to his embarrassment.

These small maneuvres had not lasted long before the girl became aware that the silent attention of Whistling Dan had passed from her to the doctor—and held steadily upon him. She did not go so far as to call it jealousy, but certainly it was a grave and serious consideration that measured the doctor up and down and back again; and it left her free to examine the two men in contrast. For the first time it struck her that they were much alike in many ways. Physically, for instance, there was the same slenderness, the same delicacy with which the details were finished; the same fragile hands, for instance. The distinction lay in a suggestion of strength and inexhaustible reserve of energy which Dan Barry possessed. The distinction lay still more in their faces. That of Byrne was worn and pallied from the long quest and struggle for truth; the body was feeble; the eyes were uncertain; but within there was a powerful machine which could work infallibly from the small to the large and the large to the small. With Whistling Dan there was no suggestion at all of mental care. She could not imagine him worrying over a problem. His knowledge was not even communicable by words; it was more impalpable than the instinct of a woman; and there was about him the wisdom and the coldness of Black Bart himself.

The supper ended too soon for Kate. She had been rallying Randall Byrne, and as soon as he could graciously leave, the poor fellow rose with a crimson face and left the room; and behind him, sauntering apparently in the most casual manner, went Whistling Dan. As for Kate Cumberland, she could not put all the inferences together—she dared not; but when she lay in her bed that night it was a long time before she could sleep, for there was a voice inside her, singing.

She chose her time the next day. Dan alternated between Black Bart and old Joe Cumberland during most of the day, and no sooner had he left the wolf-dog in the morning than she went out to Bart.

As always, Black Bart lay with his head flattened against the sand, dreaming in the sun, and not an eyelid quivered when she approached, yet she understood perfectly that the animal knew every move she made. She would have attempted to dress the wound again, but the memory of the ordeal of yesterday was too terrible. She might break down in the midst of her effort, and the first sign of weakness, she knew, was the only spur which Black Bart needed. So she went, instead, to the chair where Dan often sat for hours near the dog, and there she took her place, folded her hands on her lap, and waited. She had no particular plan in mind, more than that she hoped to familiarize the great brute with the sight of her. Once he had known her well enough, but now he had forgotten all that passed before as completely, no doubt, as Whistling Dan himself had forgotten.

While she sat there, musing, she remembered a scene that had occurred not many a month before. She had been out walking one fall day, and had gone from the house down past the corrals where a number of cattle newly driven in from the range were penned. They were to be driven off for shipment the next day. A bellowing caught her ear from one of the enclosures and she saw two bulls standing horn to horn, their heads lowered, and their puffing and snorting breaths knocking up the dust while they pawed the sand back in clouds against their flanks. While she watched, they rushed together, bellowing, and for a moment they swayed back and forth. It was an unequal battle, however, for one of the animals was a hardened veteran, scarred from many a battle on the range, while the other was a young three-year old with a body not half so strong as his heart. For a short time he sustained the weight of the larger bull, but eventually his knees buckled, and then dropped heavily against the earth. At that the older bull drew back a little and charged again. This time he avoided the long horns of his rival and made the unprotected flank of the animal his target. If he had charged squarely the horns would have been buried to the head; but striking at an angle only one of them touched the target and delivered a long, ripping blow. With the blood streaming down his side, the wounded bull made off into a group of cows, and when the victor pursued him closely, he at length turned tail and leaped the low fence—for the corral was a new one, hastily built for the occasion. The conqueror raised his head inside the fence and bellowed his triumph, and outside the fence the other commenced pawing up the sand again, switching his tail across his bleeding side, and turning his little red eyes here and there. They fixed, at length, upon Kate Cumberland, and she remembered with a start of horror that she was wearing a bright red blouse. The next instant the bull was charging. She turned in a hopeless flight. Safety was hundreds of yards away in the house; the skirts tangled about her legs; and behind her the dull impacts of the bull's hoofs swept close and closer. Then she heard a snarl in front, a deep-throated, murderous snarl, and she saw Black Bart racing towards her. He whizzed by her like a black thunderbolt; there was a roar and bellow behind her, and at the same time she stumbled over a fence-board and fell upon her knees. But when she cast a glance of terror behind her she saw the bull lying on its side with lolling tongue and glazing eyes and the fangs of Black Dart were buried in its throat.

When she reached this point in her musings her glance naturally turned towards the wolf-dog, and she started violently when she saw that Bart was slinking towards her, trailing the helpless leg. The moment he felt her eyes upon him, Bart dropped down, motionless, with a wicked baring of his teeth; his eyes closed, and he seemed, as usual, dreaming in the sun.

Was the brute stalking her? It was worse, in a way, than the ordeal of the day before, this stealthy, noiseless approach. And in her panic she first thought of springing from her chair and reaching a distance which the chain would keep him from following. Yet it was very strange. Black Bart in his wildest days after Dan brought him to the ranch had never been prone to wantonly attack human beings. Infringe upon his right, come suddenly upon him, and then, indeed, there was a danger to all saving his master. But this daylight stalking was stranger than words could tell.

She forced her eyes to look straight ahead and sat with a beating heart, waiting. Then, by slow degrees, she let her glance travel cautiously back towards Bart without turning her head. There was no doubt about it! The great wolf-dog was slinking towards her on his belly, still trailing the wounded foreleg. There was something snakelike in that slow approach, so silent and so gradual.

And yet she waited, moving neither hand nor foot.

