L---P----1----+----2----+----3----+@10-4----T----R





Chapter XI. A New Trail Begins 

If he had been an ordinary rider, sitting heavily 
far back in the saddle, at the end of a long ride, 
Barry would either have been flung clear and 
smashed horribly against the rocks, or, more 
likely, he would have been entangled in the 
stirrups and crushed to death instantly by the 
weight of his horse; but he rode always lightly 
poised and when the mare pitched forward his feet 
were already clear of the stirrups. He landed, 
catlike, on hands and feet, unhurt. 

It had been a long shot, a lucky hit even for a 
marksman of the sheriff's caliber, and now the six 
horsemen streamed over a distant hilltop and swept 
into the valley to take their quarry dead, or half 
dead, from his fall. However, that approaching 
danger was nothing in the eye of Barry. He ran to 
the fallen mare and caught her head in his arms. 
She ceased her struggles to rise as soon as he 
touched her and whinneyed softly. The left foreleg 
lay twisted horribly beneath her, broken. Grey 
Molly had run her last race, and as Barry kneeled, 
holding the brave head close to him, he groaned, 
and looked away from her eyes. It was only an 
instant of weakness, and when he turned to her 
again he was drawing his gun from its holster. 

The beating hoofs of the posse as they raced 
towards him made a growing murmur through the 
clear air. Barry glanced towards them with a 
consummate loathing. They had killed a horse to 
stop a man, and to him it was more than murder. 
What harm had she done them except to carry her 
rider bravely and well? The tears of rage and 
sorrow which a child sheds welled into the eyes of 
Dan Barry. Every one of them had a hand in this 
horrible killing; was, to that half animal and 
half-childish nature, a murderer. 

His chin was on his shoulder; the quiver of pain 
in her nostrils ended as he spoke; and while the 
fingers of his left hand trailed caressingly 
across her forehead, his right carried the muzzle 
to her temple. 

"Brave Molly, good girl," he whispered, "they'll 
pay for you a death for a death and a man for a 
hoss." The yellow which had glinted in his eyes 
during the run was afire now. "It ain't far; only 
a step to go; and then you'll be where they ain't 
any saddles, nor any spurs to gall you, Molly, but 
just pastures that's green all year, and nothin' 
to do but loaf in the sun and smell the wind. 
Here's good luck to you, girl." 

His gun spoke sharp and short and he laid the limp 
head reverently on the ground. 

It had all happened in very few seconds, and the 
posse was riding through the river, still a long 
shot off, when Barry drew his rifle from its case 
on the saddle. Moreover, the failing light which 
had made the sheriff's hit so much a matter of 
luck was now still dimmer, yet Barry snapped his 
gun to the shoulder and fired the instant the butt 
lay in the grove. For another moment nothing 
changed in the appearance of the riders, then a 
man leaned out of his saddle and fell full length 
in the water. 

Around him his companions floundered, lifted and 
placed him on the bank, and then threw themselves 
from their horses to take shelter behind the first 
rocks they could find; they had no wish to take 
chances with a man who could snap-shoot like this 
in such a light, at such a distance. By the time 
they were in position their quarry had slipped out 
of sight and they had only the blackening boulders 
for targets. 

"God amighty," cried Ronicky Joe, "are you goin' 
to let that murderin' hound-dog get clear off, 
Pete? Boys, who's with me for a run at him?" 

For it was Harry Fisher who had fallen and lay now 
on the wet bank with his arms flung wide and a red 
spot rimmed with purple in the center of his 
forehead; and Fisher was Ronicky Joe's partner. 

"You lay where you are," commanded the sheriff, 
and indeed there had been no rousing response to 
Ronicky Joe's appeal. 

"You yaller quitters," groaned Joe. "Give me a 
square chance and I'll tackle Vic Gregg alone day 
or night, on hoss or on foot. Are we five goin' to 
lay down to him?" 

"If that was Vic Gregg," answered the sheriff, 
slipping over the insult with perfect calm, "I 
wouldn't of told you to scatter for cover; but 
that ain't Vic." 

"Pete, what in hell are you drivin' at?" 

"I say it ain't Vic," said the sheriff. "Vic is a 
good man with a hoss and a good man with a gun, 
but he couldn't never ride like the gent over 
there in the rocks, and he couldn't shoot like 
him." 

He pointed, in confirmation, at the body of Harry 
Fisher. 

"You can rush that hill if you want, but speakin' 
personal, I ain't ready to die." 

A thoughtful silence held the others until Sliver 
Waldron broke it with his deep bass. "You ain't 
far off, Pete. I done some thinkin' along them 
lines when I seen him standin' up there over the 
arroyo wavin' his hat at the bullets. Vic didn't 
never have the guts for that." 

All the lower valley was gray, dark in comparison 
with the bright peaks above it, before the sheriff 
rose from his place and led the posse towards the 
body of Grey Molly. There they found as much 
confirmation of Pete's theory as they needed, for 
Vic's silver-mounted saddle was known to all of 
them, and this was a plain affair which they found 
on the dead horse. Waldron pushed back his hat to 
scratch his head. 

"Look at them eyes, boys," he suggested. "Molly 
has been beatin' us all day and she looks like 
she's fightin' us still." 

The sheriff was not a man of very many words, and 
surely of little sentiment; perhaps it was the 
heat of the long chase which now made him take off 
his hat so that the air could reach his sweaty 
forehead. "Gents," he said, "she lived game and 
she died game. But they ain't no use of wastin' 
that saddle. Take it off." 

And that was Grey Molly's epitaph. 


They decided to head straight back for the nearest 
town with the body of Harry Fisher, and, fagged by 
the desperate riding of that day, they let their 
horses go with loose rein, at a walk. Darkness 
gathered; the last light faded from even the 
highest peaks; the last tinge of color dropped out 
of the sky as they climbed from the valley. Now 
and then one of the horses cleared its nostrils 
with a snort, but on the whole they went in 
perfect silence with the short grass silencing the 
hoofbeats, and never a word passed from man to 
man. 

Beyond doubt, if it had not been for that same 
silence, if it had not been for the slowness with 
which they drifted through the dark, what follows 
could never have happened. They had crossed a 
hill, and descended into a very narrow ravine 
which came to so sharp a point that the horses had 
to be strung out in single file. The ravine 
twisted to the right and then the last man of the 
procession heard the sheriff call: "Halt, there! 
Up with your hands, or I'll drill you!" When they 
swung from side to side, craning their heads to 
look, they made out a shadowy horseman facing Pete 
head on. Then the sheriff's voice again: "Gregg, 
I'm considerable glad to meet up with you." 

If that meeting had taken place in any other spot 
probably Gregg would have taken his chance on 
escaping through the night, but in this narrow 
pass he could swing to neither side and before he 
could turn the brown horse entirely around the 
sheriff might pump him full of lead. They gathered 
in a solemn quiet around him; the irons were 
already upon his wrists. 

"All right, boys," he said, "you've got me, but 
you'll have to give in that you had all the luck." 

A moment after that sharp command in the familiar, 
dreaded voice of Pete Glass, Vic had been glad 
that the lone flight was over. Eventually this was 
bound to come. He would go back and face the law, 
and three men lived to swear that Blondy had gone 
after his gun first. 

"Maybe luck," said the sheriff. "How d' you come 
back this way?" 

"Made a plumb circle," chuckled Gregg. "Rode like 
a fool not carin' where I hit out for, and the end 
of it was that it was dark before I'd had sense to 
watch where the sun went down." 

"Kind of cheerful, ain't you?" cut in Ronicky Joe, 
and his voice was as dry as the crisping leaves in 
an autumn wind. 

"They ain't any call for me to wear crepe yet," 
answered Gregg. "Worst fool thing I ever done was 
to cut and run for it. The old Captain will tell 
you gents that Blondy went for his gun first--had 
it clean out of the leather before I touched 
mine." 

He paused, and the silence of those dark figures 
sank in upon him. 

"I got to warn you," said Pete Glass, "that what 
you say now can be used again you later on before 
the jury." 

"My God, boys," burst out Vic, "d'you think I'm a 
plain, low-down, murderin' snake? Harry, ain't you 
got a word for me? Are you like the rest of 'em?" 

No voice answered. 

"Harry," said Ronicky, "why don't you speak to 
him?" 

It was a brutal thing to do, but Ronicky was never 
a gentle sort in his best moments; he scratched a 
match and held it so that under the spluttering 
light Gregg found himself staring into the face of 
Harry Fisher. And he could not turn his eyes away 
until the match burned down to Ronicky's finger 
tip and then dropped in a streak of red to the 
ground. 

Then the sheriff spoke cold and hard. 

"Partner," he said, "in the old days, maybe your 
line of talk would do some good, but not now. You 
picked that fight with Blondy. You knew you was 
faster on the draw and Hansen didn't have a 
chance. He was the worst shot in Alder and 
everybody in Alder knew it. You picked that fight 
and you killed your man, and you're goin' to hang 
for it." 

Another hush; no murmur of assent or dissent. 

"But they's one way out for you, Gregg, and I'm 
layin' it clear. We wanted you bad, and we got 
you; but they's another man we want a lot worse. A 
pile! Gregg, take me where I can find the gent 
what done for Harry Fisher and you'll never stand 
up in front of a jury. You got my word on that." 



Chapter XII. The Crisis 

Those mountains above the Barry cabin were, as he 
told Vic Gregg, inaccessible to men on horseback 
except by one path, yet there was a single class 
of travelers who roamed at will through far more 
difficult ground than this. Speaking in general, 
where a man can go a burro can go, and where a 
burro can go he usually manages to carry his pack. 
He crawls up a raged down-pitch of rocks that 
comes dangerously close to the perpendicular; he 
walks securely along a crumbling ledge with half 
his body over a thousand yards of emptiness. 
Therefore the prospectors with their burros have 
combed the worst mountains of the West and it was 
hardly a surprise to Kate Barry when she saw two 
men come down the steepest slope above the cabin 
with two little pack animals scrambling and 
sliding before them. It was still some time before 
nightfall, but the sun had dropped out of sight 
fully an hour ago and now the western mountains 
were blackening against a sky whose thin, clear 
blue grew yellow towards evening. 

Against that dark mass of the mountainside, she 
could not make out the two travelers clearly, so 
she shaded her eyes and peered up, high up. The 
slope was so sheer that if one of the four figures 
lost footing it would come crashing to her very 
feet. When they saw her and shouted down the sound 
fell as clearly as if they had called from the 
cabin, yet they had a good half hour's labor 
between that greeting and the moment they came out 
on the level before Kate. From the instant they 
called she remained in motionless, deep thought, 
and when they came now into full view, she cried 
out joyously: "Buck, oh Buck!" and ran towards 
them. Even the burros stopped and the men stood 
statue-like; it is rarely enough that one finds a 
human being in those mountains, almost an act of 
Providence that lead to a house, and a miracle 
when the trail crosses the path of a friend. The 
prospectors came out of their daze with a shout 
and rushed to meet her. Each of them had her by a 
hand, wringing it; they talked all together in a 
storm of words. 

"Kate, I'm dreamin'!--Dear old Buck!--Have you 
forgotten me?--Lee Haines! I should say not.--
Don't pay any attention to him. Five years. And 
I've been hungerin' to see you all that--.--Where 
have you been?--Everywhere! but this is the best 
thing I've seen.--Come in.--Wait till we get these 
packs off the poor little devils.--Oh, I'm so glad 
to see you; so glad!--Hurry up, Lee. Your fingers 
asleep?--How long have you been out?--Five 
months.--Then you're hungry.--We've just ate.--But 
a piece of pie?--pie? I've been dreamin' of pie!" 

