There is one patience greater than the endurance of the cat at the hole of the mouse or the wolf which waits for the moose to drop, and that is the patience of the thinking man; the measure of the Hindoo's moveless contemplation of Nirvana is not in hours but in weeks or even in months. Randall Byrne sat at his sentinel post with his hands folded and his grave eyes steadily fixed before him, and for hour after hour he did not move. Though the wind rose, now and again, and whistled through the upper chambers or mourned down the empty halls, Randall Byrne did not stir so much as an eyelash in observance. Two things held him fascinated. One was the girl who had passed up yonder stairs so wearily without a single backward glance at him; the other was the silent battle which went on in the adjoining room. Now and then his imagination wandered away to secondary pictures. He would see Barry meeting Buck Daniels, at last, and striking him down as remorselessly as the hound strikes the hare; or he would see him riding back towards Elkhead and catch a bright, sad vision of Kate Cumberland waving a careless adieu to him, and then hear her singing carelessly as she turned away. Such pictures as these, however, came up but rarely in the mind of Byrne. Mostly he thought of the stranger leaning over the body of old Joe Cumberland, reviving him, storing him with electric energy, paying back, as it were, some ancient debt. And he thought of the girl as she had turned at the landing place of the stairs, her head fallen; and he thought of her lying in her bed, with her arm under the mass of bright hair, trying to sleep, very tired, but remorsely held awake by that same power which was bringing Joe Cumberland back from the verge of death.
It was all impossible. This thing could not be. It was really as bad as the yarn of the Frankenstein monster. He considered how it would seem in print, backed by his most solemn asseverations, and then he saw the faces of the men who associated with him, pale thoughtful faces striving to conceal their smiles and their contempt. But always he came back, like the desperate hare doubling on his course, upon the picture of Kate Cumberland there at the turning of the stairs, and that bent, bright head which confessed defeat. The man had forgotten her. It made Byrne open his eyes in incredulity even to imagine such a thing. The man had forgotten her! She was no more to him than some withered hag he might ride past on the road.
His ear, subconsciously attentive to everything around him, caught a faint sound from the next room. It was a regular noise. It had the rhythm of a quick footfall, but in its nature it was more like the sound of a heavily beating pulse. Randall Byrne sat up in his chair. A faint creaking attested that it was, indeed, a footfall traversing the room to and fro, steadily.
The stranger, then, no longer leaned over the couch of the old cattleman. He was walking up and down the floor with that characteristic, softly padding step. Of what did he think as he walked? It carried Byrne automatically out into the darkest night, with a wind in his face, and the rhythm of a long striding horse carrying him on to a destination unknown.
Here he heard a soft scratching, repeated, at the door. When it came again he rose and opened the door—at once the tall, shaggy dog slipped through the opening and glided past him. It startled Byrne oddly to see the animal stealing away, as if Barry himself had been leaving. He called to the beast, but he was met by a silent baring of white fangs that stopped him in his tracks. The great dog was gone without a sound, and Byrne closed the door again without casting a look inside. He was stupidly, foolishly afraid to look within.
After that the silence had a more vital meaning. No pictures crowded his brain. He was simply keyed to a high point of expectancy, and therefore, when the door was opened silently, he sprang up as if in acknowledgment of an alarm and faced Barry. The latter closed the door behind him and glided after the big dog. He had almost crossed the big room when Byrne was able to speak.
"Mr. Barry!" he called.
The man hesitated.
"Mr. Barry," he repeated.
And Dan Barry turned. It was something like the act of the wolf the moment before; a swift movement—a flash of the eyes in something like defiance.
"Mr. Barry, are you leaving us?"
"I'm going outside."
"Are you coming back?"
"I dunno."
A great joy swelled in the throat of Doctor Byrne. He felt like shouting in triumph; yet he remembered once more how the girl had gone up the stairs, wearily, with fallen head. He decided that he would do what he could to keep the stranger with them, and though Randall Byrne lived to be a hundred he would never do a finer thing than what he attempted then. He stepped across the room and stood before Barry, blocking the way.
"Sir," he said gravely, "if you go now, you will work a great sorrow in this house."
A glint of anger rose in the eyes of Barry.
"Joe Cumberland is sleepin' soun'," he answered. "He'll be a pile rested when he wakes up. He don't need me no more."
"He's not the only one who needs you," said Byrne. "His daughter has been waiting impatiently for your coming, sir."
The sharp glance of Barry wavered away.
"I'd kind of like to stay," he murmured, "but I got to go."
A dull voice called from the next room.
"It's Joe Cumberland," said Byrne. "You see, he is not sleeping!"
The brow of Barry clouded, and he turned gloomily back.
"Maybe I better stay," he agreed.
Yet before he made a step Byrne heard a far-away honking of the wild geese, that musical discord carrying for uncounted miles through the windy air. The sound worked like magic on Barry. He whirled back.
"I got to go," he repeated.
And yet Byrne blocked the way. It required more courage to do that than to do anything he had ever attempted in his life. The sweat poured out from under his armpits as the stranger stepped near; the blood rushed from his face as he stared into the eyes of Barry—eyes which now held an uncanny glimmer of yellow light.
"Sir," said Byrne huskily, "you must not go! Listen! Old Cumberland is calling to you again! Does that mean nothing? If you have some errand out in the night, let me go for you."
"Partner," said the soft voice of Barry, "stand aside. I got no time,I'm wanted!"
Every muscle of Randall Byrne's body was set to repulse the stranger in any effort to pass through that door, and yet, mysteriously, against his will, he found himself standing to one side, and saw the other slip through the open door.
"Dan! Are ye there?" called a louder voice from the room beyond.
There was no help for it. He, himself, must go back and face Joe Cumberland. With a lie, no doubt. He would say that Dan had stepped out for a moment and would be back again. That might put Cumberland safely to sleep. In the morning, to be sure, he would find out the deception—but let every day bury its dead. Here was enough trouble for one night. He went slowly, but steadily enough, towards the door of what had now become a fatal room to the doctor. In that room he had seen his dearest doctrines cremated. Out of that room he had come bearing the ashes of his hopes in his hands. Now he must go back once more to try to fill, with science, a gap of which science could never take cognizance.
He lingered another instant with his hand on the door; then he cast it wide bravely enough and stepped in. Joe Cumberland was sitting up on the edge of his couch. There was colour in the old man's face. It almost seemed, to the incredulous eyes of Byrne, that the face was filled out a trifle. Certainly the fire of the old cattleman's glance was less unearthly.
"Where's Dan?" he called. "Where'd he go?"
It was no longer the deep, controlled voice of the stoic; it was the almost whining complaint of vital weakness.
"Is there anything I can do for you?" parried Byrne. "Anything you need or wish?"
"Him!" answered the old man explosively. "Damn it, I need Dan! Where is he? He was here. Ifelthim here while I was sleepin'.where is he?"