A sort of nightmare paralysis held her, as when we flee from some horror in our dreams and find that our limbs have grown numb. Behind us races the deadly thing, closer and closer; before us is the door of safety—only a step to reach it—and yet we cannot move a foot!

It was not all pure terror. There was an incredible excitement as well—her will against the will of the dumb brute—which would conquer?

She heard a faint rustling of the sand beside her and could hardly keep from turning her head again. But she succeeded. Waves of coldness broke on her mind; her whole body would have shuddered had not fear chilled her into motionlessness. All reason told her that it was madness to sit there with the stealthy horror sliding closer; even now it might be too late. If she rose the shaggy form might spring from the ground at her. Perhaps the wolf had treasured up the pain from the day before and now—

A black form did, indeed, rise from the ground, but slowly. And standing on three legs, Bart stood a moment and stared in the face of the girl. The fear rushed out of her heart; and her face flushed hotly with relief. There was no enmity in the steady stare of the wolf-dog. She could feel that even though she did not look. Something that Whistling Dan had said long before came to her: "Even a hoss and a dog, Kate, can get terrible lonesome."

Black Bart moved until he faced her directly. His ears were pricking in eagerness; she heard a snarl, but so low and muffled that there was hardly a threat in it; could it be a plea for attention? She would not look down to the sharp eyes, until a weight fell on her knees—it was the long, scarred head of the wolf! The joy that swelled in her was so great that it pained her like a grief.

She stretched out her hand, slowly, slowly towards that head. And Black Bart shrank and quivered, and his lips writhed back from the long, deadly teeth, and his snarl grew to a harsher, hoarser threat; still he did not remove his head, and he allowed the hand to touch him between the eyes and stroke the fur back to between the ears. Only one other hand had ever touched that formidable head in such a manner! The teeth no longer showed; the keen, suspicious eyes grew dim with pleasure; the snarl sank to murmur and then died out.

"Bart!" commanded the girl, sharply.

The head jerked up, but the questing eyes did not look at her. He glanced over his shoulder to find the danger that had made her voice so hard. And she yearned to take the fierce head in her arms; there were tears she could have wept over it. He was snarling again, prepared already to battle, and for her sake.

"Bart!" she repeated, more gently. "Lie down!"

He turned his head slowly back to her and looked with the unspeakable wistfulness of the dumb brutes into her eyes. But there was only one voice in which Bart could speak, and that was the harsh, rattling snarl which would have made a mountain-lion check itself mid-leap and slink back to its lair. In such a voice he answered Kate, and then sank down, gradually. And he lay still.

So simply, and yet so mysteriously, she was admitted to the partnership. But though one member of that swift, grim trio had accepted her, did it mean that the other two would take her in?

A weight sank on her feet and when she looked down she saw that Black Bart had lowered his head upon them, and so he lay there with his eyes closed, dreaming in the sun.



CHAPTER XXVIII

THE TRAIL

Bandages and antiseptics and constant care, by themselves could not have healed Black Bart so swiftly, but nature took a strong hand. The wound closed with miraculous speed. Three days after he had laid his head on the feet of Kate Cumberland, the wolf-dog was hobbling about on three legs and tugging now and again at the restraining chain; and the day after that the bandages were taken off and Whistling Dan decided that Bart might run loose. It was a brief ceremony, but a vital one. Doctor Byrne went out with Barry to watch the loosing of the dog; from the window of Joe Cumberland's room he and Kate observed what passed. There was little hesitancy in Black Bart. He merely paused to sniff the foot of Randall Byrne, snarl, and then trotted with a limp towards the corrals.

Here, in a small enclosure with rails much higher than the other corrals, stood Satan, and Black Bart made straight for the stallion. He was seen from afar, and the black horse stood waiting, his head thrown high in the air, his ears pricking forward, the tail flaunting, a picture of expectancy. So under the lower rail Bart slunk and stood under the head of Satan, growling terribly. Of this display of anger the stallion took not the slightest notice, but lowered his beautiful head until his velvet nose touched the cold muzzle of Bart. There was something ludicrous about the greeting—it was such an odd shade close to the human. It was as brief as it was strange, for Black Bart at once whirled and trotted away towards the barns.

By the time Doctor Byrne and Whistling Dan caught up with him, the wolf-dog was before the heaps and ashes which marked the site of the burned barn. Among these white and grey and black heaps he picked his way, sniffing hastily here and there. In the very centre of the place he sat down suddenly on his haunches, pointed his nose aloft, and wailed with tremendous dreariness.

"Now," murmured the doctor to Dan, "that strikes me as a singular manifestation of intelligence in an animal—he has found the site of the very barn where he was hurt—upon my word! Even fire doesn't affect his memory!"

Here he observed that the face of Whistling Dan had grown grim. He ran to Bart and crouched beside him, muttering; and Byrne heard.

"That's about where you was lyin'," said Dan, "and you smell your own blood on the ground. Keep tryin', Bart. They's something else to find around here."

The wolf-dog looked his master full in the face with pricking ears, whined and then started off sniffling busily at the heaps of ashes.

"The shooting of the dog is quite a mystery," said Byrne, by way of conversation. "Do you suppose that one of the men from the bunk-house could have shot him?"

But Dan seemed no longer aware of the doctor's presence. He slipped here and there with the wolf-dog among the ash-heaps, pausing when Bart paused, talking to the brute continually. Sometimes he pointed out to Bart things which the doctor did not perceive and Bart whined with a terrible, slavering, blood-eagerness.

The wolf-dog suddenly left the ash-heaps and now darted in swiftly entangled lines here and there among the barns. Dan Barry stood thoughtfully still, but now and then he called a word of encouragement.