A fire already burned in the big living-room of 
the cabin, for at this season, at such an 
altitude, the shadows were always cold, and around 
the fire they gathered, each of the men with half 
a huge pie before him. They were such as one might 
expect that mountain region to produce, big, 
gaunt, hard-muscled. They had gone unshaven for so 
long that their faces were clothed not with an 
unsightly stubble but with strong, short beard 
that gave them a certain grim dignity and made 
their eyes seem sunken. They were opposite types, 
which is usually the case when two men strike out 
together. Buck Daniels was black-haired, with an 
ugly, shrewd face and a suggestion of rather 
dangerous possibilities of swift action; but Lee 
Haines was a great bulk of a man, with tawny 
beard, handsome, in a leonine fashion, more poised 
than Daniels, fitted to crush. The sharp glance of 
Buck flitted here and there, in ten seconds he 
knew everything in the room; the steady blue eye 
of Lee Haines went leisurely from place to place 
and lingered; but both of them stared at Kate as 
if they could not have enough of her. They talked 
without pause while they ate. A stranger in the 
room would have sealed their lips in utter 
taciturnity, but here they sat with a friend, five 
months of loneliness and labor behind them, and 
they gossiped like girls. 

Into the jangle of talk cut a thin, small voice 
from outside, a burst of laughter. Then: "Bart, 
you silly dog!" and Joan stood at the open door 
with her hand buried in the mane of the wolf-dog. 
The fork of Buck Daniels stopped halfway to his 
lips and Lee Haines straightened until the chair 
groaned. 

They spoke together, hushed voices: "Kate!" 

"Come here, Joan!" Her face glistened with pride, 
and Joan came forward with wide eyes, tugging 
Black Bart along in a reluctant progress. 

"It ain't possible!" whispered Buck Daniels. 
"Honey, come here and shake hands with your Uncle 
Buck." The gesture called forth deep throated 
warning from Bart, and he caught back his hand 
with a start. 

"It's always that way," said Kate, half amused, 
half vexed; "Bart won't let a soul touch her when 
Dan isn't home. Good old Bart, go away, you 
foolish dog! Don't you see these are friends?" 

He cringed a little under the shadow of the hand 
which waved him off but his only answer was a 
silent baring of the teeth. 

"You see how it is. I'm almost afraid to touch her 
myself when Dan's away; she and Bart bully me all 
day long." 

In the meantime the glance of Joan had cloyed 
itself with sufficient examination of the 
strangers, and now she turned back towards the 
door and the meadow beyond. 

"Bart!" she called softly. The sharp ears of the 
dog quivered; he came to attention with a start. 
"Look! Get it for me!" 

One loud scraping of his claws on the floor as he 
started, and Black Bart went like a bolt through 
the door with Joan scrambling after him, screaming 
with excitement; from the outside, they heard the 
cry of a frightened squirrel, and then its angry 
chattering from a place of safety up a tree. 

"Shall I call her back again?" asked Kate. 

"Not if Bart comes with her," answered Lee Haines. 
"I've seen enough of him to last me a while." 

"Well, we'll have her to ourselves when Dan comes; 
of course Bart leaves her to tag around after 
Dan." 

"When is he comin' back?" asked Buck, with polite 
interest. 

"Anytime. I don't know. But he's always here 
before it's completely dark." 

The glance of Buck Daniels kicked over to Lee 
Haines, exchanged meanings with him, and came back 
to Kate. 

"Terrible sorry," he said, "but I s'pose we'll 
have to be on our way before it's plumb dark." 

"Go so soon as that? Why, I won't let you." 

"I--" began Haines, fumbling for words. 

"We got to get down in the valley before it's 
dark," filled in Buck. 

Suddenly she laughed, frankly, happily. 

"I know what you mean, but Dan is changed; he 
isn't the same man he used to be." 

"Yes?" queried Buck, without conviction. 

"You'll have to see him to believe; Buck, he 
doesn't even whistle any more." 

"What?" 

"Only goes about singing, now." 

The two men exchanged glances of such astonishment 
that Kate could not help but notice and flush a 
little. 

"Well," murmured Buck, "Bart doesn't seem to have 
changed much from the old days." 

She laughed slowly, letting her mind run back 
through such happiness as they could not 
understand and when she looked up she seemed to 
debate whether or not it would be worth while to 
let them in on the delightful secret. The moment 
she dwelt on the burning logs they gazed at her 
and then to each other with utter amazement as if 
they sat in the same room with the dead come to 
life. No care of motherhood had marked her face, 
but on the white, even forehead was a sign of 
peace; and drifting over her hands and on the 
white apron across her lap the firelight pooled 
dim gold, the wealth of contentment. 

"If you'd been here today you would have seen how 
changed he is. We had a man with us whom Dan had 
taken while he was running from a posse, wounded, 
and kept him here until he was well, and--" 

"That's Dan," murmured Lee Haines. "He's gold all 
through when a man's in trouble." 

"Shut up, Lee," cut in Buck. He sat forward in his 
chair, drinking up her story. 

"Go on." 

"This morning we saw the same posse skirting 
through the valley and knew that they were on the 
old trail. Dan sent Gregg over the hills and rode 
Vic's horse down so that the posse would mistake 
him, and he could lead them out of the way. I was 
afraid, terribly, I was afraid that if the posse 
got close and began shooting Dan would--" 

She stopped; her eyes begged them to understand. 

"Go on," said Lee Haines, shuddering slightly. "I 
know what you mean." 

"But I watched him ride down the slope," she cried 
joyously, "and I saw the posse close on him--
almost on top of him when he reached the valley. I 
saw the flash of their guns. I saw them shoot. I 
wasn't afraid that Dan would be hurt, for he seems 
to wear a charm against bullets--I wasn't much 
afraid of that, but I dreaded to see him turn and 
go back through that posse like a storm. But--" 
she caught both hands to her breast and her bright 
face tilted up--"even when the bullets must have 
been whistling around him he didn't look back. He 
rode straight on and on, out of view, and I knew"-
-her voice broke with emotion--"oh, Buck, I knew 
that he had won, and I had won; that he was safe 
forever; that there was no danger of him ever 
slipping back into that terrible other self; I 
knew that I'd never again have to dream of that 
whistling in the wind; I knew that he was ours--
Joan's and mine." 

"By God," broke out Buck, "I'm happier than if 
you'd found a gold mine, Kate. It don't seem no 
ways--but if you seen that with your own eyes, 
it's possible true. He's changed." 

"I've been almost afraid to be happy all these 
years," she said, "but now I want to sing and cry 
at the same time. My heart is so full that it's 
overflowing, Buck." 

She brushed the tears away and smiled at them. 

"Tell me all about yourselves. Everything. You 
first, Lee. You've been longer away." 

He did not answer for a moment, but sat with his 
head fallen, watching her thoughtfully. Women had 
been the special curse in Lee Haines' life; they 
had driven him to the crime that sent him West 
into outlawry long years before; through women, as 
he himself foreboded, he would come at last to 
some sordid, petty end; but here sat the only one 
he had loved without question, without regret, 
purely and deeply, and as he watched her, more 
beautiful than she had been in her girlhood, it 
seemed, as he heard the fitful laughter of Joan 
outside, the old sorrow came storming up in him, 
and the sense of loss. 

"What have I been doing?" he murmured at length. 
He shrugged away his last thoughts. "I drifted 
about for a while after the pardon came down from 
the governor. People knew me, you see, and what 
they knew about me didn't please them. Even today 
Jim Silent and Jim Silent's crew isn't forgotten. 
Then don't look at me like that, Kate; no, I 
played straight all the time---then I ran into 
Buck and he and I had tried each other out, we had 
at least one thing in common"--here he looked at 
Buck and they both flushed--"and we made a 
partnership of it. We've been together five years 
now." 

"I knew you could break away, Lee. I used to tell 
you that." 

"You helped me more than you knew," he said 
quietly. 

She smiled and then turned to escape him. "And now 
you, Buck?" 

"Since then we've made a bit of coin punching cows 
and we've blown it in again prospecting. Blown it 
in? Kate, we've shot enough powder to lift that 
mountain yonder but all we've got is color. You 
could gild the sky with what we've seen but we 
haven't washed enough dust to wear a hole in a 
tissue-paper pocket. I'll tell you the whole 
story. Lee packs a jinx with him. But--Haines, did 
you ever see a lion as big as that?" 

The dimness of evening had grown rapidly through 
the room while they talked and now the light from 
the door was far less than the glow of the fire. 
The yellow flicker picked out a dozen pelts 
stretching as rugs on the floor or hanging along 
the wall; that to which Buck pointed was an 
enormous skin of a mountain lion stretched 
sidewise, for if it had been hung straight up a 
considerable portion of the tail must have dragged 
on the floor. Buck went to examine it. Presently 
he exclaimed in surprise and he passed his fingers 
over it as though searching for something. 

"Where was it shot, Kate? I don't find nothin' but 
this cut that looks like his knife slipped when he 
was skinnin'." 

"It was a knife that killed it." 

"What!" 

"Don't ask me about it; I see the picture of it in 
my dreams still. The lion had dragged the trap 
into a cave and Bart followed it. Dan went in 
pushing his rifle before him, but--when he tried 
to fire it jammed." 

"Yes?" they cried together. 

"Don't ask me the rest!" 

They would hardly have let her off so easily if it 
had not been for the entrance of Joan who had come 
back on account of the darkness. Black Bart went 
promptly to a corner of the hearth and lay down 
with his head on his paws and the little girl sat 
beside him watching the fire, her head leaning 
wearily on his shoulder. Kate went to the door. 

"It's almost night," she said. "Why isn't he 
here?" 

"Buck, they couldn't have overtaken--" 

She started. "Dan?" 

Buck Daniels grinned reassuringly. 

"Not unless his hoss is a pile of bones; if it has 
any heart in it, Dan'll run away from anything on 
four legs. No call for worryin', Kate. He's simply 
led 'em a long ways off and waited for evenin' 
before he doubled back. He'll come back right 
enough. If they didn't catch him that first run 
they'll never get the wind of him." 

It quieted her for a time, but as the minutes 
slipped away, as the darkness grew more and more 
heavy until a curtain of black fell across the 
open door, they could see that she was struggling 
to control her trouble, they could see her 
straining to catch some distant sound. Lee Haines 
began to talk valiantly, to beguile the waiting 
time, and Buck Daniels did his share with stories 
of their prospecting, but eventually more and more 
often silences came on the group. They began to 
watch the fire and they winced when a log 
crackled, or when the sap in a green place hissed. 
By degrees they pushed farther and farther back so 
that the light would not strike so fully upon 
them, for in some way it became difficult to meet 
each other's eyes. 

Only Joan was perfectly at ease. She played for a 
time with the ears of Black Bart, or pried open 
his mouth and made him show the great white fangs, 
or scratched odd designs on the hearth with pieces 
of charcoal; but finally she lost interest in all 
these things and let her head lie on the rough 
pelt of the wolf-dog, sound asleep. The firelight 
made her hair a patch of gold. 

Black Bart slept soundly, too, that is, as soundly 
as one of his nature could sleep, for every now 
and then one of his ears twitched, or he stirred a 
paw, or an eyelid quivered up. Yet they all 
started when he jumped from his sleep into full 
wakefulness; the motion made Joan sit up, rubbing 
her eyes, and Black Bart reached the center of the 
room noiselessly. He stood facing the door, 
motionless. 

"It's Dan," cried Kate. "Bart hears him! Good old 
Bart!" 

The dog pointed up his nose, the hair about his 
neck bristled into a ruff, and out of his quaking 
body came a sound that seemed to moan and whimper 
from the distance at first, but drew nearer, 
louder, packed the room with terror, the long 
drawn howl of a wolf. 



Chapter XIII. Equal Payment 

They knew what it meant; even Joan had heard the 
cry of the lone wolf hunting in the lean time of 
winter, and of all things sad, all things lonely, 
all things demoniacal, the howl of a wolf stands 
alone. Lee Haines reached for his gun, little Joan 
stood up silent on the hearth, but Kate and Buck 
Daniels sat listening with a sort of hungry 
terror, as the cry sobbed away to quiet. Then out 
of the mountains and the night came an answer so 
thin, so eerie, one might have said it was the 
voice of the mountains and white stars grown 
audible; it stole on the ear as the pulse of a 
heart comes to the consciousness. 

