“Bart!” commanded the girl, sharply.
The head jerked up, but the questing eyes did not
look at her. He glanced over his shoulder to
find the danger that had made her voice so hard.
And she yearned to take the fierce head in her arms;
there were tears she could have wept over it.
He was snarling again, prepared already to battle,
and for her sake.
“Bart!” she repeated, more gently.
“Lie down!”
He turned his head slowly back to her and looked with
the unspeakable wistfulness of the dumb brutes into
her eyes. But there was only one voice in which
Bart could speak, and that was the harsh, rattling
snarl which would have made a mountain-lion check
itself mid-leap and slink back to its lair. In
such a voice he answered Kate, and then sank down,
gradually. And he lay still.
So simply, and yet so mysteriously, she was admitted
to the partnership. But though one member of
that swift, grim trio had accepted her, did it mean
that the other two would take her in?
A weight sank on her feet and when she looked down
she saw that Black Bart had lowered his head upon
them, and so he lay there with his eyes closed, dreaming
in the sun.
THE TRAIL
Bandages and antiseptics and constant care, by themselves
could not have healed Black Bart so swiftly, but nature
took a strong hand. The wound closed with miraculous
speed. Three days after he had laid his head on
the feet of Kate Cumberland, the wolf-dog was hobbling
about on three legs and tugging now and again at the
restraining chain; and the day after that the bandages
were taken off and Whistling Dan decided that Bart
might run loose. It was a brief ceremony, but
a vital one. Doctor Byrne went out with Barry
to watch the loosing of the dog; from the window of
Joe Cumberland’s room he and Kate observed what
passed. There was little hesitancy in Black Bart.
He merely paused to sniff the foot of Randall Byrne,
snarl, and then trotted with a limp towards the corrals.
Here, in a small enclosure with rails much higher
than the other corrals, stood Satan, and Black Bart
made straight for the stallion. He was seen from
afar, and the black horse stood waiting, his head thrown
high in the air, his ears pricking forward, the tail
flaunting, a picture of expectancy. So under
the lower rail Bart slunk and stood under the head
of Satan, growling terribly. Of this display of
anger the stallion took not the slightest notice,
but lowered his beautiful head until his velvet nose
touched the cold muzzle of Bart. There was something
ludicrous about the greeting—it was such
an odd shade close to the human. It was as brief
as it was strange, for Black Bart at once whirled
and trotted away towards the barns.
By the time Doctor Byrne and Whistling Dan caught
up with him, the wolf-dog was before the heaps and
ashes which marked the site of the burned barn.
Among these white and grey and black heaps he picked
his way, sniffing hastily here and there. In
the very centre of the place he sat down suddenly
on his haunches, pointed his nose aloft, and wailed
with tremendous dreariness.