And Black Bart stayed with his work. Now he struck out a wide circle, running always with his nose close to the ground. Again he doubled back sharply to the barn-site, and began again in a new direction. He ran swiftly, sometimes putting his injured leg to the ground with hardly a limp, and again drawing it up and running on three feet. In a moment he passed out of sight behind a slight rise of ground to the left of the ash-heaps, and at some little distance. He did not reappear. Instead, a long, shrill wail came wavering towards the doctor and Dan Barry. It raised the hair on the head of the doctor and sent a chill through his veins; but it sent Whistling Dan racing towards the place behind which Black Bart had disappeared. The doctor hurried after as fast as he might and came upon the wolf-dog making small, swift circles, his nose to the ground, and then crossing to and fro out of the circles. And the face of the master was black while he watched. He ran again to Bart and began talking swiftly.

"D'you see?" he asked, pointing. "From behind this here hill you could get a pretty good sight of the barn—and you wouldn't be seen, hardly, from the barn. Someone must have waited here. Look about, Bart, you'll be findin' a pile of signs, around here. It means that them that done the shootin' and the firin' of the barn stood right here behind this hill-top and watched the barn burn—and was hopin' that Satan and you wouldn't ever come out alive. That's the story."

He dropped to his knees and caught Bart as the big dog ran by.

"Find'em, Bart!" he whispered. "Find'em!"

And he struck sharply on the scar where the bullet had ploughed its way into Bart's flesh.

The answer of Bart was a yelp too sharp and too highly pitched to have come from the throat of any mere dog. Once more he darted out and ran here and there, and Doctor Byrne heard the beast moaning as it ran. Then Bart ceased circling and cut down the slope away from the hill at a sharp trot.

A cry of inarticulate joy burst from Dan, and then: "You've found it! You have it!" and the master ran swiftly after the dog. He followed the latter only for a short distance down the slope and then stood still and whistled. He had to repeat the call before the dog turned and ran back to his master, where he whined eagerly about the man's feet. There was something uncanny and horrible about it; it was as if the dumb beast was asking for a life, and the life of a man. The doctor turned back and walked thoughtfully to the house.

At the door he was met by Kate and a burst of eager questions, and he told, simply, all that he had seen.

"You'll get the details from Mr. Barry," he concluded.

"I know the details," answered the girl. "He's found the trail and he knows where it points, now. And he'll want to be following it before many hours have passed. Doctor Byrne, I need you now—terribly. You must convince Dan that if he leaves us it will be a positive danger to Dad. Can you do that?"

"At least," said the doctor, "there will be little deception in that. I will do what I can to persuade him to stay."

"Then," she said hurriedly, "sit here, and I shall sit here. We'll meet Dan together when he comes in."

They had hardly taken their places when Barry entered, the wolf at his heels; at the door he paused to flash a glance at them and then crossed the room. On the farther side he stopped again.

"I might be tellin' you," he said in his soft voice, "that now's Bart's well I got to be travellin' again. I start in the morning."

The pleading eyes of Kate raised Byrne to his feet.

"My dear Mr. Barry!" he called. The other turned again and waited. "Do you mean that you will leave us while Mr. Cumberland is in this critical condition?"

A shadow crossed the face of Barry.

"I'd stay if I could," he answered. "But it ain't possible!"

"What takes you away is your affair, sir," said the doctor. "My concern is Mr. Cumberland. He is in a very precarious condition. The slightest nerve shock may have—fatal—results."

Dan Barry sighed.

"Seemed to me," he answered, "that he was buckin' up considerable. Don't look so thin, doc."

"His body may be well enough," said the doctor calmly, "but his nerves are wrecked. I am afraid to prophesy the consequences if you leave him."

It was apparent that a great struggle was going on in Barry. He answered at length: "How long would I have to stay? One rain could wipe out all the sign and make me like a blind man in the desert. Doc, how long would I have to stay?"

"A few days," answered Byrne, "may work wonders with him."

The other hesitated.

"I'll go up and talk with him," he said, "and what he wants I'll do."



CHAPTER XXIX

TALK

He was long in getting his answer. The hours dragged on slowly for Kate and the doctor, for if Joe Cumberland could hold Dan it was everything to the girl, and if Barry left at once there might be some root for the hope which was growing stronger and stronger every day in the heart of Randall Byrne. Before evening a not unwelcome diversion broke the suspense somewhat.

It was the arrival of no less a person than Marshal Jeff Calkins. His shoulders were humped and his short legs bowed from continual riding, and his head was slung far forward on a gaunt neck; so that when he turned his head from one to another in speaking it was with a peculiar pendulum motion. The marshal had a reputation which was strong over three hundred miles and more of a mountain-desert. This was strange, for the marshal was a very talkative man, and talkative men are not popular on the desert; but it has been discovered that on occasion his six-gun could speak as rapidly and much more accurately than his tongue. So Marshal Calkins waxed in favour.

He set the household at ease upon his arrival by announcing that "they hadn't nothin' for him there." All he wanted was a place to bunk in, some chow, and a feed for the horse. His trail led past the Cumberland Ranch many and many a dreary mile.

The marshal was a politic man, and he had early in life discovered that the best way to get along with any man was to meet him on his own ground. His opening blast of words at Doctor Byrne was a sample of his art.