"He has stepped out for an instant," answered Byrne smoothly. "He will be back shortly."
"He—has—stepped—out?" echoed the old man slowly. Then he rose to the full of his gaunt height. His white hair, his triangle of beard and pointed moustache gave him a detached, a mediaeval significance; a portrait by Van Dyck had stepped from its frame.
"Doc, you're lyin' to me! Where has he gone?"
A sudden, almost hysterical burst of emotion swept Doctor Byrne.
"Gone to heaven or hell!" he cried with startling violence. "Gone to follow the wind and the wild geese—God knows where!"
Like a period to his sentence, a gun barked outside, there was a howl of demoniac pain and rage, and then a scream that would tingle in the ear of Doctor Randall Byrne till his dying day.
For when the dog sprang, Mac Strann fired, and the wolf was jerked up in the midst of his leap by the tearing impact of the bullet. It was easy for Strann to dodge the beast, and the great black body hurtled past him and struck heavily on the floor of the barn. It missed Mac Strann, indeed, but it fell at the very feet of Haw-Haw Langley, and a splash of blood flirted across his face. He was too terrified to shriek, but fell back against the wall of the barn, gasping. There he saw Black Bart struggle to regain his feet, vainly, for both of the animal's forelegs seemed paralyzed. Now the yellow light of the fire rose brightly, and by it Haw-Haw marked the terrible eyes and the lolling, slavering tongue of the great beast, and the fangs like ivory daggers. It could not regain its feet, but it thrust itself forward by convulsive efforts of the hind legs towards Mac Strann.
Haw-Haw Langley stared for a single instant in white faced fear, but when he realised that Black Bart was helpless as a toothless old dog, the tall cowpuncher, twisted his lean fingers with a silent joy. Once more Bart pushed himself towards Mac Strann, and then Haw-Haw Langley stepped forward, and with all the force of his long leg smashed his heavy riding boot into the face of the dog. Black Bart toppled back against the base of the manger, struggled vainly to regain his poise, and it was then that he pointed his nose up, and wailed like a lost soul, wailed with the fury of impotent hate. Mac Strann caught Haw-Haw by the arm and dragged him back towards the door.
"I don't want tokillthe dog," he repeated. "Get out of here,Haw-Haw. Barry'll be comin' any minute."
He could have used no sharper spur to urge on the laggard. Haw-Haw Langley raced out of the barn a full stride before Mac Strann. They hurried together to the little rise of ground behind which they had left their horses, and as they ran the scream which had curdled the blood of Randall Byrne rang through the night. In a thousand years he could never have guessed from what that yell issued; his nearest surmise would have been a score of men screaming in unison under the torture. But Mac Strann and Haw-Haw Langley knew the sound well enough.
When they mounted their saddles they could look over the top of the little hill and observe everything easily without being seen; for the hill-top commanded a range of the corrals and a view of the fronts of the barns and sheds which opened upon the fenced enclosures. The largest and longest of these buildings was now plainly visible, for a long arm of fire reached above the roof on one side of the low shed and by this growing light the other barns, the glimmering-eyed horses and cattle of the corrals, the trees about the house, the house itself, were in turn visible, though vaguely, and at times, as the flame lapsed, all were lost in a flood of swift darkness. Once more that unhuman shriek echoed from hill to hill and from building to building. It was Satan in his box stall. The flames were eating through the partition, and the stallion was mad with fear.
Lights flashed, here and there, in the big ranch house; and from the bunk-house on the farther side of the corrals rose a volley of curses and yells of dismay. The cattle began milling blindly, bellowing and stamping, and the horses ranged at a mad gallop back and forth across their corrals, wild-eyed with terror. It was like the tumult of a battle, and sharper than a trumpet a new sound cut through the din—it was a short, high whistle, twice repeated. An answer came from the burning barn—the long, strong neighing of the stallion.
"D'ye hear?" muttered Mac Strann. "It's the hoss talkin' to his master!"
"And there he comes!" said Haw-Haw Langley. "Runnin' like the wind!"
The flame, picked up by the gale, tore for itself a wider breathing space through the roof and sent up an audibly roaring column of blinding red. By that light, Mac Strann, following Haw-Haw's directing arm, saw a lithe figure vault over the fence on the farther side of the corral and dart forward among the milling cattle.
Now, when cattle begin to mill it takes a brave man on a brave, well-trained horse to trust his chances in the midst of that ocean of tossing horns. But this man ventured it on foot. Mac Strann could follow him easily, for the man's hat was off, and the firelight glittered on his black hair. That glimmering head darted here and there among the circling cattle. Now it was lost, swamped, to all appearances, under a score of trampling hooves. Again it reappeared on the further side. Mac Strann could see the runner in a comparatively open space, racing like a trained sprinter, and he headed straight towards a wall of tossing horns. They were long-horns, and one sway of those lowered heads could drive the hard, sharp point through and through the body of a man. Yet straight at this impassable wall the stranger rushed, like a warrior in his Berserker madness leaping naked upon a hedge of spears. At the verge of the danger the man sprang high into the air. Two leaps, from back to back among the herd, and he was across the thickest of danger, down once more on the ground, and dodging past the outskirts of the bellowing cows. Over the nearer fence he vaulted and disappeared into the smoke which vomitted from the mouth of the burning barn.
"God A'mighty," groaned Haw-Haw Langley, "can he get the hoss out?"
"It ain't possible," answered Mac Strann. "All hosses goes mad when they gets in a fire—even when they sees a fire. Look at them fools over yonder in the corral."
Indeed, in the horse-corral a score of frantic animals were attempting to leap the high rails in the direction of the burning barn. Their stamping and snorting came volleying up the hill to the watchers.
"All hosses goes mad," concluded Mac Strann, "an' Barry'll get tramped under the feet of his own hoss even if he gets to the stall—which he won't. Look there!"
Out of the rush of fire and smoke at the door of the barn Dan Barry stumbled, blindly, and fell back upon the ground. Haw-Haw Langley began to twist his cold hands together in an ecstasy.
"The hoss is gone and the wolf is gone, and Barry is beat!" he chuckled to himself. "Mac, I wouldn't of missed this for a ten days' ride. It's worth it. But see the gal and that new gent, Mac!"
* * * * *
For when the clamour arose outside the house, Buck Daniels had run to the window. For many reasons he had not taken off his clothes this night, but had lain down on the bed and folded his hands behind his head to wait. With the first outcry he was at the window and there he saw the flames curling above the roof of the barn, and next, by that wild light, how Dan Barry raced through the dangerous corral, and then he heard the shrill neighing of Satan, and saw Dan disappear in the smoking door of the barn.
Fear drew Buck Daniels one way but a fine impulse drew him another. He turned away from the window with a curse; he turned back to it with a curse, and then, muttering: "He went through hell for me; and him and me together, we'll go through hell again!" he ran from the room and thundered down the crazy stairs.