Truly it was an answer to the cry of the wolf-dog, 
for in the slender compass it carried the same 
wail, the same unearthly quality with this great 
difference, that a thrilling happiness went 
through it, as if some one walked through the 
mountains and rejoiced in the unknown terrors. A 
sob formed in the throat of Kate and the wolf 
turned its head and looked at her, and the yellow 
of things that see in the night swam in its eyes. 
Lee Haines struck the arm of Buck Daniels. 

"Buck, let's get clear of this. Let's start. He's 
coming." 

At the whisper Buck turned a livid face; one could 
see him gather his strength. 

"I stick," he said with difficulty, as though his 
lips were numb. "She'll need me now." 

Lee Haines stood in a moment's indecision but then 
settled back in his chair and gripped his hands 
together. They both sat watching the door as if 
the darkness were a magnet of inescapable horror. 
Only Joan, of all in that room, showed no fear 
after the first moment. Her face was blanched 
indeed, but she tilted it up now, smiling; she 
stole towards the door, but Kate caught the child 
and gathered her close with strangling force. Joan 
made no attempt to escape. "S-sh!" she cautioned, 
and raised a plump little forefinger. "Munner, 
don't you hear? Don't you like it?" 

As if the sound had turned a corner, it broke all 
at once clearly over them in a rain of music; a 
man's whistling. It went out; it flooded about 
them again like beautiful, cold light. Once again 
it stopped, and now they sensed, rather than 
heard, a light, rapid, padding step that 
approached the cabin. Dan Barry stood in the door 
and in that shadowy place his eyes seemed 
luminous. He no longer whistled, but a spirit went 
from him which carried the same sense of the 
untamed, the wild happiness which died out with 
his smile as he looked around the room. The brim 
of his hat curved up, his neckerchief seemed to 
flutter a little. The wolf-dog reached the 
threshold in the same instant and stood looking 
steadily up into the face of the master. 

"Daddy Dan!" cried Joan. 

She had slipped from the nerveless arms of Kate 
and now ran towards her father, but here she 
faltered, there she stopped with her arms slowly 
falling back to her sides. He did not seem to see 
her, but looked past her, far beyond every one in 
the room as he walked to the wall and took down a 
bridle that hung on a peg. Kate laid her hands on 
the arms of the chair, but after the first effort 
to rise, her strength failed. 

"Dan!" she said. It was only a whisper, a heart-
stopping sound. "Dan!" Her voice rang, then her 
arms gathered to her, blindly, Joan, who had 
shrunk back. "What's happened?" 

"Molly died." 

"Died." 

"They broke her leg." 

"The posse!" 

"With a long shot." 

"What are you going to do!" 

"Get Satan. Go for a ride." 

"Where?" 

He looked about him, troubled, and then frowned. 
"I dunno. Out yonder." 

He waved his arm. Black Bart followed the turn of 
the master's body, and switching around in front 
continued to stare up into Dan's face. 

"You're going back after the posse?" 

"No, I'm done with them." 

"What do you mean?" 

"They paid for Grey Molly." 

"You shot one of their--horses?" 

"A man." 

"God help us!" Then life came to her; she sprang 
up and ran between him and the door. "You shan't 
go. If you love me!" She was only inches from 
Black Bart, and the big animal showed his teeth in 
silent hate. 

"Kate, I'm goin'. Don't stand in the door." 

Joan, slipping around Bart, stood clinging to the 
skirts of her mother and watched the face of Dan, 
fascinated, silent. 

"Tell me where you're going. Tell me when you're 
coming back. Dan, for pity!" 

Loud as a trumpet, a horse neighed from the 
corral. Dan had stood with an uncertain face, but 
now he smiled. 

"D'you hear? I got to go!" 

"I heard Satan whinney. But what does that mean? 
How does that make you go?" 

"Somewhere," he murmured, "something's happening. 
I felt it on the wind when I was comin' up the 
pass." 

"If you--oh, Dan, you're breaking my heart!" 

"Stand out of the door." 

"Wait till the morning." 

"Don't you see I can't wait?" 

"One hour, ten minutes. Buck--Lee Haines--" 

She could not finish, but Buck Daniels stepped 
closer, trying to make a smile grow on his ashen 
face. 

"Another minute, Dan, and I'll tell a man you've 
forgotten me." 

Barry pivoted suddenly as though uneasy at finding 
something behind him, and Daniels winced. 

"Hello, Buck. Didn't see you was here. Lee Haines? 
Lee, this is fine." 

He passed from one to the other and his handshake 
was only the elusive passage of his fingers 
through their palms. Haines shrugged his shoulders 
to get rid of a weight that clung to him; a touch 
of color came back to his face. 

"Look here, Dan. If you're afraid that gang may 
trail you here and start raising the devil--how 
many are there?" 

"Five." 

"I'm as good with a gun as I ever was in the old 
days. So is Buck. Partner, let's make the show 
down together. Stick here with Kate and Joan and 
Buck and I will help you hold the fort. Don't look 
at me like that. I mean it. Do you think I've 
forgotten what you did for me that night in 
Elkhead? Not in a thousand years. Dan, I'd rather 
make my last play here than any other place in the 
world. Let 'em come! We'll salt them down and 
plant them where they won't grow." 

As he talked the pallor quite left him, and the 
fighting fire blazed in his eyes, he stood lion-
like, his feet spread apart as if to meet a shock, 
his tawny head thrown back, and there was about 
him a hair-trigger sensitiveness, in spite of his 
bulk, a nervousness of hand and coldness of glance 
which characterizes the gun-fighter. Buck Daniels 
stepped closer, without a word, but one felt that 
he also had walked into the alliance. As Barry 
watched them the yellow which swirled in his eyes 
flickered away for a moment. 

"Why, gents," he murmured, "they ain't any call 
for trouble. The posse? What's that got to do with 
me? Our accounts are all squared up." 

The two stared dumbly. 

"They killed Grey Molly; I killed one of them." 

"A horse--for a man?" repeated Lee Haines, 
breathing hard. 

"A life for a life," said Dan simply. "They got no 
call for complainin'." 

Glances of wonder, glances of meaning, flashed 
back and forth from Haines to Buck. 

"Well, then," said the latter, and he took in Kate 
with a caution from the corner of his eye, "if 
that's the case, let's sit down and chin for a 
minute." 

Dan stood with his head bowed a little, frowning; 
two forces pulled him, and Kate leaned against the 
wall off in the shadow with her eyes closed, 
waiting, waiting, waiting through the crisis. 

"I'd like to stay and chin with you, Buck--but, I 
got to be off. Out there--in the night--something 
may happen before mornin'." Black Bart licked the 
hand of the master and whined. "Easy, boy. We're 
startin'." 

"But the night's just beginnin'," said Buck 
Daniels genially. "You got a world of time before 
you, and with Satan to fall back on you don't have 
to count your minutes. Pull up a chair beside me, 
Dan, and--" 

The latter shook his head, decided. "Buck, I can't 
do it. Just to sit here"--he looked about him--
"makes me feel sort of choked. Them walls are as 
close--as a coffin." 

He was already turning; Kate straightened in the 
shadow, desperate. 

"As a matter of fact, Dan," said Lee Haines, 
suddenly, "we need your help badly." 

"Help?" 

The heart of Kate stood in her eyes as she looked 
at Lee Haines. 

"Sit down a minute, Dan, and I'll tell you about 
it." 

Barry slipped into a chair which he had pulled to 
one side--so that the back of it was towards the 
wall, and every one in the room was before him. 



Chapter XIV. Suspense 

The help which Lee Haines wanted, it turned out, 
was guidance across a difficult stretch of country 
which he and Buck Daniels wanted to prospect, and 
while he talked Barry listened uneasily. It was 
constitutionally impossible for him to say no when 
a favor was asked of him, and Haines counted 
heavily on that characteristic; in the meantime 
Black Bart lay on the hearth with his wistful eyes 
turned steadily up to the master; and Buck Daniels 
went to Kate on the farther side of the room. She 
sat quivering, alternately crushing and soothing 
Joan with the strength of her caresses. Buck drew 
a chair close, with his back half towards the 
fire. 

"Turn around a little, Kate," he cautioned. "Don't 
let Dan see your face." 

She obeyed him automatically. 

"Is there a hope, Buck? What have I done to 
deserve this? I don't want to live; I want to die! 
I want to die!" 

"Steady, steady!" he cut in, and his face was 
working. "If you keep on like this you'll bust 
down in a minute or two. And you know what tears 
do to Dan; he'll be out of this house like a 
scairt coyote. Brace up!" 

She struggled and won a partial control. 

"I'm fighting hard, Buck." 

"Fight harder still. You ought to know him better 
than I do. When he's like this it drives him wild 
to have other folks thinkin' about him." 

He looked over to Dan. In spite of the bowed head 
of the latter as he listened to Haines yarning he 
gave an impression of electric awareness to all 
that was around him. 

"Talk soft," whispered Buck. "Maybe he knows we're 
talkin' about him." 

He raised his voice out of the whisper, breaking 
in on a sentence about Joan, as if this were the 
tenor of their talk. Then he lowered his tone 
again. 

"Think quick. Talk soft. Do you want Dan kept 
here?" 

"For God's sake, yes." 

"Suppose the posse gets him here?" 

"We musn't dodge the law." 

They were gauging their voices with the closest 
precision. Talking like this so close to Barry was 
like dancing among flasks of nitroglycerine. Once, 
and once only, Lee Haines cast a desperate eye 
across to them, begging them to come to his 
rescue, then he went back to his talk with Dan, 
raising his voice to shelter the conference of the 
other two. 

"If they come, he'll fight." 

"No, he isn't at the fighting pitch yet, I know!" 

"If you're wrong they'll be dead men here." 

"He sees no difference between the death of a 
horse and the death of a man. He feels that the 
law has no score against him. He'll go quietly." 

"And we'll find ways of fightin' the law?" 

"Yes, but it needs money." 

"I've got a stake." 

"God bless you, Buck." 

"Take my advice." 

"What?" 

"Let him go now." 

She glanced at him wildly. 

"Kate, he's gone already." 

"No, no, no!" 

"I say he's gone. Look at his eyes." 

"I don't dare." 

"The yaller is comin' up in 'em. He's wild again." 
She shook her head in mute agony. Buck Daniels 
groaned, softly. 

"Then they's goin' to be a small-sized hell 
started around this cabin before mornin'." 

He got up and went slowly back towards the fire. 
Lee Haines was talking steadily, leisurely, going 
round and round his subject again and again, and 
Barry listened with bowed head, but his eyes were 
fixed upon those of the wolf-dog at his feet. When 
he grew restless, Haines chained him to the chair 
with some direct question, yet it was a hard game 
to play. All this time the posse might be 
gathering around the cabin; and the forehead of 
Haines whitened and glistened with sweat. His 
voice was the only living thing in the cabin, 
after a time, sketching his imaginary plans for 
the benefit of Barry--his voice and the wistful 
eyes of Joan which kept steadily on Daddy Dan. 
Something has come between them and lifted a 
barrier which she could not understand, and with 
all her aching child's heart she wondered at it. 

For the second time that evening the wolf stood up 
on the hearth, but he was not yet on his feet 
before Dan was out of his chair and standing close 
to the wall, where the shadows swallowed him. Lee 
Haines sat with his lips frozen on the next 
unspoken word. Two shadows, whose feet made no 
sound, Black Bart and Dan glided to the door and 
peered into the night--then Barry went back, step 
by step, until his back was once more to the wall. 
Not until that instant did the others hear. It was 
a step which approached behind the house; a loud 
rap at the back door. 