"So you're a doc, hey? Well, sir, when I was a kid I had a colt that stuck its foreleg in a hole and busted it short and when that colt had to be shot they wasn't no holdin' me. No, sir, I could of cleaned up on the whole family. And ever since then I've had a hankerin' to be a doc. Something about the idea of cuttin' into a man that always sort of tickled me. They's only one main thing that holds me back—I don't like the idea of knifin' a feller when he ain't got a chance to fight back! That's me!"

To this Doctor Randall Byrne bowed, rather dazed, but returned no answer.

"And how's your patient, doc?" pursued the irresistible marshal. "How's old Joe Cumberland? I remember when me and Joe used to trot about the range together. I was sort of a kid then; but think of old Joe bein' down in bed—sick! Why, I ain't never been sick a day in my life. Sick? I'd laugh myse'f plumb to death if anybody ever wanted me to go to bed. What's the matter with him, anyway?"

"His nerves are a bit shaken about," responded the doctor. "To which I might add that there is superimposed an arterial condition——"

"Cut it short, Doc," cried the marshal goodnaturedly. "I ain't got a dictionary handy. Nerves bad, eh? Well, I don't wonder about that. The old man's had enough trouble lately to make anybody nervous. I wouldn't like to go through it myself. No, sir! What with that Dan Barry—I ain't steppin' on any corns, Kate, am I?"

She smiled vaguely, but the marshal accepted the smile as a strong dissent.

"They was a time not so long ago when folks said that you was kind of sweet on Dan. Glad to hear they ain't nothin' in it. 'S a matter of fact——"

But here Kate interrupted with a raised hand. She said: "I think that was the supper gong. Yes, there it is. We'll go in now, if you wish."

"They's only one sound in the world that's better to me than a dinner gong," said the profuse marshal, as they seated themselves around the big dining table, "and that was the sound of my wife's voice when she said 'I will.' Queer thing, too. Maria ain't got a very soft voice, most generally speakin', but when she busted up in front of that preacher and says 'I will,' why, God A'mighty—askin' your pardon, Kate—they was a change come in her voice that was like a bell chimin' down in her throat—a bell ringin' away off far, you know, so's you only kind of guess at it! But comin' back to you and Dan, Kate——"

It was in vain she plied the marshal with edibles. His tongue wagged upon roller-bearings and knew no stopping. Moreover, the marshal had spent some portion of his life in a boarding house and had mastered the boarding-house art of talking while he ate.

"Comin' back to you and Dan, we was all of us sayin' that you and Dan kind of had an eye for each other. I s'pose we was all wrong. You see, that was back in the days before Dan busted loose. When he was about the range most usually he was the quietest man I ever sat opposite to barrin' one—and that was a feller that went west with a bum heart at the chuck table! Ha, ha, ha!" The marshal's laughter boomed through the big room as he recalled this delightful anecdote. He went on: "But after that Jim Silent play we all changed our minds, some. D'you know, doc, I was in Elkhead the night that Dan got our Lee Haines?"

"I've never heard of the episode," murmured the doctor.

"You ain't? Well, I be damned!—askin' your pardon, Kate——But you sure ain't lived in these parts long! Which you wouldn't think one man could ride into a whole town, go to the jail, knock out two guards that was proved men, take the keys, unlock the irons off'n the man he wanted, saddle a hoss, and ride through a whole town—full of folks that was shootin' at him. Now, would you think that was possible?"

"Certainly not."

"And it ain't possible, I'm here to state. But they was something different about Dan Barry. D'you ever notice it, Kate?"

She was far past speech.

"No, I guess you never would have noticed it. You was livin' too close to him all the time to see how different he was from other fellers. Anyway, he done it. They say he got plugged while he was ridin' through the lines and he bled all the way home, and he got there unconscious. Is that right, Kate?"

He waited an instant and then accepted the silence as an affirmative.

"Funny thing about that, too. The place where he come to was Buck Daniels' house. Well, Buck was one of Jim Silent's men, and they say Buck had tried to plug Dan before that. But Dan let him go that time, and when Buck seen Dan ride in all covered with blood he remembered that favour and he kept Dan safe from Jim Silent and safe from the law until Dan was well. I seen Buck this morning over to Rafferty's place, and——"

Here the marshal noted a singular look in the eyes of Kate Cumberland, a look so singular that he turned in his chair to follow it. He saw Dan Barry in the act of closing the door behind him, and Marshal Calkins turned a deep and violent red, varied instantly by a blotchy yellow which in turn faded to something as near white as his tan permitted.

"Dan Barry!" gasped the marshal, rising, and he reached automatically towards his hip before he remembered that he had laid his belt and guns aside before he entered the dining-room, as etiquette is in the mountain-desert. For it is held that shooting at the table disturbs the appetite.

"Good evenin'," said Dan quietly. "Was it Buck Daniels that you seen at Rafferty's place, Marshal Calkins?"

"Him," nodded the marshal, hoarsely. "Yep, Buck Daniels."

And then he sank into his chair, silent for the first time. His eyes followed Barry as though hypnotized.

"I'm kind of glad to know where I can find him," said Barry, and took his place at the table.

The silence continued for a while, with all eyes focused on the new-comer. It was the doctor who had to speak first.

"You've talked things over with Mr. Cumberland?" he asked.

"We had a long talk," nodded Dan. "You was wrong about him, doc. He thinks he can do without me."

"What?" cried Kate.

"He thinks he can do without me," said Dan Barry. "We talked it all over."

The silence fell again. Kate Cumberland was staring blankly down at her plate, seeing nothing; and Doctor Byrne looked straight before him and felt the pulse drumming in his throat. His chance, then, was to come. By this time the marshal had recovered his breath.