As he left the house he found Kate Cumberland, and they went on together, running without a word to each other. Only, when he came beside her, she stopped short and flashed one glance at him. By that glance he knew that she understood why he was there, and that she accepted his sacrifice.
They hurried around the outer edge of the corrals, and as they approached the flaming barn from one side the men from the bunk-house rushed up from the other. It was Buck Daniels who reached Dan as the latter stumbled back from the door of the barn, surrounded by a following cloud of smoke, and fell stumbling to the ground. And Buck raised him.
The girl was instantly beside them.
She had thrown on a white dressing gown when she rose from bed. It was girded high across her breast, and over it showered her bright hair, flashing like liquid gold in growing light. She, now, received the semi-conscious burden of Dan Barry, and Buck Daniels stepped forward, close to the smoke. He began to shout directions which the two watchers behind the hill could not hear, though they saw his long arms point and gesticulate and they could see his speaking lips. But wild confusion was on the crowd of cowpunchers. They ran here and there. One or two brought buckets of water and tossed the contents uselessly into the swirling, red-stained hell of smoke. But most of them ran here and there, accomplishing nothing.
"An' all this come from one little match, Mac," cried Haw-Haw ecstatically at the ear of Mac Strann. "All what we're seein'! Look at the gal, Mac! She's out of her wits! She's foolin' about Barry, doin' no good."
A gust of smoke and fire must have met Barry face to face when he entered the barn, for he seemed now as helpless as if he were under a strong narcotic influence. He leaned heavily back into the arms of the girl, his head rolling wildly from side to side. Then, clearer than before, dominating all the confusion of noise, and with a ringing, trumpet note of courage in it, the black stallion neighed again from his burning stall. It had a magic effect upon Barry. He stood up and tore himself from the arms of the girl. They saw her gesture and cry to the surrounding men for help, and a dozen hands were stretched out to keep the madman from running again into the fire. They might better have attempted to hold a wild horse with their naked hands. He slipped and broke through their grips, and a second later had leaped into the inferno of smoke, running bent close to the ground where the pure air, if there were any, was sure to be.
"The gal's sick!" said Haw-Haw Langley. "Look, Mac!"
And he began to laugh in that braying voice which had given him his nickname. Yet even in his laughter his eyes were brightly observant; not a single detail of misery or grief was lost upon him; he drank it in; he fed his famine-stricken soul upon it. Kate Cumberland had buried her face in her arms; Buck Daniels, attempting to rush in after Dan Barry, had been caught beneath the arms by Doctor Byrne and another and was now borne struggling back.
From the very heart of the burning barn the sharp single whistle burst and over the rolling smoke and spring fire rose the answering neigh. A human voice could not have spoken more intelligibly: "I wait in trust!"
After that neigh and whistle, a quiet fell over the group at the barn door. There was nothing to do. There was not enough wind to blow the flames from this barn to one of the neighbouring sheds; all they could do was to stand still and watch the progress of the conflagration.
The deep, thick voice of Mac Strann broke in: "Start prayin', Haw-Haw, that the hoss don't kill Barry when he gets to him. Start prayin' that Barry is left for me to finish."
He must have meant his singular request more as a figure of speech than a real demand, but an hysteria was upon Haw-Haw Langley. He stretched up his vast, gaunt arms to the dim spot of red in the central heavens above the fire, and Haw-Haw prayed for the first and last time in his life.
"O Lord, gimme this one favour. Bring Barry safe out of the barn. Bring him out even if you got to bring the damned hoss with him. Bring him out and save him for Mac Strann to meet. And, God A'mighty, let me be around somewhere's when they meet!"
This strange exhibition Mac Strann watched with a glowering eye.
"But it ain't possible," he said positively. "I been in fires. Barry can't live through the fire; an' if he does, the hoss will finish him. It ain't possible for him to come out!"
From half the roof of the shed flames now poured, but presently a great shower of sparks rose at the farther end of the barn, and then Haw-Haw heard the sound of a beating and crashing.
"Hei!" he screamed, "Barry's reached the black hoss and the black hoss is beating him into the floor!"
"You fool!" answered Mac Strann calmly, "Barry has got a beam or something and he's smashing down the burning partition of the box stall. That's what he's doing; listen!"
High over the fire, once again rose the neighing of the black horse, a sound of unspeakable triumph.
"You're right," groaned Haw-Haw, downcast. "He's reached the hoss!"
He had hardly finished speaking when Mac Strann said: "Anyway, he'll never get out. This end wall of the barn is fallin' in."
Indeed, the outer wall of the barn, nearest the door, was wavering in a great section and slowly tottering in. Another moment or two it would crash to the floor and block the way of Dan Barry, coming out, with a flaming ruin. Next the watchers saw a struggle among the group which watched. Three men were struggling with Buck Daniels, but presently he wrenched his arms free, struck down two men before him with swinging blows of his fists, and leaped into the smoke.
"He's gone nutty, like a crazy hoss with the sight of the fire," saidMac Strann quietly.
"He ain't! He ain't!" cried Haw-Haw Langley, wild with excitement. "He's holdin' back the burnin' wall to keep the way clear, damn him!"
Indeed, the tottering wall, not having leaned to a great angle, was now pushed back by some power from the inside of the barn and kept erect. Though now and again it swayed in, as though the strength which held it was faltering under the strain.
Now the eyes of the watchers were called to the other end of the barn by a tremendous crashing. The entire section of that part of the roof fell in, and a shower of sparks leaped up into the heart of the sky, lighting the distant hills and drawing them near like watchers of the horror of the night.
"That's the end," said Mac Strann. "Haw-Haw, they wasn't any good in your prayer."
"I ain't a professional prayin' man," answered Haw-Haw defensively, "but I done my best. If——" He was cut short by a chorused cry from the watchers near the door of the barn, and then, through the vomitted smoke and the fire, leaped the unsaddled body of Satan bearing on his back the crouched figure of Dan Barry, and in the arms of Barry, limp, his head hanging down loosely, was the body of the great black dog, Bart.
A fearful picture. The smoke swept following around the black stallion, and a great tongue of flame licked hungrily after the trio. But the stallion stood with head erect, and ears flattened, pawing the ground. With that cloud of destruction blowing him he stood like the charger which the last survivor might ride through the ruin of the universe in the Twilight of the Gods.
At the same instant, another smoke-clad figure lunged from the door of the barn, his hands outstretched as though he felt and fumbled his way through utter darkness. It was Buck Daniels, and as he cleared the door the section of tottering wall which he had upheld to keep the way clear for the Three, wavered, sagged, and then sank in thunder to the floor, and the whole barn lay a flame-tossed mass of ruin.
The watchers had scattered before the plunge of Satan, but he came to a sliding halt, as if his rider had borne heavily back upon the reins. Barry slipped from the stallion's back with the wounded dog, and kneeled above the limp figure.