It was the very loudness of the knock which made 
Kate draw a breath of relief; if it had been a 
stealthy tap she would have screamed. He who 
rapped did not wait for an answer; they heard the 
door creak open, the sound of a heavy man's step. 

"It's Vic," said Dan quietly, and then the door 
opened which led into the kitchen and the tall 
form of Gregg entered. He paused there. 

"Here I am again, ma'am." 

"Good evening," she answered faintly. 

He cleared his throat, embarrassed. 

"Darned if I didn't play a fool game today--hello, 
Dan." 

The other nodded. 

"Rode in a plumb circle and come back where I 
started." He laughed, and the laughter broke off a 
little shortly. He stepped to the wall and hung up 
his bridle on its peg, which is the immemorial 
manner of asking hospitality in the mountain-
desert. "Hope I ain't puttin' you out, Kate. I see 
you got company." 

She started, recalled from her thoughts. 

"Excuse me, Vic. Vic Gregg, Buck Daniels, Lee 
Haines." 

They shook hands, and Vic detained Haines a 
moment. 

"Seems to me I've heard of you, Haines." 

"Maybe." 

Gregg looked at the big man narrowly, and then 
swung back towards Dan. He knew many things, now. 
Lee Haines--yes, that was the name. One of the 
crew who followed Jim Silent; and Dan Barry? What 
a fool he had been not to remember! It was Dan 
Barry who had gone on the trail of Silent's gang 
and hounded it to death; Lee Haines alone had been 
spared. Yes, half a dozen years before the 
mountain-folk had heard that story, a wild and 
improbable one. It fitted in with what Pete Glass 
had told him of the shooting of Harry Fisher; it 
explained a great deal which had mystified him 
since he first met Barry; it made the thing he had 
come to do at once easier and harder. 

"I s'pose Molly showed a clean pair of heels to 
the whole lot of 'em?" he said to Dan. 

"She's dead." 

"Dead?" His astonishment was well enough affected. 
"God amighty, Dan, not Grey Molly--my hoss?" 

"Dead. I shot her." 

Vic gasped. "You?" 

"They'd busted her leg. I put her out of pain." 

Gregg dropped into a chair. It was not altogether 
an affectation, not altogether a piece of skilful 
acting now, for though the sheriff had told him 
all that happened he had not had a chance to feel 
the truth; but now it swept over him, all her 
tricks, all her deviltry, all that long 
companionship. His head bowed. 

No smile touched the faces of the others in the 
room, but a reverent silence fell on the room. 
Then that figure among the shadows moved out, 
stepped to the side of Vic, and a light hand 
rested on his shoulder. The other looked up, 
haggard. 

"She's gone, partner," Dan said gently, "but she's 
paid for." 

"Paid for? Dan, they ain't any money could pay me 
back for Grey Molly." 

"I know; I know! Not that way, but there was a 
life given for a life." 

"Eh?" 

"One man died for Molly." 

As the meaning came home to Gregg he blinked, and 
then, looking up, he found a change in the eyes of 
Barry, for they seemed to be lighted from within 
coldly, and his glance went down to the very 
bottom of Vic's soul, probing. It was only an 
instant, a thing of which Gregg could not make 
sure, and then Dan slipped back into his place 
among the shadows by the wall. But a chill sense 
of guilt, a premonition of danger, stayed in 
Gregg. The palms of his hands grew moist. 



Chapter XV. Seven For One 

Dangerous men were no novelty for Gregg. He had 
lived with them, worked with them, as hard-fisted 
himself as any, and as ready for trouble, but the 
man of the mountain-desert has a peculiar dread 
for the practiced, known gun-fighter. In the days 
of the rapier when the art of fence grew so 
complicated that half a life was needed for its 
mastery, men would as soon commit suicide as 
ruffle it with an assured duellist; and the man of 
the mountain-desert has a similar respect for 
those who are born, it might be said, gun in hand. 
There was ample reason for the prickling in his 
scalp, Vic felt, for here he sat on an errand of 
consummate danger with three of these deadly 
fighters. Two of them he knew by name and repute, 
however dimly, and as for Buck Daniels, unless all 
signs failed the dark, sharp-eyed fellow was 
hardly less grim than the others. Vic gauged the 
three one by one. Daniels might be dreaded for an 
outburst of wild temper and in that moment he 
could be as terrible as any. Lee Haines would 
fight coolly, his blue eyes never clouded by 
passion, for that was his repute as the right hand 
man of Jim Silent, in the days when Jim had been a 
terrible, half-legendary figure. One felt that 
same quiet strength as the tawny haired man talked 
to Barry now; his voice was a smooth, deep 
current. But as for Barry himself, Gregg could not 
compute the factors which entered into the man. By 
all outward seeming that slender, half-timid 
figure was not a tithe of the force which either 
of the others represented, but out of the past 
Gregg's memory gathered more and more details, 
clear and clearer, of the wolf-dog, the black 
stallion, and the whistling man who tracked down 
Silent--"Whistling Dan" Barry; that was what they 
called him, sometimes. Nothing was definite in the 
mind of Gregg. The stories consisted of patched 
details, heard here and there at third or fourth 
hand, but he remembered one epic incident in which 
Barry had ridden, so rumor told, into the very 
heart of Elkhead, taken from the jail this very 
man, this Lee Haines, and carried him through the 
cordon of every armed man in Elkhead. And there 
was another picture, dimmer still, which an eye 
witness had painted: of how, at an appointed hour, 
Barry met Jim Silent and killed him. 

Out of these thoughts he glanced again at the man 
in the shadow, half expecting to find his host 
swollen to giant size. Instead, he found the same 
meager form, the same old suggestion of youth 
which would not age, the same pale hands, of 
almost feminine litheness. Lee Haines talked on--
about a porphyry dyke somewhere to the north--a 
ledge to be found in the space of ten thousand 
square miles--a list of vague clues--an appeal for 
Barry to help them find it--and Barry was held 
listening though ever seeming to drift, or about 
to drift, towards the door. Black Bart lay facing 
his master, and his snaky head followed every 
movement. Kate sat where the firelight barely 
touched on her, and in her arms she held Joan, 
whose face and great bright eyes were turned 
towards Daddy Dan. All things in the room centered 
on the place where the man sat by the wall, and 
the sense of something impending swept over Gregg; 
then a wild fear--did they know the danger 
outside? He must make conversation; he turned to 
Kate, but at the same moment the voice of Buck 
Daniels beside him, close. 

"I know how you feel, old man. I remember an old 
bay hoss of mine, a Morgan hoss, and when he died 
I grieved for near onto a year, mostly. He wasn't 
much of a hoss to look at, too long coupled, you'd 
say, and his legs was short, but he got about like 
a coyote and when he sat down on a rope you 
couldn't budge him with a team of Percherons. 
That's how good he was! When he was a four year 
old I was cutting out yearlin's with him, and how-
-" 

The loud, cheerful tone fell away to a 
confidential murmur, Daniels leaned closer, with a 
smile of prospective humor, but the words which 
came to Gregg were: "Partner, if I was you I'd get 
up and git and I wouldn't stop till I put a hell 
of a long ways between me and this cabin!" 

It spoke well of Vic's nerve that no start 
betrayed him. He bowed his head a little, as 
though to catch the trend of the jolly story 
better, nodding. 

"What's wrong?" he muttered back. 

"Barry's watchin' you out of the shadow." 

Then: "You fool, don't look!" 

But there was method in Vic's raising his head. He 
threw it back and broke into laughter, but while 
he laughed he searched the shadow by the wall 
where Dan sat, and he felt glimmering eyes fixed 
steadily upon him. He dropped his head again, as 
if to hear more. 

"What's it mean, Daniels?" 

"You ought to know. I don't. But he don't mean you 
no good. He's lookin' at you too steady. If I was 
you--" 

Through the whisper of Buck, through the loud, 
steady talk of Lee Haines, cut the voice of Barry. 

"Vic!" 

The latter looked up and found that Barry was 
standing just within the glow of the hearth-light 
and something about him made Gregg's heart shrink. 

"Vic, how much did they pay you?" 

He tried to answer; he would have given ten years 
of life to have his voice under control for an 
instant; but his tongue froze. He knew that every 
one had turned toward him and he tried to smile, 
look unconcerned, but in spite of himself his eyes 
were wide, fixed, and he felt that they could 
stare into the bottom of his soul and see the 
guilt. 

"How much?" 

Then his voice came, but he could have groaned 
when he heard its crazily shaken, shrill sound. 

"What d'you mean, Dan?" 

The other smiled and Gregg added hastily: "If you 
want me to be movin' along, Dan, of course you're 
the doctor." 

"How much did they pay?" repeated the quiet, 
inexorable voice. 

He could have stood that, even without much fear, 
for no matter how terrible the man might be in 
action his hands were tied in his own house; but 
now Kate spoke: "Vic, what have you done?" 

Then it came, in a flood. Hot shame rolled through 
him and the words burst out: 

"I'm a yaller houn'-dog, a sneakin' no-good cur! 
Dan, you're right. I've sold you. They're out 
there, all of 'em, waitin' in the rocks. For God's 
sake take my gun and pump me full of lead!" 

He threw his arms out, clear of his holster and 
turned that Barry might draw his revolver. Vaguely 
he knew that Haines and Buck had drawn swiftly 
close to him from either side; vaguely he heard 
the cry of Kate; but all that he clearly 
understood was the merciless, unmoved face of 
Barry. It was pretense; with all his being he 
wanted to die, but when Barry made no move to 
strike he turned desperately to the others. 

"Do the job for him. He saved my life and then I 
used it to sell him. Daniels, Haines, I got no use 
for livin'." 

"Vic," he said, "take--this!--and march to your 
friends outside; and when you get through them, 
plant a forty-five slug in your own dirty heart 
and then rot." Haines held out his gun with a 
gesture of contempt. 

But Kate slipped in front of him, white and 
anguish. 

"It was the girl you told me about, Vic?" she 
said. "You did it to get back to her?" 

He dropped his head. 

"Dan, let him go!" 

"I got no thought of usin' him." 

"Why not?" cried Vic suddenly. "I'll do the way 
Haines said. Or else let me stay here and fight 
'em off with you. Dan, for God's sake give me one 
chance to make good." 

It was like talking to a face of stone. 

"The door's open for you, and waitin'. One thing 
before you go. That's the same gang you told me 
about before? Ronicky Joe, Harry Fisher, Gus 
Reeve, Mat Henshaw, Sliver Waldron and Pete 
Glass?" 

"Harry Fisher's dead, Dan, if you'll give me one 
fightin' chance to play square now--" 

"Tell 'em that I know 'em. Tell 'em one thing 
more. I thought Grey Molly was worth only one man. 
But I was wrong. They've done me dirt and played 
crooked. They come huntin' me--with a decoy. Now 
tell 'em from me that Grey Molly is worth seven 
men, and she's goin' to be paid for in full." 

He stepped to the wall and took down the bridle 
which Vic had hung there. 

"I guess you'll be needin' this?" 

It ended all talk; it even seemed to Gregg that as 
soon as he received the bridle from the hand of 
Barry the truce ended with a sudden period and war 
began. He turned slowly away. 



Chapter XVI. Man-Hunting 

As Vic Gregg left the house, the new moon peered 
at him over a black mountain-top, a sickle of 
white with a half imaginary line rounding the rest 
of the circle, and to the shaken mind of Vic it 
seemed as if a ghostly spectator had come out to 
watch the tragedy among the peaks. At the line of 
the rocks the sheriff spoke. 

"Gregg, you've busted your contract. You didn't 
bring him out." 

Vic threw his revolver on the ground. 

"I bust the rest of it here and now. I'm through. 
Put on your irons and take me back. Hang me and be 
damned to you, but I'll do no more to double-cross 
him." 

