“Kate—­” began Haines.  “She sent you for me?”

Only the yellow blazing eyes made answer and the wail of a coyote far away on the shadowy hill.

“Kate!” cried Haines again, but now there was a world of new meaning in his voice.  He swung his horse and spurred down the slope.

At the next hill-crest he turned in the saddle, saw the motionless rider still outlined against the sky, and brought the bay to a halt.  He was greatly troubled.  For a reason mysterious and far beyond the horizon of his knowledge, Dan was surrendering Kate Cumberland to him.

“He’s doing it while he still loves her,” muttered Haines, “and am I cur enough to take her from him after he has saved me from God knows what?”

He turned his horse to ride back, but at that moment he caught the weird, the unearthly note of Dan’s whistling.  There was both melancholy and gladness in it.  The storm wind running on the hills and exulting in the blind terror of the night had such a song as this to sing.

“If he was a man,” Haines argued briefly with himself, “I’d do it.  But he isn’t a man.  He’s a devil.  He has no more heart than the wolf which owns him as master.  Shall I give a girl like Kate Cumberland to that wild panther?  She’s mine—­all mine!”

Once more he turned his horse and this time galloped steadily on into the night.

When Haines dropped out of sight, Dan’s whistling stopped.  He looked up to the pitiless glitter of the stars.  He looked down to the sombre sweep of black hills.  The wind was like a voice saying over and over again:  “Failure.”  Everything was lost.

He slipped from the saddle and took off his coat.  From his left shoulder the blood welled slowly, steadily.  He tore a strip from his shirt and attempted to make a bandage, but he could not manage it with one hand.

The world thronged with hostile forces eager to hunt him to the death.  He needed all his strength, and now that was ebbing from a wound which a child could have staunched for him, but where could he find even a friendly child?  Truly all was lost!  The satyr or the black panther once had less need of man’s help than had Dan, but now he was hurt in body and soul.  That matchless co-ordination of eye with hand and foot was gone.  He saw Kate smiling into the eyes of Haines; he imagined Bill Kilduff sitting on the back of Satan, controlling all that glorious force and speed; he saw Hal Purvis fighting venomously with Bart for the mastery which eventually must belong to the man.

He turned to the wild pair.  Vaguely they sensed a danger threatening their master, and their eyes mourned for his hurt.  He buried his face on the strong, smooth shoulder of Satan, and groaned.  There came the answering whinny and the hot breath of the horse against the side of his face.  There was the whine of Black Bart behind him, then the rough tongue of the wolf touched the dripping fingers.  Then he felt a hot gust of the wolf’s breath against his hand.