He said to Dan: "Seems like you been away some time, Dan. Where you been hangin' out?"

"I been ridin' about," answered Dan vaguely.

"Well," chuckled the marshal, "I'm glad they ain't no more Jim Silents about these parts—not while you're here and while I'm here. You kept things kind of busy for Glasgow, Dan."

He turned to Kate, who had pushed back her chair.

"What's the matter, Kate?" he boomed. "You ain't lookin' any too tip-top. Sick?"

"I may be back in a moment," said the girl, "but don't delay supper for me."

She went out of the room with a step poised well enough, but the moment the door closed behind her she fairly staggered to the nearest chair and sank into it, her head fallen back, her eyes dim, and all the strength gone from her body and her will. Several minutes passed before she roused herself, and then it was to drag herself slowly up the stairs to the door of her father's room. She opened it without knocking, and then closed it and stood with her back against it, in the shadow.



CHAPTER XXX

THE VOICE OF BLACK BART

Her father lay propped high with pillows among which his head lolled back. The only light in the room was near the bed and it cast a glow upon the face of Joe Cumberland and on the white linen, the white hair, the white, pointed beard. All the rest of the room swam in darkness. The chairs were blotches, indistinct, uncertain; even the foot of the bed trailed off to nothingness. It was like one of those impressionistic, very modern paintings, where the artist centres upon one point and throws the rest of his canvas into dull oblivion. The focus here was the face of the old cattleman. The bedclothes, never stirred, lay in folds sharply cut out with black shadows, and they had a solid seeming, as the mort-cloth rendered in marble over the effigy. That suggested weight exaggerated the frailty of the body beneath the clothes. Exhausted by that burden, the old man lay in the arms of a deadly languor, so that there was a kinship of more than blood between him and Kate at this moment. She stepped to the side of the bed and stood staring down at him, and there was little gentleness in her expression. So cold was that settled gaze that her father stirred, at length, shivered, and without opening his eyes, fumbled at the bed-spread and drew it a little more closely about his shoulders. Even that did not give him rest; and presently the wrinkled eyelids opened and he looked up at his daughter. A film of weariness heavier than sleep at first obscured his sight, but this in turn cleared away; he frowned a little to clear his vision, and then wagged his head slowly from side to side.

"Kate," he said feebly, "I done my best. It simply wasn't good enough."

She answered in a voice as low as his, but steadier: "What could have happened? Dad, what happened to make you give up every hold on Dan? What was it? You were the last power that could keep him here. You knew it. Why did you tell him he could go?"

The monotone was more deadly than any emphasis of a raised word.

"If you'd been here," pleaded Joe Cumberland, "you'd have done what I done. I couldn't help it. There he sat on the foot of the bed—see where them covers still kind of sag down—after he told me that he had something to do away from the ranch and that he wanted to go now that Black Bart was well enough to travel in short spells. He asked me if I still needed him."

"And you told him no?" she cried. "Oh Dad, you know it means everything to me—but you told him no?" He raised a shaking hand to ward off the outburst and stop it.

"Not at first, honey. Gimme a chance to talk, Kate. At first I told him that I needed him—and God knows that I do need him. I dunno why—not even Doc Byrne knows what there is about Dan that helps me. I told Dan all them things. And he didn't say nothin', but jest sat still on the foot of the bed and looked at me.

"It ain't easy to bear his eyes, Kate. I lay here and tried at first to smile at him and talk about other things—but it ain't easy to bear his eyes. You take a dog, Kate. It ain't supposed to be able to look you in the eye for long; but s'pose you met up with a dog that could. It'd make you feel sort of queer inside. Which I felt that way while Dan was lookin' at me. Not that he was threatenin' me. No, it wasn't that. He was only thoughtful, but I kept gettin' more nervous and more fidgety. I felt after a while like I couldn't stand it. I had to crawl out of bed and begin walkin' up and down till I got quieter. But I seen that wouldn't do.

"Then I begun to think. I thought of near everything in a little while. I thought of what would happen s'pose Dan should stay here. Maybe you and him would get to like each other again. Maybe you'd get married. Then what would happen?

"I thought of the wild geese flyin' north in the spring o' the year and the wild geese flyin' south in the fall o' the year. And I thought of Dan with his heart followin' the wild geese—God knows why!—and I seen a picture of him standin' and watchin' them, with you nearby and not able to get one look out of him. I seen that, and it made my blood chilly, like the air on a frosty night.

"Kate, they's something like the power of prophecy that comes to a dyin' man!"

"Dad!" she cried. "What are you saying?"

She slipped to her knees beside the bed and drew his cold hands towards her, but Joe Cumberland shook his head and mildly drew one hand away. He raised it, with extended forefinger—a sign of infinite warning; and with the glow of the lamp full upon his face, the eyes were pits of shadow with stirring orbs of fire in the depths.

"No, I ain't dead now," he said, "but I ain't far away from it. Maybe days, maybe weeks, maybe whole months. But I've passed the top of the hill, and I know I'm ridin' down the slope. Pretty soon I'll finish the trail. But what little time I've got left is worth more'n everything that went before. I can see my life behind me and the things before like a cold mornin' light was over it all—you know before the sun begins to beat up the waves of heat and the mist gets tanglin' in front of your eyes? You know when you can look right across a thirty mile valley and name the trees, a'most the other side? That's the way I can see now. They ain't no feelin' about it. My body is all plumb paralyzed. I jest see and know—that's all.

