“You see the result of this? Daniel Barry
is a man to whom the desert is necessary, because
he was made for the desert. He is lonely among
crowds—you have said it yourself—but
he is at home in a mountain wilderness with a horse
and a dog.”
“Doc, you talk well,” broke in Joe Cumberland,
“but if he ain’t human, why do humans
like him so much? Why does he mean so much to
me—to Kate?”
“Simply because he is different. You get
from him what you could get from no other man in the
world, perhaps, and you fail to see that the fellow
is really more akin to his wolf-dog than he is to a
man.”
“Supposin’ I said you was right,”
murmured the old man, frowning, “how d’you
explain why he likes other folks. According to
you, the desert and the mountains and animals is what
he wants. Then how is it that he took so much
care of me when he come back this time? How is
it that he likes Kate, enough to give up a trail of
blood to stay here with her?”
“It is easy to explain the girl’s attraction,”
said the doctor. “All animals wish to mate,
Mr. Cumberland, and an age old instinct is now working
out in Dan Barry. But while you and Kate may please
him, you are not necessary to him. He left you
once before and he was quite happy in his desert.
And I tell you, Mr. Cumberland, that he will leave
you again. You cannot tame the untameable.
It is not habit that rules this man. It is instinct
a million years old. The call which he will hear
is the call of the wilderness, and to answer it he
will leave father and wife and children and ride out
with his horse and his dog!”
The old man lay quite motionless, staring at the ceiling.
“I don’t want to believe you,” he
said slowly, “but before God I think you’re
right. Oh, lad, why was I bound up in a tangle
like this one? And Kate—what will
she do?”
The doctor was quivering with excitement.
“Let the man stay with her. In time she
will come to see the brute nature of Daniel Barry.
That will be the end of him with her.”
“Brute. Doc. They ain’t nobody
as gentle as Dan!”
“Till he tastes blood, a lion can be raised
like a house-dog,” answered the doctor.
“Then she mustn’t marry him? Ay,
I’ve felt it—jest what you’ve
put in words. It’s livin’ death for
Kate if she marries him! She’s kept him
here to-day. To-morrow something may cross him,
and the minute he feels the pull of it, he’ll
be off on the trail—the blow of a man, the
hollering out of the wild geese—God knows
what it’ll take to start him wild again and
forget us all—jest the way a child forgets
its parents!”
A voice broke in upon them, calling far away:
“Dan! Dan Barry!”
THE ACID TEST