"It ain't the end," growled Mac Strann, "that hoss will go runnin' back into the fire. It ain't hoss nature to keep from goin' mad at the sight of a fire!"
In answer to him, the black stallion whirled, raised his head high, and, with flaunting mane and tail, neighed a ringing defiance at the rising flames. Then he turned back and nuzzled the shoulder of his master, who was working with swift hands over the body of Black Bart.
"Anyway," snarled Haw-Haw Langley, "the damned wolf is dead."
"I dunno," said Mac Strann. "Maybe—maybe not. They's quite a pile that we dunno."
"If you want to get rid of the hoss," urged Haw-Haw, writhing in the glee of a new inspiration, "now's the time for it, Mac. Get out your gun and pot the black. Before the crowd can get after us, we'll be miles away. They ain't a saddled hoss in sight. Well, if you don't want to do it, I will!" And he whipped out his gun.
But Mac Strann reached across and dragged the muzzle down.
"We done all we're goin' to do to-night. Seems like God's been listenin' pretty close, around here!"
He turned his horse, and Haw-Haw, reluctantly, followed suit. Still, as they trotted slowly away from the burning barn, Haw-Haw kept his glance fixed behind him until a final roaring crash and a bellying cloud of fire that smote the zenith announced the end of the barn. Then Haw-Haw turned his face to his companion.
"Now what?" he demanded.
"We go to Elkhead and sit down and wait," answered Mac Strann. "If the dog gets well he'll bring Barry to us. Then all I've got to do is defend myself."
Haw-Haw Langley twisted up his face and laughed, silently, to the red-stained sky.
The black head of Barry, the brown head of Randall Byrne, the golden head of Kate Cumberland, were all bowed around the limp body of Black Bart. Buck Daniels, still gasping for breath, stood reeling nearby.
"Let me attempt to resuscitate the animal," offered the doctor.
He was met by a blank look from Barry. The hair of the man was scorched, his skin was blistered and burned. Only his hands remained uninjured, and these continued to move over the body of the great dog. Kate Cumberland was on her knees over the brute.
"Is it fatal, Dan?" she asked. "Is there no hope for Bart?"
There was no answer from Barry, and she attempted to raise the fallen, lifeless head of the animal; but instantly a strong arm darted out and brushed her hands away. Those hands fell idly at her sides and her head went back as though she had been struck across the face. She found herself looking up into the angry eyes of Randall Byrne. He reached down and raised her to her feet; there was no colour in her face, no life in her limbs.
"There's nothing more to be done here, apparently," said the doctor coldly. "Suppose we take your father and go back to the house."
She made neither assent nor dissent. Dan Barry had finished a swift, deft bandage and stopped the bleeding of the dog's wounds. Now he raised his head and his glance slipped rapidly over the faces of the doctor and the girl and rested on Buck Daniels. There was no flash of kindly thanks, no word of recognition. His right hand raised to his cheek, and rested there, and in his eyes came that flare of yellow hate. Buck Daniels shrank back until he was lost in the crowd. Then he turned and stumbled back towards the house.
Instantly, Barry began to work at expanding and depressing the lungs of the huge animal as he might have worked to bring a man back to life.
"Watch him!" whispered the doctor to Kate Cumberland. "He is closer to that dog—that wolf, it looks like—than he has ever been to any human being!"
She would not answer, but she turned her head quickly away from the man and his beast.
"Are you afraid to watch?" challenged Byrne, for his anger at Barry's blunt refusals still made his blood hot. "When your father lay at death's door was he half so anxious as he is now? Did he work so hard, by half? See how his eyes are fixed on the muzzle of the beast as if he were studying a human face!"
"No, no!" breathed the girl.
"I fell you, look!" commanded the doctor. "For there's the solution of the mystery. No mystery at all. Barry is simply a man who is closer akin to the brute forces in nature. See! By the eternal heavens, he's dragging that beast—that dumb beast—back from the door of death!"
Barry had ceased his rapid manipulations, and turned the big dog back upon its side. Now the eyes of Black Bart opened, and winked shut again. Now the master kneeled at the head of the beast and took the scarred, shaggy head between his hands.
"Bart!" he commanded.
Not a stir in the long, black body. The stallion edged a pace closer, dropped his velvet muzzle, and whinnied softly at the very ear of the dog. Still, there was not an answering quiver.
"Bart!" called the man again, and there was a ring of wild grief—of fear—in his cry.
"Do you hear?" said Byrne savagely, at the ear of the girl. "Did you ever use such a tone with a human being? Ever?"
"Take me away!" she murmured. "I'm sick—sick at heart. Take me away!"
Indeed, she was scarcely sure of her poise, and tottered where she stood. Doctor Byrne slipped his arm about her and led her away, supporting half her weight. They went slowly, by small, soft steps, towards the house, and before they reached it, he knew that she was weeping. But if there was sadness in Byrne, there was also a great joy. He was afire, for there is a flamelike quality in hope. Loss of blood and the stifling smoke, rather than a mortal injury or the touch of fire, had brought Black Bart close to death, but now that his breathing was restored, and almost normal, he gained rapidly. One instant he lingered on the border between life and death; the next, the brute's eyes opened and glittered with dim recognition up towards Dan, and he licked the hand which supported his head. At Dan's direction, a blanket was brought, and after Dan had lifted Black Bart upon it, four men raised the corners of the blanket and carried the burden towards the house. One of the cowpunchers went ahead bearing the light. This was the sight which Doctor Byrne and Kate Cumberland saw from the veranda of the ranch-house as they turned and looked back before going in.
"A funeral procession," suggested the doctor.
"No," she answered positively. "If Black Bart were dead, Dan wouldn't allow any hands save his own to touch the body. No, Black Bart is alive! Yet, it's impossible."
The word "impossible," however, was gradually dropping from the vocabulary of Randall Byrne. True, the wolf-dog had seemed dead past recovery and across the eyes of Byrne came a vision of the dead rising from their graves. Yet he merely shook his head and said nothing.
"Ah!" she broke in. "Look!"
The procession drew nearer, heading towards the back of the big house, and now they saw that Dan Barry walked beside the body of Black Bart, a smile on his lifted face. They disappeared behind the back of the house.
Byrne heard the girl murmuring, more to herself than to him: "Once he was like that all the time."
"Like what?" he asked bluntly.
She paused, and then her hand dropped lightly on his arm. He could not see more than a vague outline of her in the night, only the dull glimmer of her face as she turned her head, and the faint whiteness of her hand.
"Let's say good-night," she answered, at length. "Our little worlds have toppled about our heads to-night—all your theories, it seems, and, God knows, all that I have hoped. Why should we stay here and make ourselves miserable by talk?"
"But because we have failed," he said steadily, "is that a reason we should creep off and brood over our failure in silence? No, let's talk it out, man to man."