"And what I see of you and Dan—if you ever marry—is plain—hell! Love ain't the only thing they is between a man and a woman. They's something else. I dunno what it is. But it's a sort of a common purpose; it's havin' both pairs of feet steppin' out on the same path. That's what it is. But your trail would go one way and Dan's would go another, and pretty soon your love wouldn't be nothin' but a big wind blowin' between two mountains—and all it would do would be to freeze up the blood in your hearts."

"I seen all that, while Dan was sittin' at the foot of the bed. Not that I don't want him here. When I see him I see the world the way it was when I was under thirty. When there wasn't nothin' I wouldn't try once, when all I wanted was a gun and a hoss and a song to keep me from tradin' with kings. No, it ain't goin' to be easy for me when Dan goes away. But what's my tag-end of life compared with yours? You got to be given a chance; you got to be kept away from Dan. That's why I told him, finally, that I thought I could get along without him."

"Whether or not you save me," she answered, "you signed a death warrant for at least two men when you told him that."

"Two men? They's only one he's after—and Buck Daniel has had a long start. He can't be caught!"

"That Marshal Calkins is here to-night. He saw Buck at Rafferty's, and he talked about it in the hearing of Dan at the table. I watched Dan's face. You may read the past and see the future, Dad, but I know Dan's face. I can read it as the sailor reads the sea. Before to-morrow night Buck Daniels will be dead; and Dan's hands will be red."

She dropped her head against the bedclothes and clasped her fingers over the bright hair.

When she could speak again she raised her head and went on in the same swift, low monotone: "And besides, Black Bart has found the trail of the man who fired the barn and shot him. And the body of Buck won't be cold before Dan will be on the heels of the other man. Oh, Dad, two lives lay in the hollow of your hand. You could have saved them by merely asking Dan to stay with you; but you've thrown them away."

"Buck Daniels!" repeated the old man, the horror of the thing dawning on him only slowly. "Why didn't he get farther away? Why didn't he ride night and day after he left us? He's got to be warned that Dan is coming!"

"I've thought of that. I'm going into my room now to write a note and send it to Buck by one of our men. But at the most he'll have less than a day's start—and what is a day to Satan and Dan Barry?"

"I thought it was for the best," muttered old Joe. "I couldn't see how it was wrong. But I can send for Dan and tell him that I've changed my mind." He broke off in a groan. "No, that wouldn't be no good. He's set his mind on going by this time, and nothing can keep him back. But —Kate, maybe I can delay him. Has he gone up to his room yet?"

"He's in there now. Talk softly or he'll hear us. He's walking up and down, now."

"Ay, ay, ay!" nodded old Joe, his eyes widening with horror, "and his footfall is like the padding of a big cat. I could tell it out of a thousand steps. And I know what's going on inside his mind!"

"Yes, yes; he's thinking of the blow Buck Daniels struck him; he's thinking of the man who shot down Bart. God save them both!"

"Listen!" whispered the cattleman. "He's raised the window. I heard the rattle of the weights. He's standing there in front of the window, letting the wind of the night blow in his face!"

The wind from the window, indeed, struck against the door communicating with Joe Cumberland's room, and shook it as if a hand were rattling at the knob.

The girl began to speak again, as swiftly as before, her voice the barely audible rushing of a whisper: "The law will trail him, but I won't give him up. Dad, I'm going to fight once more to keep him here—and if I fail, I'll follow him around the world." Such words should have come loudly, ringing. Spoken so softly, they gave a terrible effect; like the ravings of delirium, or the monotone of insanity. And with the white light against her face she was more awe-inspiring than beautiful. "He loved me once; and the fire must still be in him; such fire can't go out, and I'll fan it back to life, and then if it burns me—if it burns us both—the fire itself cannot be more torture than to live on like this!"

"Hush, lass!" murmured her father. "Listen to what's coming!"

It was a moan, very low pitched, and then rising slowly, and gaining in volume, rising up the scale with a dizzy speed, till it burst and rang through the house—the long-drawn wail of a wolf when it hunts on a fresh trail.



CHAPTER XXXI

THE MESSAGE

Buck Daniels opened his eyes and sat bolt-upright in bed. He had dreamed the dream again, and this time, as always, he awakened before the end. He needed no rubbing of eyes to rouse his senses. If a shower of cold water had been dashed upon him he could not have rallied from sound slumber so suddenly. His first movement was to snatch his gun from under his mattress, not that he dreamed of needing it, but for some reason the pressure of the butt against his palm was reassuring. It was better than the grip of his friend—a strong man.

It was the first grey of dawn, a light so feeble that it served merely to illuminate the darkness, so to speak. It fell with any power upon one thing alone, the bit of an old, dusty bridle that hung against the wall, and it made the steel glitter like a watchful eye. There was a great dryness in the throat of Buck Daniels; and his whole big body shook with the pounding of his heart.

He was not the only thing that was awake in the grey hour. For now he caught a faint and regular creaking of the stairs. Someone was mounting with an excessively cautious and patient step, for usually the crazy stairs that led up to this garret room of the Rafferty house creaked and groaned a protest at every footfall. Now the footfall paused at the head of the stairs, as when one stops to listen.

Buck Daniels raised his revolver and levelled it on the door; but his hand was shaking so terribly that he could not keep his aim—the muzzle kept veering back and forth across the door. He seized his right hand with his left, and crushed it with a desperate pressure. Then it was better. The quivering of the two hands counteracted each other and he managed to keep some sort of a bead.