Sliver Waldron drew from his pocket something 
which jangled faintly, but the sheriff stopped him 
with a word. He sat up behind his rock. 

"I got an idea, Gregg, that you've finished up 
your job and double-crossed us! Does he know that 
I'm out here? Sit down there out of sight." 

"I'll do that," said Gregg, obeying, "because you 
got the right to make me, but you ain't got the 
right to make me talk, and nothin' this side of 
hell can pry a word out of me!" 

The sheriff drew down his brows until his eyes 
were merely cavities of blackness. Very tenderly 
he fondled the rifle-butt which lay across his 
knees, and never in the mountain-desert had there 
been a more humbly unpretentious figure of a man. 

He said: "Vic, I been thinkin' that you had the 
man-sized makin's of a skunk, but I'm considerable 
glad to see I've judged you wrong. Sit quiet here. 
I ain't goin' to put no irons on you if you give 
me your parole." 

"I'll see you in hell before I give you nothin'. I 
was a man, or a partways man, till I met up with 
you tonight, and now I'm a houn'-dog that's done 
my partner dirt! God amighty, what made me do it?" 

He beat his knuckles against his forehead. 

"What you've done you can't undo," answered the 
sheriff. "Vic, I've seen gents do considerable 
worse than you've done and come clean afterwards. 
You're goin' to get off for what you've done to 
Blondy, and you're goin' to live straight 
afterwards. You're goin' to get married and you're 
goin' to play white. Why, man, I had to use you as 
far as I could. But you think I wanted you to 
bring me out Barry? You couldn't look Betty square 
in the face if you'd done what you set out to do. 
Now, I ain't pressin' you, but I done some 
scouting while you was away, and I  heard four 
men's voices in the house. Can you tell me who's 
there?" 

"You've played square, Pete," answered Vic 
hoarsely, "and I'll do my part. Go down and get on 
your hosses and ride like hell; because in ten 
minutes you're goin' to have three bad ones around 
your necks." 

A mutter came from the rest of the posse, for this 
was rather more than they had planned ahead. The 
sheriff, however, only sighed, and as the 
moonlight increased Vic could see that he was 
deeply, childishly contented, for in the heart of 
the little dusty man there was that 
inextinguishable spark, the love of battle. Chance 
had thrown him on the side of the law, but sooner 
or later dull times were sure to come and then 
Pete Glass would cut out work of his own making go 
bad. The love of the man-trail is a passion that 
works in two ways, and they who begin by hunting 
will in the end be the hunted; the mountain-desert 
is filled with such histories. 

"Three to five," said the sheriff, "sounds more 
interestin', Vic." 

A sudden passion to destroy that assured calm rose 
in Gregg. 

"Three common men might make you a game," he said, 
glowering, "but them ain't common ones. One of 'em 
I don't know, but he has a damned nervous hand. 
Another is Lee Haines!" 

He had succeeded in part, at least. The sheriff 
sat bolt erect; he seemed to be hearing distant 
music. 

"Lee Haines!" he murmured. "That was Jim Silent's 
man. They say he was as fast with a gun as Jim 
himself." He sighed again. "They's nothing like a 
big man, Vic, to fill your sights." 

"Daniels and Haines, suppose you count them off 
agin' the rest of your gang, Pete. That leaves 
Barry for you." He grinned maliciously. "D'you 
know what Barry it is?" 

"It's a kind of common name, Vic." 

"Pete, have you heard of Whistlin' Dan?" 

No doubt about it, he had burst the confidence of 
the sheriff into fragments. The little man began 
to pant and even in the dim light Vic could see 
that his face was working. 

"Him!" he said at length. And then: "I might of 
knowed! Him!" He leaned closer. "Keep it to 
yourself, Vic, or you'll have the rest of the boys 
runnin' for cover before the fun begins." 

He snuggled a little closer to his rock and turned 
his head towards the house. 

"Him!" he said again. 

Columbus, when he saw the land of his dream 
wavering blue in the distance, might have hailed 
it with such a heart-filling whisper, and Vic knew 
that when these two met, these two slender, small 
men--with the uneasy hands, there would be a 
battle whose fame would ring from range to range. 

"If they was only a bit more light," muttered the 
sheriff. "My God, Vic, why ain't the moon jest a 
mite nearer the full!" 

After that, not a word for a long time until the 
lights in the house were suddenly extinguished, 

"So they won't show up agin no background when 
they make their run," murmured the sheriff. He 
pushed up his hat brim so that it covered his eyes 
more perfectly. "Boys, get ready. They're comin' 
now!" 

Mat Henshaw took up the word, and repeated it, and 
the whisper ran down the line of men who lay 
irregularly among the rocks, until at last Sliver 
Waldron brought it to a stop with a deep murmur. 
Not even a whisper could altogether disguise his 
booming bass. It seemed to Vic Gregg that the air 
about him grew more tense; his arm muscles 
commenced to ache from the gripping of his hands. 
Then a door creaked--they could tell the 
indubitable sound as if there were a light to see 
it swing cautiously wide. 

"They're goin' out the back way," interpreted the 
sheriff, "but they'll come around in front. They 
ain't any other way they can get out of here. Pass 
that down the line, Mat." 

Before the whisper had trailed out half its 
course, a woman screamed in the house. It sent a 
jag of lightning through the brain of Vic Gregg; 
he started up. 

"Get down," commanded the sheriff 'curtly. "Or 
they'll plant you." 

"For God's sake, Pete, he's killin' his wife--an'-
-he's gone mad--I seen it comin' in his eyes!" 

"Shut up," muttered Glass, "an' listen." 

A pulse of sound floated out to them, and stopped 
the breath of Gregg; it was a deep, stifled 
sobbing. 

"She's begged him to stay with her; he's gone," 
said the sheriff. "Now it'll come quick." 

But the sheriff was wrong. There was not a sound, 
not a sign of a rush. 

Presently: "What sort of a lass is she, Gregg?" 

"All yaller hair, Pete, and the softes' blue eyes 
you ever see." 

The sheriff made no answer, but Vic saw the little 
bony hand tense about the barrel of the rifle. 
Still that utter quiet, with the pulse of the 
sobbing lying like a weight upon the air, and the 
horror of the waiting mounted and grew, like peak 
upon peak before the eyes of the climber. 

"Watch for 'em sneakin' up on us through the 
rocks. Watch for 'em close, lads. It ain't goin' 
to be a rush." 

Once more the sibilant murmur ran down the line, 
and the voice of Sliver Waldron brought it faintly 
to a period. 

"Three of 'em," continued the sheriff, "and most 
likely they'll come at us three ways." 

Through the shadow Vic watched the lips of Glass 
work and caught the end of his soft murmur to 
himself : ". . . . all three!" 

He understood; the sheriff had offered up a deep 
prayer that all three might fall by his gun. 

Up from the farther end of the line the whisper 
ran lightly, swiftly, with a stammer of haste in 
it: "To the right!" 

Ay, there to the right, gliding from the corner of 
the house, went a dark form, and then another, and 
disappeared among the rocks. They had offered not 
enough target for even chance shooting. 

"Hold for close range" ordered the sheriff, and 
the order was repeated. However much he might wish 
to win all the glory of the fray, the sheriff took 
no chances--threw none of his odds away. He was a 
methodical man. 

A slight patter caught the ear of Vic, like the 
running of many small children over a heavy 
carpet, and then two shades blew around the side 
of the house, one small and scudding close to the 
ground, the other vastly larger--a man on 
horseback. It seemed a naked horse at first, so 
close to the back did the rider lean, and before 
Vic could see clearly the vision burst on them 
all. Several things kept shots from being fired 
earlier. 

The first alarm had called attention to the 
opposite side of the house from that on which the 
rider appeared; then, the moon gave only a vague, 
treacherous light, and the black horse blended 
into it--the grass lightened the fall of his 
racing feet. 

Like a ship driving through a fog they rushed into 
view, the black stallion, and Bart fleeting in 
front, and the surprise was complete. Vic could 
see it work even in the sheriff, for the latter, 
having his rifle trained towards his right jerked 
it about with a short curse and blazed at the new 
target, again, again, and the line of the posse 
joined the fire. Before the crack of their guns 
went from the ears of Vic, long before the echoes 
bellowed back from the hills, Satan leaped high 
up. Perhaps that change of position saved both it 
and its rider. Straight across the pale moon drove 
the body with head stretched forth, ears back, 
feet gathered close--a winged horse with a buoyant 
figure upon it. It cleared a five foot rock, and 
rushed instantly out of view among the boulders. 
The fugitive had fired only one shot, and that 
when the stallion was at the crest of its leap. 



Chapter XVII. The Second Man 

The sheriff was on his feet, whining with 
eagerness and with the rest of his men he sent a 
shower of lead splashing vainly into the deeper 
night beside the mountain, where the path wound 
down. 

"It's done! Hold up, lads!" called Pete Glass. 
"He's beat us!" 

The firing ceased, and they heard the rush of the 
hoofs along the graveled slope and the clanging on 
rocks. 

"It's done," repeated the sheriff. "How?" 

And he stood staring blankly, with a touch or 
horror in his face. 

"By God, Mat's plugged." 

"Mat Henshaw? Wha--?" 

"Clean through the head." 

He lay in an oddly twisted heap, as though every 
bone in his body were broken, and when they drew 
him about they found the red mark in his forehead 
and even made out the dull surprise in his set 
face. There had been no pain in that death, the 
second for the sake of Grey Molly. 

"The other two!" said the sheriff, more to himself 
than to Vic, who stood beside him. 

"Easy, Pete," he cautioned. "You got nothin' agin 
Haines and Daniels." 

The sheriff flashed at him that hungry, baffled 
glance. 

"Maybe I can find something. You Gregg, keep your 
mouth shut and stand back. Halloo!" 

He sent a long call quavering between the lonely 
mountains. 

"You yonder--Lee Haines! D'you give up to the 
law?" 

A burst of savage laughter flung back at him, and 
then: "Why the hell should I?" 

"Haines, I give you fair warnin'! For resistin' 
the law and interferin', I ask you, do you 
surrender?" 

"Who are you?" 

The big voice fairly swallowed the rather shrill 
tone of the sheriff. 

"I'm sheriff Pete Glass." 

"You lie. Whoever heard of a sheriff come sneakin' 
round like a coyote lookin' for dead meat?" 

Pete Glass grinned with rage. 

"Haines, you ain't much better'n spoiled meat if 
you keep back. I gave you till I count ten--" 

"Why, you bob-tailed skunk," shouted a new voice. 
"You bone-spavined, pink-eyed rat-catcher," 
continued this very particular describer, "what 
have you got on us? Come out and dicker and we'll 
do the same!" 

The sheriff sighed, softly, deeply. 

"I thought maybe they wouldn't get down to talk," 
he murmured. But since the last chance for a 
battle was gone, he stepped fearlessly from behind 
his rock and advanced into the open. Two tall 
figures came to meet him. 

"Now," said Lee Haines, stalking forward. "One bad 
move, just the glint of a single gun from the rest 
of you sheep thieves, and I'll tame your pet 
sheriff and send him to hell for a model." 

They halted, close to each other, the two big men, 
Haines in the front, and the sheriff. 

"You're Lee Haines?" 

"You've named me." 

"And you're Buck Daniels?" 

"That's me." 

"Gents, you've resisted an officer of the law in 
the act of makin' an arrest. I s'pose you know 
what that means?" 

Big Lee Haines laughed. 

"Don't start a bluff, sheriff. I know a bit about 
the law." 

"Maybe by experience?" 

It was an odd thing to watch the three, every one 
of them a practiced fighter, every one of them 
primed for trouble, but each ostentatiously 
keeping his hands away from the holsters. 

"What we might have done if we had come to a 
pinch," said Haines, "is one thing, and what we 
did do is another. Barry was started and off 
before we had a chance to show teeth, my friend, 
and you never even caught the flash of our guns. 
If he'd waited but he didn't. There's nothing left 
for us to do except say good-by." 