"You have a fine courage," said the girl. "But what is there we can say?"
He answered: "For my part, I am not so miserable as you think. For I feel as if this night had driven us closer together, you see; and I've caught a perspective on everything that has happened here."
"Tell me what you know."
"Only what I think I know. It may be painful to hear."
"I'm very used to pain."
"Well, a moment ago, when Barry was walking beside his dog, smiling, you murmured that he once was like that always. It gave me light. So I'd say that there was a time when Dan Barry lived here with you and your father. Am I right?"
"Yes, for years and years."
"And in those times he was not greatly different from other men. Not on the surface."
"No."
"You came to be very fond of him."
"We were to marry," answered Kate Cumberland, and Byrne winced.
He went on: "Then something happened—suddenly—that took him away from you, and you did not see him again until to-night. Am I right?"
"Yes. I thought you must have heard the story—from the outside. I'll tell you the truth. My father found Dan Barry wandering across the hills years ago. He was riding home over the range and he heard a strange and beautiful whistling, and when he looked up he saw on the western ridge, walking against the sky, a tattered figure of a boy. He rode up and asked the boy his name. He learned it was Dan Barry—Whistling Dan, he was called. But the boy could not, or would not, tell how he came to be there in the middle of the range without a horse. He merely said that he came from 'over there,' and waved his hand to the south and east. That was all. He didn't seem to be alarmed because he was alone, and yet he apparently knew nothing of the country; he was lost in this terrible country where a man could wander for days without finding a house, and yet the boy was whistling as he walked! So Dad took him home and sent out letters all about—to the railroad in particular—to find out if such a boy was missing.
"He received no answer. In the meantime he gave Dan a room in the house; and I remember how Dan sat at the table the first night—I was a very little girl then—and how I laughed at his strange way of eating. His knife was the only thing he was interested in and he made it serve for knife, fork, and spoon, and he held the meat in his fingers while he cut it. The next morning he was missing. One of Dad's range riders picked up Dan several miles to the north, walking along, whistling gayly. The next morning he was missing again and was caught still farther away. After that Dad had a terrible scene with him—I don't know exactly what happened—but Dan promised to run away no more, and ever since then Dad has been closer to Dan than anyone else.
"So Dan grew up. From the time I could first distinctly remember, he was very gentle and good-natured, but he was different, always. After a while he got Black Bart, you know, and then he went out with a halter and captured Satan. Think of capturing a wild mustang with nothing but a halter! He played around with them so much that I was jealous of them. So I kept with them until Bart and Satan were rather used to me. Bart would even play with me now and then when Dan wasn't near. And so finally Dan and I were to be married.
"Dad didn't like the idea. He was afraid of what Dan might become. And he was right. One day, in a saloon that used to stand on that hill over there, Dan had a fight—his first fight—with a man who had struck him across the mouth for no good reason. That man was Jim Silent. Of course you've heard of him?"
"Never."
"He was a famous long-rider—an outlaw with a very black record. At the end of that fight he struck Dan down with a chair and escaped. I went down to Dan when I heard of the fight—Black Bart led me down, to be exact—but Dan would not come back to the house, and he'd have no more to do with anyone until he had found Jim Silent. I can't tell you everything that happened. Finally he caught Jim Silent and killed him—with his bare hands. Buck Daniels saw it. Then Dan came back to us, but on the first night he began to grow restless. It was last Fall—the wild geese were flying south—and while they were honking in the sky Dan got up, said good-bye, and left us. We have never seen him again until to-night. All we knew was that he had ridden south—after the wild geese."
A long silence fell between them, for the doctor was thinking hard.
"And when he came back," he said, "Barry did not know you? I mean you were nothing to him?"
"You were there," said the girl, faintly.
"It is perfectly clear," said Byrne. "If it were a little more commonplace it might be puzzling, but being so extraordinary it clears itself up. Did you really expect the dog, the wolf-dog, Black Bart, to remember you?"
"I may have expected it."
"But you were not surprised, of course!"
"Naturally not."
"Yet you see that Dan Barry—Whistling Dan, you call him—was closer toBlack Bart than he was to you?"
"Why should I see that?"
"You watched him a moment ago when he was leaning over the dog."
He watched her draw her dressing gown closer about her, as though the cold bit more keenly then.
She said simply: "Yes, I saw."
"Don't you see that he is simply more in tune with the animal world? And it's really no more reasonable to expect Black Bart to remember you than it is to expect Dan Barry to remember you? It's quite plain. When you go back to the beginning man was simply an animal, without the higher senses, as we call them. He was simply a brute, living in trees or in caves. Afterwards he grew into the thing we all know. But why not imagine a throw-back into the earlier instincts? Why not imagine the creature devoid of the impulses of mind, the thing which we call man, and see the splendid animal? You saw in Dan Barry simply a biological sport—the freak—the thing which retraces the biological progress and comes close to the primitive. But of course you could not realise this. He seemed a man, and you accepted him as a man. In reality he was no more a man than Black Bart is a man. He had the face and form of a man, but his instincts were as old as the ages. The animal world obeys him. Satan neighs in answer to his whistle. The wolf-dog licks his hand at the point of death. There is the profound difference, always. You try to reconcile him with other men; you give him the attributes of other men. Open your eyes; see the truth: that he is no more akin to man than Black Bart is like a man. And when you give him your affection, Miss Cumberland,you are giving your affection to a wild wolf!Do you believe me?"
He knew that she was shaken. He could feel it, even without the testimony of his eyes to witness. He went on, speaking with great rapidity, lest she should escape from the influence which he had already gained over her.
"I felt it when I first saw him—a certain nameless kinship with elemental forces. The wind blew through the open door—it was Dan Barry. The wild geese called from the open sky—for Dan Barry. These are the things which lead him. These the forces which direct him. You have loved him; but is love merely a giving? No, you have seen in him a man, but I see in him merely the animal force."
She said after a moment: "Do you hate him—you plead against him so passionately?"
He answered: "Can you hate a thing which is not human? No, but you can dread it. It escapes from the laws which bind you and which bind me. What standards govern it? How can you hope to win it? Love? What beauty is there in the world to appeal to such a creature except the beauty of the marrow-bone which his teeth have the strength to snap?"
"Ah, listen!" murmured the girl. "Here is your answer!"
And Doctor Randall Byrne heard a sound like the muted music of the violin, thin and small and wonderfully penetrating. He could not tell, at first, what it might be. For it was as unlike the violin as it was like the bow and the rosined strings. Then he made out, surely, that it was the whistling of a human being.
It followed no tune, no reasoned theme. The music was beautiful in its own self. It rose straight up like the sky-lark from the ground, sheer up against the white light of the sky, and there it sang against heaven's gate. He had never heard harmony like it. He would never again hear such music, so thin and yet so full that it went through and through him, until he felt the strains take a new, imitative life within him. He would have whistled the strains himself, but he could not follow them. They escaped him, they soared above him. They followed no law or rhythm. They flew on wings and left him far below. The girl moved away from him as if led by an invisible hand, and now she stood at the extremity of the porch. He followed her.