Now the step continued again, down the short hall. A hand fell on the knob of the door and pressed it slowly open. Against the deeper blackness of the hall beyond, Buck saw a tall figure, hatless. His finger curved about the trigger, and still he did not fire. Even to his hysterical brain it occurred that Dan Barry would be wearing a hat—and moreover the form was tall.

"Buck!" called a guarded voice.

The muzzle of Daniels' revolver dropped; he threw the gun on his bed and stood up.

"Jim Rafferty!" he cried, with something like a groan in his voice. "What in the name of God are you doin' here at this hour?"

"Someone come here and banged on the door a while ago. Had a letter for you. Must have rid a long ways and come fast; while he was givin' me the letter at the door I heard his hoss pantin' outside. He wouldn't stay, but went right back. Here's the letter, Buck. Hope it ain't no bad news. Got a light here, ain't you?"

"All right, Jim," answered Buck Daniels, taking the letter. "I got a lantern. You get back to bed."

The other replied with a noisy yawn and left the room while Buck kindled the lantern. By that light he read his name upon the envelope and tore it open. It was very brief.

"Dear Buck,

Last night at supper Dan found out where you are. In the morning he's leaving the ranch and we know that he intends to ride for Rafferty's place; he'll probably be there before noon. The moment you get this, saddle your horse and ride. Oh, Buck, why did you stay so close to us?

Relay your horses. Don't stop until you're over the mountains. Black Bart is well enough to take the trail and Dan will use him to follow you. You know what that means.

Ride, ride, ride!

Kate."

He crumpled up the paper and sank back upon the bed.

"Why did you stay so close?"

He had wondered at that, himself, many times in the past few days. Like the hunted rabbit, he expected to find safety under the very nose of danger. Now that he was discovered it seemed incredible that he could have followed so patently foolish a course. In a sort of daze he uncrumpled the note again and read the wrinkled writing word by word. He had leaned close to read by the uncertain light, and now he caught the faintest breath of perfume from the paper. It was a small thing, smaller among scents than a whisper is among voices, but it made Buck Daniels drop his head and crush the paper against his face. It was a moment before he could uncrumple the paper sufficiently to study the contents of the note thoroughly. At first his dazed brain caught only part of the significance. Then it dawned on him that the girl thought he had fled from the Cumberland Ranch through fear of Dan Barry.

Ay, there had been fear in it. Every day at the ranch he had shuddered at the thought that the destroyer might ride up on that devil of black silken grace, Satan. But every day he had convinced himself that even then Dan Barry remembered the past and was cursing himself for the ingratitude he had shown his old friend. Now the truth swept coldly home to Buck Daniels. Barry was as fierce as ever upon the trail; and Kate Cumberland thought that he—Buck Daniels,—had fled like a cur from danger.

He seized his head between his hands and beat his knuckles against the corrugated flesh of his forehead. She had thought that!

Desire for action, action, action, beset him like thirst. To close with this devil, this wolf-man, to set his big fingers in the smooth, almost girlish throat, to choke the yellow light out of those eyes—or else to die, but like a man proving his manhood before the girl.

He read the letter again and then in an agony he crumpled it to a ball and hurled it across the room. Catching up his hat and his belt he rushed wildly from the room, thundered down the crazy stairs, and out to the stable.

Long Bess, the tall, bay mare which had carried him through three years of adventure and danger and never failed him yet, raised her aristocratic head above the side of the stall and whinnied. For answer he shook his fist at her and cursed insanely.

The saddle he jerked by one stirrup leather from the wall and flung it on her back, and when she cringed to the far side of the stall, he cursed her again, bitterly, and drew up the cinch with a lunge that made her groan. He did not wait to lead her to the door before mounting, but sprang into the saddle.

Here he whirled her about and drove home the spurs. Cruel usage, for Long Bess had never denied him the utmost of her speed and strength at the mere sound of his voice. Now, half-mad with fear and surprise, she sprang forward at full gallop, slipped and almost sprawled on the floor, and then thundered out of the door.

At once the soft sandy-soil received and deadened the impact of her hoofs. Off she flew through the grey of the morning, soundless as a racing ghost.

Long Bess—there was good blood in her. She was as delicately limbed as an antelope, and her heart was as strong as the smooth muscles of her shoulders and hips. Yet to Buck Daniels her fastest gait seemed slower than a walk. Already his thoughts were flying far before. Already he stood before the ranch house calling to Dan Barry. Ay, at the very door of the place they should meet and one of them must die. And better by far that the blood of him who died should stain the hands of Kate Cumberland.



CHAPTER XXXII

VICTORY

The grey light which Buck Daniels saw that morning, hardly brightened as the day grew, for the sky was overcast with sheeted mist and through it a dull evening radiance filtered to the earth. Wung Lu, his celestial, slant eyes now yellow with cold, built a fire on the big hearth in the living-room. It was a roaring blaze, for the wood was so dry that it flamed as though soaked in oil, and tumbled a mass of yellow fire up the chimney. So bright was the fire, indeed, that its light quite over-shadowed the meagre day which looked in at the window, and every chair cast its shadow away from the hearth. Later on Kate Cumberland came down the backstairs and slipped into the kitchen.

"Have you seen Dan?" she asked of the cook.

"Wung Lu make nice fire," grinned the Chinaman. "Misser Dan in there."

She thought for an instant.

"Is breakfast ready, Wung?"

"Pretty soon quick," nodded Wung Lu.

"Then throw out the coffee or the eggs," she said quickly. "I don't want breakfast served yet; wait till I send you word."

As the door closed behind her, the eye-brows of Wung rose into perfect Roman arches.

"Ho!" grunted Wung Lu, "O ho!"