The little dusty man stroked his moustaches 
thoughtfully. He had gone out there hoping against 
hope that his chance might come--to trick the two 
into violence, even to start an arrest for reasons 
which he knew his posse would swear to; but it 
must be borne in mind that Pete Glass was a 
careful man by instinct. Taking in probable speed 
of hand and a thousand other details at a glance, 
Pete sensed the danger of these two and felt in 
his heart of hearts that he was more than master 
of either of them, considered alone; better than 
Buck Daniels by an almost safe margin of 
steadiness; better than Lee Haines by a flickering 
instant of speed. Had either of them alone faced 
him, he would have taken his chance, perhaps, to 
kill or be killed, for the long trail and the 
escape had fanned that spark within him to a cold, 
hungry fire; but to attempt a play with both at 
the same time was death, and he knew it. Seeing 
that the game was up, he laid his cards on the 
table with characteristic frankness. 

"Gents," he said, "I reckon you've come clean with 
me. You ain't my meat and I ain't goin' to clutter 
up your way. Besides"--even in the dull moonshine 
they caught the humorous glint of his eyes--"a 
friend is a friend, and I'll say I'm glad that you 
didn't step into the shady side of the law while 
Barry was gettin' away." 

No one could know what it cost Pete Glass to be 
genial at that instant, for this night he felt 
that he had just missed the great moment which he 
had yearned for since the day when he learned to 
love the kick of a six-shooter against the heel of 
his hand. It was the desire to meet face to face 
one whose metal of will and mind was equal to his 
own, whose nerves were electric energies perfectly 
under command, whose muscles were fine spun steel. 
He had gone half a lifetime on the trail of 
fighters and always he had known that when the 
crisis came his hand would be the swifter, his 
eyes the more steady; the trailing was a delight 
always, but the actual kill was a matter of 
slaughter rather than a game of hazard. Only the 
rider of the black stallion had given him the 
sense of equal power, and his whole soul had risen 
for the great chance of All. That chance was gone; 
he pushed the thought of it away--for the time--
and turned back to the business at hand. 

"They's only one thing," he went on. "Sliver! 
Ronicky! Step along, gents, and we'll have a look 
at the insides of that house." 

"Steady!" broke in Haines. He barred the path to 
the front door. "Sheriff, you don't know me, but 
I'm going to ask you to take my word for what's in 
that house." 

Glass swept him with a look of a new nature. 

"I got an idea your word might do. Well, what's in 
the house?" 

"A little five-year-old girl and her mother; 
nothing else worth seeing." 

"Nothing else," considered the sheriff, "but 
that's quite a lot. Maybe his wife could tell me 
where he's going? Give me an idea where I might 
call on him?" 

"Partner, you can't see her." 

"Can't?" 

"No, by God!" 

"H-m-m!" murmured the sheriff. He watched the big 
man plant himself, swaying a little on his feet as 
though poising for action, and beside him a 
slightly smaller figure not less determined. 

"That girl in there is old man Cumberlan's 
daughter," said Daniels, "and no matter what her--
what Dan Barry may be, Kate Cumberland is white 
folks." 

The sheriff remembered what Vic had said of yellow 
hair and soft blue eyes. 

"Leastways," he said, "she seems to have a sort of 
way with the men." 

"Sheriff you're on a cold trail," said Haines. 
"Inside that house is just a heart-broken girl and 
her baby. If you want to see them--go ahead!" 

"She might know something," mused the sheriff, 
"and I s'pose I'd ought to pry it out of her right 
now: but I don't care for that sort of pickin's." 
He repeated softly: "A girl and a baby!" and 
turned on his heel. "All right, boys, climb your 
hosses. Two of you take Mat. We'll bury him where 
we put Harry. I guess we can pack him that far." 

"How's that?" This from Haines. "One of your gang 
dropped?" 

"He is." 

They followed him and stood presently beside the 
body. Aside from the red mark in the forehead he 
seemed asleep, and smiling at some pleasant dream; 
a handsome fellow in the strength of first 
manhood, this man who was the second to die for 
Grey Molly. 

"It's the end of Dan Barry," said Buck. "Lee, 
we'll never have Whistlin' Dan for a friend again. 
He's wild for good." 

The sheriff turned and eyed him closely. 

"He's got to come back," said Haines. "He's got to 
come back for the sake of Kate." 

"He'd better be dead for the sake of Kate," 
answered Buck. 

"Why, partner, this isn't the first time he's gone 
wild." 

"Don't you see, Lee?" 

"Well?" 

"He's fighting to kill. He's shooting to kill, and 
he ain't ever done that before. He crippled his 
men; he put 'em out of the way with a busted leg 
or a plugged shoulder; but now he's out to finish 
'em. Lee, he'll never come back." 

He looked to the white face of Vic Gregg, standing 
by, and he said without anger; "Maybe it ain't 
your fault, but you've started a pile of harm. 
Look at these gents around you, the sheriff and 
all--they're no better'n dead, Gregg, and that's 
all along of you. Barry has started on the trail 
of all of you. Look at that house back there. It's 
packed full of hell, and all along of you. Lee, 
let's get back. I'm feelin' sick inside." 



Chapter XVIII. Concerning The Strength Of Women 

There were three things discussed by Lee Haines 
and Buck Daniels in the dreary days which 
followed. The first was to keep on their way 
across the mountains and cut themselves away from 
the sorrow of that cabin. The second was to strike 
the trail of Barry and hunt until they found his 
refuge and attempt to lead him back to his family. 
The third was simply to stay on and where they 
found the opportunity, help Kate. They discarded 
the first idea without much talk; it would be 
yellow, they decided, and the debt they owed to 
the Dan Barry of the old days was too great to be 
shouldered off so easily: they cast away the 
second thought still more quickly, for the trail 
which baffled the shrewd sheriff, as they knew, 
would be too much for them. It remained to stay 
with Kate, making excursions through the mountains 
from day to day to maintain the pretence of 
carrying on their own business, and always at hand 
in time of need. 

It was no easy part to play, for in the house they 
found Kate more and more silent, more and more 
thoughtful, never speaking of her trouble, but 
behind her eyes a ghost of waiting that haunted 
them. If the wind shrilled down the pass, if a 
horse neighed from the corral, there was always 
the start in her, the thrill of hope, and 
afterwards the pitiful deadening of her smile. She 
was not less beautiful they thought, as she grew 
paler, but the terrible silence of the place drove 
them away time and again. Even Joan no longer 
pattered about the house, and when they came down 
out of the mountains they never heard her shrill 
laughter. She sat cross-legged by the hearth in 
her old place during the evenings with her chin 
resting on one hand and her eyes fixed wistfully 
upon the fire; and sometimes they found her on the 
little hillock behind the house, from the top of 
which she could view every approach to the cabin. 
Of Dan and even of Black Bart, her playmate she 
soon learned not to speak, for the mention of them 
made her mother shrink and whiten. Indeed, the 
saddest thing in that house was the quiet in which 
the child waited, waited, waited, and never spoke. 

"She ain't more'n a baby," said Buck Daniels, "and 
you can leave it to time to make her forget." 

"But," growled Lee Haines, "Kate isn't a baby. 
Buck, it drives me damn near crazy to see her fade 
this way." 

"Now you lay to this," answered Buck. "She'll pull 
through. She'll never forget, maybe, but she'll go 
on livin' for the sake of the kid." 

"You know a hell of a lot about women, don't you?" 
said Haines. 

"I know enough, son," nodded Buck. 

He had, in fact, reduced women to a few distinct 
categories, and he only waited to place a girl in 
her particular class before he felt quite intimate 
acquaintance with her entire mind and soul. 

"It'll kill her," pronounced Lee Haines. "Why, 
she's like a flower, Buck, and sorrow will cut her 
off at the root. Think of a girl like that thrown 
away in these damned deserts! It makes me sick--
sick! She ought to have nothing but velvet to 
touch--nothing but a millionaire for a husband, 
and never a worry in her life." He grew excited. 
"But here's the flower thrown away and the heel 
crushing it without mercy." 

Buck Daniels regarded him with pity. 

"I feel kind of sorry for you, Lee, when I hear 
you talk about girls. No wonder they make a fool 
of you. A flower crushed under the foot, eh? You 
just listen to me, my boy. You and me figure to be 
pretty hard, don't we? Well, soft pine stacked up 
agin' quartzite, is what we are compared to Kate." 

Lee Haines gaped at him, too astonished to be 
angry. He suggested softening of the brain to 
Buck, but the latter waved aside the implications. 

"Now, supposin' Kate was one of these dark girls 
with eyes like black diamonds and a lot of snap 
and zip to her. If she was like that I s'pose 
you'd figure her to forget all about Dan inside of 
a month--and maybe marry you?" 

"You be damned!" 

"Maybe I am. Them hard, snappy lookin' girls are 
the ones that smash. They're brittle, that's why; 
but you take a soft lookin' girl like Kate, maybe 
she ain't a diamond point to cut glass, but she's 
tempered steel that'll bend, and bend, and bend, 
and then when you wait for it to break it flips up 
and knocks you down. That's Kate." 

Lee Haines rolled a cigarette in silence. He was 
too disgusted to answer, until his first puff of 
smoke dissolved Buck in a cloud of thin blue. 

"You ought to sing to a congregation instead of to 
cows, Buck. You have the tune, and you might get 
by in a church; but cows have sense." 

"Kate will buckle and bend and fade for a while," 
went on Buck, wholly unperturbed, "but just when 
you go out to pick daisies for her you'll come 
back and find her singing to the stove. Her 
strength is down deep, like some of these outlaw 
hosses that got a filmy, sleepy lookin' eye. They 
save their hell till you sink the spurs in 'em. 
You think she loves Dan, don't you?" 

"I have a faint suspicion of it," sneered Haines. 
"I suppose I'm wrong?" 

"You are." 

"Buck, I may have slipped a nickel into you, but 
you're playing the wrong tune. Knock off and talk 
sense, will you?" 

"When you grow up, son, you'll understand some of 
the things I'm tryin' to explain in words of one 
syllable. 

"She don't love Dan. She thinks she does, but down 
deep they ain't a damned thing in the world she 
gives a rap about exceptin' Joan. Men? What are 
they to her? Marriage? That's simply an accident 
that's needed so she can have a baby. Delicate, 
shrinkin' flower, is she? I tell you, my boy, if 
it was necessary for Joan she'd tear out your 
heart and mine and send Dan plumb to hell. You 
fasten on to them words, because they're gospel." 

It was late afternoon while they talked, and they 
were swinging slowly down a gulch towards the home 
cabin. At that very time Kate, from the door of 
the house where she sat, saw a dark form slink 
from rock to rock at the rim of the little 
plateau, a motion so swift that it flicked through 
the corner of her eye, a thing to be sensed rather 
than seen. She set up very stiff, her lips white 
as chalk, but nothing more stirred. A few minutes 
later, when her heart was beating almost at normal 
she heard Joan scream from behind the house, not 
in terror, or pain, as her keen mother-ear knew 
perfectly well, but with a wild delight. She 
whipped about the corner of the house and there 
she saw Joan with her pudgy arms around the neck 
of Black Bart. 

"Bart! Dear old Bart! Has he come? Has he come?" 

And she strained her eyes against the familiar 
mountains around her as if she would force her 
vision through rock. There was no trace of Dan, no 
sign or sound when she would even have welcomed 
the eerie whistle. The wolf-dog was already at 
play with Joan. She was on his back and he darted 
off in an effortless gallop, winding to and fro 
among the rocks. Most children would have toppled 
among the stones at the first of his swerves, but 
Joan clung like a burr, both hands dug into his 
hair, shrieking with excitement. Sometimes she 
reeled and almost slid at one of those lightning 
turns, for the game was to almost unseat her, but 
just as she was sliding off Bart would slacken his 
pace and let her find a firm seat once more. They 
wound farther and farther away, and suddenly Kate 
cried, terror-stricken: "Joan! Come back!" 