"Do you hear?" she cried, turning to him.
"What is it?" asked the doctor.
"It is he! Don't you understand?"
"Barry? Yes! But what does the whistling mean; is it for his wolf-dog?"
"I don't know," she answered quickly. "All I understand is that it is beautiful. Where are your theories and explanations now, Doctor Byrne?".
"Itisbeautiful—God knows!—but doesn't the wolf-dog understand it better than either you or I?"
She turned and faced Byrne, standing very close, and when she spoke there was something in her voice which was like a light. In spite of the dark he could guess at every varying shade of her expression.
"To the rest of us," she murmured, "Dan has nothing but silence, and hardly a glance. Buck saved his life to-night, and yet Dan remembered nothing except the blow which had been struck. And now—now he pours out all the music in his soul for a dumb beast. Listen!"
He saw her straighten herself and stand taller.
"Then through the wolf—I'll conquer through the dumb beast!"
She whipped past Byrne and disappeared into the house; at the same instant the whistling, in the midst of a faint, high climax, broke, shivered, and was ended. There was only the darkness and the silence around Byrne, and the unsteady wind against his face.
Doctor Byrne, pacing the front veranda with his thoughtful head bowed, saw Buck Daniels step out with his quirt dangling in his hand, his cartridge belt buckled about his waist, and a great red silk bandana knotted at his throat.
He was older by ten years than he had been a few days before, when the doctor first saw him. To be sure, his appearance was not improved by a three days' growth of beard. It gave his naturally dark skin a dirty cast, but even that rough stubble could not completely shroud the new hollows in Daniels' cheeks. His long, black, uncombed hair, sagged down raggedly across his forehead, hanging almost into his eyes; the eyes themselves were sunk in such formidable cavities that Byrne caught hardly more than two points of light in the shadows. All the devil-may-care insouciance of Buck Daniels was quite, quite gone. In its place was a dogged sullenness, a hang-dog air which one would not care to face of a dark night or in a lonely place. His manner was that of a man whose back is against the wall, who, having fled some keen pursuit, has now come to the end of his tether and prepares for desperate even if hopeless battle. There was that about him which made the doctor hesitate to address the cowpuncher.
At length he said: "You're going out for an outing, Mr. Daniels?"
Buck Daniels started violently at the sound of this voice behind him, and whirled upon the doctor with such a set and contorted expression of fierceness that Byrne jumped back.
"Good God, man!" cried the doctor, "What's up with you?"
"Nothin'," answered Buck, gradually relaxing from his first show of suspicion. "I'm beating it. That's all."
"Leaving us?"
"Yes."
"Not really!"
"D'you think I ought to stay?" asked Buck, with something of a sneer.
The doctor hesitated, frowning in a puzzled way. At length he threw out his hands in a gesture of mute abandonment.
"My dear fellow," he said with a faint smile, "I've about stopped trying to think."
At this Buck Daniels grinned mirthlessly.
"Now you're talkin' sense," he nodded. "They ain't no use in thinking."
"But why do you leave so suddenly?"
Buck Daniels shrugged his broad shoulders.
"I am sure," went on Byrne, "that Miss Cumberland will miss you."
"She will not," answered the big cowpuncher. "She's got her hands full with—him."
"Exactly. But if it is more than she can do, if she makes no headway with that singular fellow—she may need help——"
He was interrupted by a slow, long-drawn, deep-throated curse from BuckDaniels.
"Why in hell should I help her with—him?"
"There is really no reason," answered the doctor, alarmed, "except, I suppose, old friendship——"
"Damn old friendship!" burst out Buck Daniels. "There's an end to all things and my friendship is worn out—on both sides. It's done!"
He turned and scowled at the house.
"Help her to winhimover? I'd rather stick the muzzle of my gun down my throat and pull the trigger. I'd rather see her marry a man about to hang. Well—to hell with this place. I'm through with it. S'long, doc."
But Doctor Byrne ran after him and halted him at the foot of the steps down from the veranda.
"My dear Mr. Daniels," he urged, touching the arm of Buck. "You really mustn't leave so suddenly as this. There are a thousand questions on the tip of my tongue."
Buck Daniels regarded the professional man with a hint of weariness and disgust.
"Well," he said, "I'll hear the first couple of hundred. Shoot!"
"First: the motive that sends you away."
"Dan Barry."
"Ah—ah—fear of what he may do?"
"Damn the fear. At least, it's him that makes me go."
"It seems an impenetrable mystery," sighed the doctor. "I saw you the other night step into the smoking hell of that barn and keep the way clear for this man. I knew, before that, how you rode and risked your life to bring Dan Barry back here. Surely those are proofs of friendship!"
Buck Daniels laughed unpleasantly. He laid a large hand on the shoulder of the doctor and answered: "If them was the only proofs, doc, I wouldn't feel the way I do. Proofs of friendship? Dan Barry has saved me from the—rope!—and he's saved me from dyin' by the gun of Jim Silent. He took me out of a rotten life and made me a man that could look honest men in the face!"
He paused, swallowing hard, and the doctor's misty, overworked eyes lighted with some comprehension. He had felt from the first a certain danger in this big fellow, a certain reckless disregard of laws and rules which commonly limit the actions of ordinary men. Now part of the truth was hinted at. Buck Daniels, on a time, had been outside the law; and Barry had drawn him back to the ways of men. That explained some of the singular bond that lay between them.
"That ain't all," went on Buck. "Blood is thick, and I've loved him better nor a brother. I've gone to hell and back for him. For him I took Kate Cumberland out of the hands of Jim Silent, and I left myself in her place. I took her away and all so's she could go to him. Damn him! And now on account of him I got to leave this place."
His voice rose to a ringing pitch.
"D'you think it's easy for me to go? D'you think it ain't like tearing a finger-nail off'n the flesh for me to go away from Kate? God knows what she means to me! God knows, but if He does, He's forgotten me!"
Anguish of spirit set Buck Daniels shaking, and the doctor looked on in amazement. He was like one who reaches in his pocket for a copper coin and brings out a handful of gold-pieces.
"Kind feelin's don't come easy to me," went on Buck Daniels. "I been raised to fight. I been raised to hard ridin' and dust in the throat. I been raised on whiskey and hate. And then I met Dan Barry, and his voice was softer'n a girl's voice, and his eyes didn't hold no doubt of me. Me that had sneaked in on him at night and was goin' to kill him in his sleep—because my chief had told me to! That was the Dan Barry what I first knew. He give me his hand and give me the trust of his eyes, and after he left me I sat down and took my head between my hands and my heart was like to bust inside me. It was like the clouds had blowed away from the sun and let it shine on me for the first time in my life. And I swore that if the time come I'd repay him. For every cent he give me I'd pay him back in gold. I'd foller to the end of the world to do what he bid me do."