In the hall Kate met Randall Byrne coming down the stairs. He was dressed in white and he had found a little yellow wildflower and stuck it in his button-hole. He seemed ten years younger than the day he rode with her to the ranch, and now he came to her with a quick step, smiling.

"Doctor Byrne," she said quietly, "breakfast will be late this morning. Also, I want no one to go into the living-room for a while. Will you keep them out?"

The doctor was instantly gone.

"He hasn't gone, yet?" he queried.

"Not yet."

The doctor sighed and then, apparently following a sudden impulse, he reached his hand to her.

"I hope something comes of it," he said.

Even then she could not help a wan smile.

"What do you mean by that, doctor?"

The doctor sighed again.

"If the inference is not clear," he said, "I'm afraid that I cannot explain. But I'll try to keep everyone from the room."

She nodded her thanks, and went on; but passing the mirror in the hall the sight of her face made her stop abruptly. There was no vestige of colour in it; and the shadow beneath her eyes made them seem inhumanly large and deep. The bright hair, to be sure, waved over her head and coiled on her neck, but it was like a futile shaft of sunlight falling on a dreary moor in winter. She went on thoughtfully to the door of the living-room but there she paused again with her hand upon the knob; and while she stood there she remembered herself as she had been only a few months before, with the colour flushing in her face and a continual light in her eyes. There had been little need for thinking then. One had only to let the wind and the sun strike on one, and live. Then, in a quiet despair, she said to herself: "As I am—I must win or lose—as I am!" and she opened the door and stepped in.

She had been cold with fear and excitement when she entered the room to make her last stand for happiness, but once she was in, it was not so hard. Dan Barry lay on the couch at the far end of the room with his hands thrown under his head, and he was smiling in a way which she well knew; it had been a danger signal in the old days, and when he turned his face and said good-morning to her, she caught that singular glimmer of yellow which sometimes came up behind his eyes. In reply to his greeting she merely nodded, and then walked slowly to the window and turned her back to him.

It was a one-tone landscape. Sky, hills, barns, earth, all was a single mass of lifeless grey; in such an atmosphere old Homer had seen the wraiths of his dead heroes play again at the things they had done on earth. She noted these things with a blank eye, for a thousand thoughts were leaping through her mind. Something must be done. There he lay in the same room with her. He had turned his head back, no doubt, and was staring at the ceiling as before, and the yellow glimmer was in his eyes again. Perhaps, after this day, she should never see him again; every moment was precious beyond the price of gold, and yet there she stood at the window, doing nothing. But what could she do?

Should she go to him and fall on her knees beside him and pour out her heart, telling him again of the old days. No, it would be like striking on a wooden bell; no echo would rise; and she knew beforehand the deadly blackness of his eyes. So Black Bart lay often in the sun, staring at infinite distance and seeing nothing but his dreams of battle. What were appeals and what were words to Black Bart? What were they to Dan Barry? Yet once, by sitting still—the thought made her blood leap with a great, joyous pulse that set her cheeks tingling.

She waited till the first impulse of excitement had subsided, and then turned back and sat down in a chair near the fire. From a corner of her eye she was aware that Whistling Dan had turned his head again to await her first speech. Then she fixed her gaze on the wall of yellow flame. The impulse to speak to him was like a hand tugging to turn her around, and the words came up and swelled in her throat, but still she would not stir.

In a moment of rationality she felt in an overwhelming wave of mental coldness the folly of her course, but she shut out the thought with a slight shudder. Silence, to Dan Barry, had a louder voice and more meaning than any words.

Then she knew that he was sitting up on the couch. Was he about to stand up and walk out of the room? For moment after moment he did not stir; and at length she knew, with a breathless certainty, that he was staring fixedly at her! The hand which was farthest from him, and hidden, she gripped hard upon the arm of the chair. That was some comfort, some added strength.

She had now the same emotion she had had when Black Bart slunk towards her under the tree—if a single perceptible tremor shook her, if she showed the slightest awareness of the subtle approach, she was undone. It was only her apparent unconsciousness which could draw either the wolf-dog or the master.

She remembered what her father had told her of hunting young deer—how he had lain in the grass and thrust up a leg above the grass in sight of the deer and how they would first run away but finally come back step by step, drawn by an invincible curiosity, until at length they were within range for a point blank shot.

Now she must concentrate on the flames of the fireplace, see nothing but them, think of nothing but the swiftly changing domes and walls and pinnacles they made. She leaned a little forward and rested her cheek upon her right hand—and thereby she shut out the sight of Dan Barry effectually. Also it made a brace to keep her from turning her head towards him, and she needed every support, physical and mental.

Still he did not move. Was he in truth looking at her, or was he staring beyond her at the grey sky which lowered past the window? The faintest creaking sound told her that he had risen, slowly, from the crouch. Then not a sound, except that she knew, in some mysterious manner, that he moved, but whether towards her or towards the door she could not dream. But he stepped suddenly and noiselessly into the range of her vision and sat down on a low bench at one side of the hearth. If the strain had been tense before, it now became terrible; for there he sat almost facing her, and looking intently at her, yet she must keep all awareness of him out of her eyes. In the excitement a strong pulse began to beat in the hollow of her throat, as if her heart were rising. She had won, she had kept him in the room, she had brought him to a keen thought of her. A Pyrrhic victory, for she was poised on the very edge of a cliff of hysteria. She began to feel a tremor of the hand which supported her cheek. If that should become visible to him he would instantly know that all her apparent unconsciousness was a sham, and then she would have lost him truly!