A tug at the ear of the wolf-dog swung them 
around; then as they approached, the fear left the 
mind of the mother and a new thought came in its 
place. She coaxed Joan from Bart--they could play 
later on, she promised, to their heart's desire--
and led her into the house. Black Bart followed to 
the door, but not all their entreaty or scolding 
could make him cross the threshold. He merely 
snarled at Kate, and even Joan's tugging at his 
ears could not budge him. He stood canting his 
head and watching them wistfully while Kate 
changed Joan's clothes. 

She dressed her as if for a festival, with a blue 
bonnet that let the yellow hair curl out from the 
edges, and a little blue cloak, and shiny boots 
incredibly small, and around the bonnet she laid a 
wreath of yellow wild flowers. Then she wrote her 
letter, closed it in an envelope, and fastened it 
securely in the pocket of the cloak. 

She drew Joan in front of her and held her by both 
hands. 

"Joan, darling," she said, "munner wants you to go 
with Bart up through the mountains. Will you be 
afraid?" 

A very decided shake of the head answered her, for 
Joan's eyes were already over her shoulder looking 
towards the big dog. And she was a little sullen 
at these unnecessary words. 

"It might grow dark," she said. "You wouldn't 
care?" 

Here Joan became a little dubious, but a whine 
from Bart seemed to reassure her. 

"Bart will keep Joan," she said. 

"He will. And he'll take you up through the rocks 
to Daddy Dan." 

The face of the child grew brilliant. 

"Daddy Dan?" she whispered. 

"And when you get to him, take this little paper 
out of your pocket and give it to him. You won't 
forget?" 

"Give the paper to Daddy Dan," repeated Joan 
solemnly. 

Kate dropped to her knees and gathered the little 
close, close, until Joan cried out, but when she 
was eased the child reached up an astonished hand, 
touched the face of Kate with awe, and then stared 
at her finger tips. 

A moment later, Joan stood in front of Black Bart, 
with the head of the wolf-dog seized firmly 
between her hands while she frowned intently into 
his face. 

"Take Joan to Daddy Dan," she ordered. 

At the name, the sharp ears pricked; a speaking 
intelligence grew up in his eyes. 

"Giddap," commanded Joan, when she was in position 
on the back of Bart. And she thumped her heels 
against the furry ribs. 

Towards Kate, who stood trembling in the door, 
Bart cast the departing favor of a throat-tearing 
growl, and then shambled across the meadow with 
that smooth trot which wears down all other four-
footed creatures. He was already on the far side 
of the meadow, and beginning the ascent of the 
first slope when the glint of the sun on the 
yellow wild flowers flashed on the eye of Kate. It 
had all seemed natural until that moment, the only 
possible thing to do, but now she felt suddenly 
that Joan was thrown away thought of the darkness 
which would soon come--remembered the yellow 
terror which sometimes gleamed in the eyes of 
Black Bart after nightfall. 

She cried out, but the wolf-dog kept swiftly on 
his way. She began to run, still calling, but 
rapidly as she went, Black Bart slid steadily away 
from her, and when she reached the shoulder of the 
mountain, she saw the dark form of Bart with the 
blue patch above it drifting up the wall of the 
opposite ravine. 

She knew where they were going now; it was the old 
cave upon which she and Dan had come one day in 
their rides, and Dan had prowled for a long time 
through the shadowy recesses. 



Chapter XIX. The Venture 

From the moment Joan gave the name of Daddy Dan, 
the wolf-dog kept to the trail with arrowy 
straightness. Whatever the limitations of Bart's 
rather uncanny intelligence, upon one point he was 
usually letter-perfect, and even when a stranger 
mentioned Dan in the hearing of the dog it usually 
brought a whine or at least an anxious look. He 
hewed to his line now with that animal sense of 
direction which men can never wholly understand. 
Boulders and trees slipped away on either side of 
Joan; now on a descent of the mountain-side he 
broke into a lope that set the flowers fluttering 
on her bonnet; now he prowled up the ravine 
beyond, utterly tireless. 

He was strictly business. When she slipped a 
little from her place as he veered around a rock 
he did not slow up, as usual, that she might 
regain her seat, but switched his head back with a 
growl that warned her into position. That surprise 
was hardly out of her mind when she saw a gay 
patch of wild-flowers a little from the line of 
his direction, and she tugged at his ear to swing 
him towards it. A sharp jerk of his head tossed 
her hand aside, and again she caught the glint of 
wild eyes as he looked back at her. Then she grew 
grave, puzzled. She trusted Black Bart with all 
her heart, as only a child can trust dumb animals, 
but now she sensed a change in him. She had 
guessed at a difference on that night when Dan 
came home for the last time; and the same thing 
seemed to be in the dog today. 

Before she could make up her mind as to what it 
might be, Black Bart swung aside up a steep slope, 
and whisked her into the gloom of a cave. Into the 
very heart of the darkness he glided and stopped. 

"Daddy Dan!" she called. 

A faint echo, after a moment, came back to her 
from the depths of the cave, making her voice 
strangely deep. Otherwise, there was no answer. 

"Bart!" she whispered, suddenly frightened by the 
last murmur of that echo, "Daddy Dan's not here. 
Go back!" 

She tugged at his ear to turn him, but again that 
jerk of the head freed his ear. He caught her by 
the cloak, crouched close to the floor, and she 
found herself all at once sitting on the gravelly 
floor of the cave with Bart facing her. 

"Bad Bart!" she said, scrambling to her feet. 

"Naughty dog!" 

She was still afraid to raise her voice in that 
awful silence, and in the dark. When she glanced 
around her, she made out vague forms through the 
dimness that might be the uneven walls of the 
cave, or might be strange and awful forms of 
night. 

"Take me home!" 

A growl that went shuddering down the cave stopped 
her, and now she saw that the eyes of Bart glowed 
green and yellow. Even then she could not believe 
that he would harm her, and stretched out a 
tentative hand. This time she made out the flash 
of his teeth as he snarled. He was no longer the 
Bart she had played with around the cabin, but a 
strange wild thing, and with a scream she darted 
past him toward the door. Never had those chubby 
legs flown so fast, but even as the light from the 
mouth of the cave glimmered around her, she heard 
a crunching on the gravel from behind, and then a 
hand, it seemed, caught her cloak and jerked her 
to a stop. 

She fell sprawling, head over heels, and when she 
looked up, there sat Bart upon his haunches above 
her, growling terribly, and gripping the end of 
the cloak. No doubt about it now. Black Bart would 
have his teeth in her throat if she made another 
movement toward the entrance. A city child would 
have either gone mad with terror or else made that 
fatal struggle to reach the forbidden place, but 
Joan had learned many things among the mountains, 
and among others, she knew the difference between 
the tame and the free. The old dappled cow was 
tame, for instance; and the Maltese cat, which 
came too close to Bart the year before and 
received a broken back for its carelessness, had 
been tame; and the brown horse with the white face 
and the dreary eyes was tame. They could be 
handled, and teased, and petted and bossed about 
at will. Other creatures were different. For 
instance, the scream of the hawk always made her 
shrink a little closer to the ground, or else run 
helter-skelter for the house, and sometimes, up 
the gulches, she had heard the wailing of a 
mountain lion on the trail, hunting swiftly, and 
very hungry. There was even something about the 
dead eyes of certain lynxes and coyotes and 
bobcats which Daddy Dan trapped that made Joan 
feel these animals belonged to a world where the 
authority of man was only the strength of his hand 
or his cunning. Not that she phrased these 
thoughts in definite words, but Joan was very 
close to nature, and therefore her instincts gave 
her a weird little touch of wisdom in such 
matters. 

And when she lay there tangled in her cloak and 
looked up into the glowing eyes of Bart and heard 
his snarling roll around her, and pass in creepy 
chills up her back, she nearly died of fear, to be 
sure, but she lay as still as still, frozen into a 
part of the rock. Black Bart was gone, and in his 
place was a terrible creature which belonged there 
among the shadows, for it could see in the night. 

Presently the bright eyes disappeared, and now she 
saw that Bart lay stretched across the entrance to 
the cave, where the long shadow was now creeping 
down the slope. Inches by inches she ventured to 
sit up, and all it brought from Bart was a quick 
turn of the head and a warning growl. It meant as 
plainly as though he had spoken in so many words: 
"Stay where you are and I don't care in the least 
what you do, but don't try to cross this entrance 
if you fear the length of my teeth and the 
keenness thereof." And she did fear them, very 
much, for she remembered the gashes across the 
back and the terrible rips up the side, of the 
dead Maltese cat. 

She even took a little heart, after a time. A 
grownup cannot feel terror or grief as keenly as a 
child, but neither does terror or grief pass away 
a tithe as fast. She seemed at liberty to roam 
about in the cave as long as she did not go near 
the entrance, and now the shadows and the dimness 
no longer frightened her. Nothing was terrible 
except that long, dark body which lay across the 
entrance to the cave, and she finally got to her 
feet and began to explore. She came first on a 
quantity of dead grass heaped in a corner that was 
where Satan was stalled, no doubt, and it made all 
the cave seem almost homelike. She found, too, a 
number of stones grouped together with ashes in 
the hollow circle-that was where the fires were 
built, and there to the side lay the pile of dead 
wood. A little down the cave and directly in the 
center of the top, she next saw the natural 
aperture where the smoke must escape and last of 
all she came on the bed. Boughs heaped a foot 
thick with the blankets on top, neatly stretched 
out, and the tarpaulin over all, made a couch as 
soft as down and fragrant with the pure scent of 
evergreens. 

Joan tried the surface with a foot that sank to 
her ankle, then with her hands, and finally sat 
down to think. The first fear was almost gone; she 
understood that Bart was keeping her here until 
Dan came home, and fear does not go hand in hand 
with understanding. She only wondered, now, at the 
reason that kept Daddy Dan living in this cave so 
far from the warm comfort of the cabin, and so far 
away from her mother; but thinking makes small 
heads drowsy, and in five minutes Joan lay with 
her head pillowed on her arm, sound asleep. 

When she awoke, the evening-gray of the cave had 
given place to utter blackness, alarming and 
thick. Joan sat up with a start; she would have 
cried out, bewildered, but now she heard a noise 
on the gravel, and turned to see Daddy Dan 
entering the cave with Satan behind him, quite 
distinctly outlined by the sunset outside. Black 
Bart walked first, looking back over his shoulder 
as though he led the way. 

It was partly because the black, silhouetted 
figures awed her, somewhat, and partly because she 
wished to give Daddy Dan a gay surprise, that Joan 
did not run to him. And then, in the darkness, she 
heard Satan munching the dried grass, and the 
squeak and rattle as the saddle was drawn off and 
hung up, scraping against the rock. 

"What you been doin', Bart?" queried the voice of 
Daddy Dan, and the last of Joan's fears fell from 
her as she listened. "You act kind of worried. If 
you been runnin' rabbits all day and got your pads 
full of thorns I'll everlastin'ly treat you 
rough." 

The wolf-dog whined. 

"Well, speak up. What you want? Want me over 
there?" 

It would have been a trifle unearthly to most 
people, but Joan knew the ways of Daddy Dan with 
Satan and Black Bart. She lay quite still, 
shivering with pleasure as the footsteps 
approached her. Then a match scratched--she saw by 
the blue spurt of flame that he was lighting a 
pine torch, then whirling it until the flame ate 
down to the pitchy knot. He held it above his 
head, and now she saw him plainly: the light 
cascaded over his shoulders, glowed on his eyes, 
and then puffed out sidewise in a draught. 

Joan was upon her feet, and running toward him 
with a cry of joy, until she remembered that he 
was not to be approached like her mother. There 
were never any bear-hugs from him, no caresses, 
not much laughter. She stopped barely in time, and 
stood with her fingers interlaced, staring up at 
him, half delighted, half afraid. She read his 
mind by microscopic changes in his eyes and lips. 