His voice dropped suddenly, choked with emotion.
"Oh, doc, they was tears come in my eyes; and I felt sort of clean inside, and I wasn't ashamed of them tears! That was what Dan Barry done for me!
"And Ididpay him back, as much as I could. I met Kate Cumberland and she was to me among girls what Dan Barry was to me among men. I ain't ashamed of sayin' it. I loved her till they was a dryness like ashes inside me, but I wouldn't even lift up my eyes to her, because she belonged to him. I follered her around like a dog. I done her bidding. I asked no questions. What she wanted—that was law to me, and all the law I wanted. All that I done for the sake of Dan Barry. And then I took my life in my hands for him—not once, but day after day.
"Then he rode off and left her and I stayed behind. D'you think it's been easy to stay here? Man, man, I've had to hear her talkin' about Dan Barry day after day, and never a word for me. And I had to tell her stories about Dan and what he'd used to do, and she' sit with her eyes miles away from me, listenin' an smilin' and me there hungerin' for just one look out of her eyes—hungerin' like a dyin' dog for water. And then for her and Joe I rode down south and when I met Dan Barry d'you think they was any light in his eyes when he seen me?
"No, he'd forgotten me the way even a hoss won't forget his master. Forgot me after a few months—and after all that'd gone between us! Not even Kate—even she was nothin' to him. But still I kept at it and I brought him back. I had to hurt him to do it, but God knows it wasn't out of spite that I hit him—God knows!
"And when I seen Dan go into that burnin' barn I says to myself: 'Buck, if nothin' is done that wall will fall and there's the end of Dan Barry. There's the end of him, that ain't any human use, and when he's finished after a while maybe Kate will get to know that they's other men in the world besides Dan.' I says that to myself, deep and still inside me. And then I looked at Kate standin' in that white thing with her yaller hair all blowin' about her face—and I wanted her like a dyin' man wants heaven! But then I says to myself again: 'No matter what's happened, he's been my friend. He's been my pal. He's been my bunkie.'
"Doc, you ain't got a way of knowin' what a partner is out here. Maybe you sit in the desert about a thousand miles from nowhere, and across the little mesquite fire, there's your pal, the only human thing in sight. Maybe you go months seein' only him. If you're sick he takes care of you. If you're blue he cheers you up. And that's what Dan Barry was to me. So I stands sayin' these things to myself, and I says: 'If I keep that wall from fallin' Dan'll know about it, and they won't be no more of that yaller light in his eyes when he looks at me. That's what I says to myself, poor fool!
"And I went into the fire and I fought to keep that wall from fallin'. You know what happened. When I come out, staggerin' and blind and three parts dead, Dan Barry looks up to me and touches his face where I'd hit him, and the yaller comes up glimmerin' and blazin' in his eyes. Then I went back to my room and I fought it out.
"And here's where I stand now. If I stay here, if I see that yaller light once more, they won't be no waitin'. Him and me'll have to have it out right then. Am I a dog, maybe, that I got to stand around and jump when he calls me?"
"My dear fellow—my dear Mr. Daniels!" cried the horrified Doctor Byrne. "Surely you're wrong. He wouldn't go so far as to make a personal attack upon you!"
"Wouldn't he? Bah! Not if he was a man, no. I tell you, he ain't a man; he's what the canuks up north call a were-wolf! There ain't no mercy or kindness in him. The blood of a man means nothin' to him. The world would be better rid of him. Oh, he can be soft and gentle as a girl. Mostly he is. But cross him once and he forgets all you done for him. Give him a taste of blood and he jumps at your throat. I tell you, I've seen him do it!"
He broke off with a shudder.
"Doc," he said, in a lower and solemn voice. "Maybe I've said too much. Don't tell Kate nothin' about why I'm goin'. Let her go on dreamin' her fool dream. But now hear what I'm sayin'; If Dan Barry crosses me once more, one of us two dies, and dies damned quick. It may be me, it may be him, but I've come to the end of my rope. I'm leavin' this place till Barry gets a chance to come to his senses and see what I've done for him. That's all. I'm leavin' this place because they's a blight on it, and that blight is Dan Barry. I'm leaving this place because—doc—because I can smell the comin' of bloodshed in it. They's a death hangin' over it. If the lightnin' was to hit and burn it up, house and man, the range would be better for it!"
And he turned on his heel and strode slowly down towards the corral.Doctor Byrne followed his progress with starting eyes.
The chain which fastened Black Bart had been passed around the trunk of a tree that stood behind the ranch house, and there the great dog lay tethered. Doctor Byrne had told Whistling Dan, with some degree of horror, that the open air was in the highest degree dangerous to wounds, but Whistling Dan had returned no answer. So Black Bart lay all day in the soft sand, easing himself from time to time into a new position, and his thoughtful eyes seemed to be concentrated on the desire to grow well. Beside him was the chair in which Dan Barry sat for many an hour of the day and even the night.
Kate Cumberland watched the animal from the shadow of the house; his eyes were closed, and the long, powerful head lay inert on the sand, yet she knew that the wolf-dog was perfectly aware of her presence. Day after day since he lay there, she had attempted to approach Black Bart, and day after day he had allowed her to come within reaching distance of him, only to drive her back at the last moment by a sudden display of the murderous, long fangs; or by one of those snarls which came out of the black depths of his heart. Now, a dog snarls from not far down in its throat, but the noise of an angered wild beast rolls up out of its very entrails—a passion of hate and defiance. And when she heard that sound, or when she saw the still more terrible silent rage of the beast, Kate Cumberland's spirit failed, and she would shrink back again to a safe distance.
She was not easily discouraged. She had that grim resolution which comes to the gambler after he has played at the same table night after night, night after night, and lost, lost, lost, until, playing with the last of his money, he begins to mutter through his set teeth: "The luckmustchange!" So it was with Kate Cumberland. For in Black Bart she saw the only possible clue to Whistling Dan. There was the stallion, to be sure, but she knew Satan too well. Nothing in the wide world could induce that wild heart to accept more than one master—more than one friend. For Satan there was in the animal world Black Bart, and in the world of men, Dan Barry. These were enough. For all the rest he kept the disdainful speed of his slender legs or the terror of his teeth and trampling hoofs. Even if she could have induced the stallion to eat from her hand she could never have made him willing to trust himself to her guidance. Some such thing she felt that she must accomplish with Black Bart. To the wild beast with the scarred and shaggy head she must become a necessary, an accepted thing.
One repulse did not dishearten her. Again and again she made the trial. She remembered having read that no animal can resist the thoughtful patience of thinking man, and hour after hour she was there, until a new light in the eye of the wolf-dog warned her that the true master was coming.
Then she fled, and from a post of vantage in the house she would watch the two. An intimacy surpassing the friendships and devotions of human beings existed between them. She had seen the wolf lie with his great head on the foot of his master and the unchanging eyes fixed on Barry's face—and so for an hour at a stretch in mute worship. Or she had watched the master go to the great beast to change the dressing—a thing which could not be done too often during the day. She had seen the swift hands remove the bandages and she had seen the cleansing solution applied. She knew what it was; it stung even the unscratched skin, and to a wound it must be torture, but the wolf lay and endured—not even shuddering at the pain.
It had seemed to her that this was the great test. If she could make the wolf lie like this for her, then, truly, she might feel herself in some measure admitted to that mystic fellowship of the three—the man, the stallion, and the wolf. If she could, with her own unaided hands, remove the bandages and apply that solution, then she could know many things, and she could feel that she was nearer to Whistling Dan than ever before.
So she had come, time and again, with the basin and the roll of cloth in her arm, and she had approached with infinite patience, step by step, and then inch by inch. Once it had taken a whole hour for her to come within a yard of the beast. And all that time Black Bart had lain with closed eyes. But at the critical instant always there was the silent writhing up of the lips and the gleam of hate—or the terrible snarl while the eyes fastened on her throat. Her heart had stopped in mid-beat; and that day she ran back into the house and threw herself on her bed, and would not come from her room till the following morning.
Now, as she watched from the shadow of the house, with the basin of antiseptic under her arm, the gambler's desperation rose stronger and stronger. She came out, at length, and walked steadily towards Black Bart. She had grown almost heedless of fear at this moment, but when she was within a pace, once more the head reared back; the teeth flashed. And the heart of Kate Cumberland, as always, stopped. Yet she did not retreat this time. All the colour left her face, so that her eyes seemed amazingly blue and wide. One foot drew back, tremblingly ready to spring to safety; yet she held her place. She moved—and it was towards Black Bart.
At that came a snarl that would have made the heart of a lone grizzly quake and leave his new-found nuts. One further pace she made—and the beast plunged up, and braced itself with its one strong fore leg. A devil of yellow-green gleamed in either eye, and past the grinning fangs she saw the hot, red throat, and she saw the flattened ears, the scars on the bony forehead, the muscles that bulged on the base of the jaw. Ay, strength to drive those knife-like teeth through flesh and bone at a single snap. More—she had seen their effect, and the throat of a bull cut at a single slash. And yet—she sank on her knees beside the monster.
His head was well nigh as high as hers, then; if he attacked there could be no dream of escape for her. Or she might drag herself away from the tearing teeth—a disfigured horror forever. Think not that an iota of all these terrors missed her mind. No, she felt the fangs buried in her throat and heard the snarl of the beast stifled with blood. Yet—she laid her hand on the bandage across the shoulder of Black Bart.
His head whirled. With those ears flattened, with that long, lean neck, it was like the head of a striking snake. Her sleeve was rolled up to the elbow, and over the bare skin the teeth of the wolf-dog were set. The snarl had grown so deep and hideous that the tremor of it fairly shook her, and she saw that the jaws of the beast slavered with hunger. She knew—a thousand things about Black Bart, and among the rest that he had tasted human blood. And there is a legend which says that once a wild beast has tasted the blood of man he will taste it a second time before he dies. She thought of that—she dared not turn her head lest she should encounter the hellfire of Bart's eyes. Yet she had passed all ordinary fear. She had reached that exquisite frenzy of terror when it becomes one with courage. The very arm over which the wolf's teeth were set moved—raised—and with both hands she untied the knot of the bandage.
The snarling rose to a pitch of maniacal rage; the teeth compressed—if they broke the skin it was the end; the first taste of blood would be enough!—and drew away her arm. If she had started then, all the devil in the creature would be loosed, for her terror taught her that. And by some mysterious power that entered her at that moment she was able to turn her head, slowly, and look deep into those terrible eyes.
Her arm was released.
But Black Bart crouched and the snakelike head lowered; he was quivering throughout that steel-muscled body to throw himself at her throat. The finger was on the hair-trigger; it needed a pressure not greater than a bodiless thought. And still she looked into the eyes of the wolf-dog; and her terror had made her strangely light of body and dizzy of mind. Then the change came, suddenly. The yellow-green changed, swirled in the eyes of Black Bart; the eyes themselves wavered, and at last looked away; the snarl dropped to a sullen growl. And Black Bart lay down as he had been before.
His head was still turned towards her, to be sure. And the teeth were still bared, as with rapid, deft fingers she undid the bandage; and from instant to instant, as the bandage in spite of her care pressed against the wound, the beast shivered and wicked glances flashed up at her face. The safe-blower who finds his "soup" cooling and dares not set it down felt as Kate Cumberland felt then.
She never knew what kept her hands steady, but steady they were. The cloth was removed, and now she could see the red, angry wound, with the hair shaven away to a little distance on every side. She dipped her cloth into the antiseptic; it stung her fingers! She touched the cloth lightly against the wound; and to her astonishment the wolf-dog relaxed every muscle and let his head fall to the ground; also the growl died into a soft whine, and this in turn ended.
She had conquered! Ay, when the wound was thoroughly cleansed and when she started to wind the bandage again, she had even the courage to touch Black Bart's body and make him rise up so that she could pass the cloth freely. At her touch he shuddered, to be sure, as a man might shudder at the touch of an unclean thing, but there was no snarl, and the teeth were not bared.
As she tied the knot which secured the bandage in its place she was aware that the eyes of Bart, no longer yellow-green, watched her; and she felt some vague movement of the wonder that was passing through the brute mind. Then the head of the wolf-dog jerked up; he was staring at something in the distance, and there was nothing under heaven that Bart would raise his head to look at in this manner except one thing. The fingers of Kate grew stiff, and trembled. Slowly, in a panic, she finished the knot, and then she was aware of someone who had approached without sound and now stood behind her.
She looked up, at length, before she rose to her feet.
Thankfulness welled up warm in her heart to find her voice steady and commonplace when she said: "The wound is much better. Bart will be well in a very few days now."
Whistling Dan did not answer, and his wondering eyes glanced past her own. She saw that he was staring at a double row of white indentations on her forearm, where the teeth of Black Bart had set. He knew those marks, and she knew he knew. Strength was leaving her, and weakness went through her—water where blood should have been. She dared not stay. In another moment she would be hopelessly in the grip of hysteria.
So she rose, and passed Dan without a word, and went slowly towards the house. She tried to hurry, indeed, but her legs would not quicken their pace. Yet at length she had reached shelter and no sooner was she past the door of the house than her knees buckled; she had to steady herself with both hands as she dragged herself up the stairs to her room. There, from the window, she looked down and saw Whistling Dan standing as she had left him, staring blankly at the wolf-dog.