"Munner sent me." 

That was wrong, she saw at once. 

"And Bart brought me." Much better, now. "And oh, 
Daddy Dan, I've been lonesome for you!" 

He continued to stare at her for another moment, 
and even Joan could not tell whether be were angry 
or indifferent or pleased. 

"Well," he murmured at length, "I guess you're 
hungry, Joan?" 

She knew it was complete acceptance, and she could 
hardly keep from a shout of happiness. Daddy Dan 
had a great aversion to sudden outcries. 

"I guess I am," said Joan. 



Chapter XX. Discipline 

He made the preparation for supper with such easy 
speed that everything seemed to be done by magic 
hands. When Joan's mother cooked supper there was 
always much rattling of the stove, then the 
building of the fire, a long preparation of food, 
and another interval when things steamed and 
sizzled on the fire. There followed the setting of 
the table, and then a long, aching time of hunger 
when the food was in sight, but one could not eat 
until Daddy Dan had done this, and Munner had done 
that. Also, when one did eat, half the taste was 
taken from things by the necessity of various 
complicated evolutions of knife and fork. Instance 
the absurdity of taking the fork under the thumb 
with the forefinger pressing along the back of the 
wobbly instrument, when any one could see that the 
proper, natural way of using a fork was to grasp 
it daggerwise and drive it firmly through that 
skidding piece of meat. Not only this, but a cup 
must be held in one hand, and bread must be broken 
into little pieces before putting butter on it. 
Above all, no matter how terribly hard one tried, 
there was sure to be a mistake, and then a: "Now, 
Joan, don't do that. This is the way--" 

But how different everything was in this 
delightful house of Daddy Dan! 

In an incredibly short time three torches flared 
about them and filled the air with scents of 
freshness and the outdoors-scents that went 
tingling up the nose and filled one with immense 
possibilities of eating. At the very same time, a 
few motions caused a heap of wood to catch fire 
and blaze among the stones while a steady stream 
of blue-white smoke wavered up toward the top of 
the cave and disappeared in the shadows. After 
this her father showed her a little stream of 
water which must come from a spring far back in 
the cave, and the current slipped noiselessly 
along one wall, and dipped of sight again before 
it reached the entrance to the place. Here she 
discovered a little bowl, made out of small stones 
nicely fitted together, and allowing the water to 
pour over one edge and out at another with a 
delicious purling--such crystal clear water that 
one actually wanted to wash in it even if it was 
cold, and even if one had the many sore places on 
fingers and nose and behind the ears. 

Behold! no sooner did one turn from the washing of 
hands and face than the table was miraculously 
spread upon the surface of a flat rock, with other 
stones nearby to serve as chairs; and on the table 
steamed "pone," warmed over; coffee with milk in 
it--coffee, which was so strictly banned at home!-
-potatoes sliced to transparent thinness and fried 
to crisp brown at the edges, and a great slab of 
meat that fairly shouted to the appetite. 

So far so good, but the realization was a thousand 
fold better than anticipation. No cutting of one's 
own meat at this enchanted board! The shining 
knife of Daddy Dan divided it into delectable bits 
with the speed of light, and it needed only the 
slightest amount of experimenting and cautious 
glances to discover that one could use a fork 
daggerwise, and when in doubt even seize upon a 
morsel with one's fingers and wipe the fingers 
afterwards on a bit of the dry grass. One could 
grasp the cup by both sides, scorning the silly 
handle, and if occasionally one sipped the coffee 
with a little noise--which added astonishingly to 
the taste--there was no sharp warning, no frowning 
eye to overlook. Besides, at Munner's table, there 
was never time to pay attention to Joan, for there 
was talk about vague, abstract things--the price 
of skins, the melting of the snows, the condition 
of the passes, the long and troubling argument 
about the wicker chairs, with some remarkably 
foolish asides, now and then, concerning happiness 
and love--when all the time any one with half an 
eye could see that the thing to do was to eat and 
eat and eat until that hollow place ceased to be. 
Talking came afterwards. 

In the house of Daddy Dan all these things were 
ordered as they should be. Not a word was said; 
not a glance of criticism rested upon her; when 
her tin plate was cleared she heard no reproofs 
for eating too greedily, but she was furnished 
anew from the store of good things on the rock. 

In place of conversation, there were other matters 
to occupy the mind during the meal. For presently 
she observed the beautiful head of Satan just 
behind his master--Satan, who could pass over 
noisy gravel with the softness of a cat, and now 
loomed out of the deeper night down the cavern. 
Inch by inch, with infinite caution and keenly 
pricked ears, the head lowered beside Dan, and the 
quivering, delicate muzzle stole towards a 
fragment of the "pone." Joan watched breathlessly 
and then she saw that in spite of the caution of 
that movement her father knew all about it--just a 
glint of amusement in the corner of his eyes, just 
a slight twitch at the corners of his mouth to 
tell Joan that he was as delighted as a boy 
playing a trick. Barely in time to save the morsel 
of pone, he spoke and the head was dashed up. Yet 
Satan was not entirely discouraged. If he could 
not steal the bread he would beg for it. It made 
Joan pause in her destruction of the edibles, not 
to watch openly, for an instinct told her that the 
thing to do was to note these by-plays from the 
corner of one's eye, as Daddy Dan did, and swallow 
the ripples of mirth that came tickling in the 
throat. She knew perfectly well that Satan would 
have it in the end, for of all living things not 
even Munner had such power over Dan as the black 
stallion. He maneuvered adroitly. First he circled 
the table and stood opposite the master, begging 
with his eyes, but Dan looked fixedly down at the 
rock until an impatient whinny called up his eyes. 
Then he pretended the most absolute surprise. 

"Why, Satan, you old scoundrel, what are you doin' 
over there? Get back where you belong?" 

He gestured with a thumb over his shoulder and 
Satan glided around the rock and stood once more 
behind Dan. 

"Manners?" continued Dan. "You ain't got 'em. 
You'll be tryin' to sit down at the table with me, 
pretty soon." He concluded: "But I'll teach you 
one of these days, and you'll smart for a week." 

Even at the mock menace Joan trembled a little, 
but to her astonishment Satan paid not the 
slightest heed. Dan sat with his hat on his head--
which was a new and delightful event at the table-
-and now the stallion took the hat by the crown, 
dexterously, and raised it just an inch and put it 
back in place. Black Bart, having crept out of the 
shadows sat down near Joan with his long red 
tongue lolling out. This procedure called a growl 
from him, but the master continued eating without 
the slightest interest, apparently, in Satan's 
insolence. 

A velvety muzzle appeared, with the chin resting 
on the shoulder of Dan and the great, luminous 
eyes above. He whinnied so softly that it was not 
more than a human whisper, and meant almost as 
much. 

"Oh," said Dan, in all seeming just roused to 
attention, "hungry, old boy?" 

He raised the morsel of "pone" between thumb and 
forefinger, holding it tightly. Then it was a joy 
to watch Satan. He tried to tug it all away at 
once, but only a fragment broke off. He stamped in 
impatience, and then went to work to nibble the 
bread away on all sides of Dan's fingers, very 
fine work for such broad, keen chisels as Satan's 
teeth, but he went about it with the skill of long 
practice, turning his head this way and that and 
always watching the face of the master with 
sidewise eyes, one ear forward and one ear back. 
Finally the tight fingers opened out, and Satan 
gathered the last crumbs from the smooth palm. 

Two or three times during this performance Black 
Bart had half risen from his haunches and a growl 
swelled almost inaudibly in his throat, but now he 
stalked around the table and pushed his narrow 
head between Dan's shoulder and the stallion. A 
snarl of incredible ferocity made Satan turn, but 
without the slightest dread, apparently. For an 
instant the two stood nose to nose, Black Bart a 
picture of snarling danger and Satan with 
curiously pricking ears and bright eyes. The 
growling rose towards a crescendo, a terrible 
sound; then a lean hand shot out with that speed 
which Joan could never comprehend--and which 
always made her think, rather breathlessly, of the 
strike of a snake. The fingers settled around the 
muzzle of Bart. 

"Of all the no-good houn'-dogs," declared Dan, 
"you're the worst, and the most jealousest. Lie 
down!" 

Bart obeyed, slowly, but his evil eyes were fixed 
upwards upon the head of Satan. 

"If you got any manners," remarked Dan, "you'll be 
sayin' that you're sorry." 

The ears flattened along the snaky head; otherwise 
no answer. 

"Sorry!" repeated the master. 

Out of the deep throat of Black Bart, infinitely, 
ludicrously small, came a whine which was more 
doglike than anything Joan had ever heard, before, 
from the wolf. 

"Now," continued the implacable master, "you go 
over in that corner, and lie down." 

Black Bart arose with a finally ugly look for 
Satan and sneaked with hanging head and tail to 
the outer edge of the circle of light. 

"Farther! Clear over there in the dark," came the 
order, and Bart had to uncoil himself again in the 
very act of lying down and retreat with another 
ominous growl clear into the darkness. Satan held 
his head high and watched triumphantly. 

But Joan felt that this was a little hard on Bart; 
she wanted to run over and comfort him, but she 
knew from of old that it was dangerous to 
interfere where Daddy Dan was disciplining either 
horse or wolf; besides, she was not quite free 
from her new awe for Bart. 

"All right," said the master presently, and 
without raising his voice. 

It brought a dark thunder bolt rushing into the 
circle of the light and stopping at Dan's side 
with such suddenness that his paws slid in the 
gravel. There he stood, actually wagging his bushy 
tail--an unprecedented outburst of joy for Bart!--
and staring hungrily into the face of Dan. She saw 
a wonderful softening in the eyes of her father as 
he looked at the great, dangerous beast. 

"You ain't a bad sort," he said, "but you need 
puttin' in place continual." 

Black Bart whined agreement. 

After that, when the dishes were being cleared 
away and cleaned with a speed fully as marvelous 
as the preparation of the supper, Joan remembered 
with a guilty start the message which she should 
have given to Daddy Dan, and she brought out the 
paper, much rumpled. 

He stood by the fire to read the letter. 

"Dan come back to us. The house is empty and 
there's no sign of you except your clothes and the 
skins you left drying in the vacant room. Joan 
sits all day, mourning for you, and my heart is 
breaking. Oh, Dan, I don't grieve so much for what 
has been done, but I tremble for what you may do 
in the future." 

With the letter still in his hand Dan walked 
thoughtfully to Satan and took the fine head 
between his fingers. 

"S'pose some gent was to drop you, Satan," he 
murmured. "S'pose he was to plug you while you was 
doin' your best to take me where I want to go. 
S'pose he shot you not for anything you'd done but 
because of something agin me. And s'pose after 
killin' you he was to sneak up on me with a lot of 
other gents and try to murder me before I had a 
chance to fight back. Satan, wouldn't I be right 
to trail 'em all--and kill 'em one by one? 
Wouldn't it?" 

Joan heard very little of the words--only a soft 
murmur of anxiety, and she saw that Daddy Dan was 
very thoughtful indeed. The stallion reached for 
the brim of Dan's hat--it was withdrawn from his 
reach--his head bowed, like a nod of assent. 

"Why, even Satan can see I'm right," murmured Dan, 
and moving back to the fire, he tore the letter 
into many pieces which fluttered down in a white 
stream and made the blaze leap up. 



Chapter XXI. The Acid Test 

Mrs. Johnny Sommers managed to preserve her 
dignity while she escorted the visitor into the 
front room, and even while she asked him to sit 
down and wait, but once she had closed the door 
behind her she cast dignity far away and did two 
steps at a time going upstairs. The result was 
that she, reached the room of Betty Neal entirely 
out of breath; two hundred pounds of fat, good-
natured widowhood do not go with speed. She tossed 
open the