He found Lee Haines and told him briefly all that had passed.The great battle, they decided, had begun between Kate and Barry for the sake of the child, and that battle would go on until one of them was dead or the prize for which they struggled lost.Barry would come on the trail and find them at the ranch, and then he would strike for Joan.And they had no help for the struggle against him.The cowpunchers would scatter at the first sign of Barry, at the first shrill of his ill-omened whistling.They might ride for Elkhead and raise a posse from among the citizens, but it would take two days to do that and gather a number of effective fighters for the crisis, and in the meantime the chances were large that Barry would strike the ranch while the messenger was away.There was really nothing to do but sit patiently and wait.They were both brave men, very; and they were both not unpracticed fighters; but they began to wait for the coming of Barry as the prisoner waits for the day of his execution.
It spoke well for the quality of their nerves that they would not speak to Kate of the time to come; they sat back like spectators at a play and watched the maneuvers of the mother to win back Joan.
There was not an idle moment from breakfast to dark.They went out to gather wildflowers on the western hill from the house; they sat on the veranda where Kate told Joan stories of the ranch and pointed out the distant mountains which were its boundaries, and explained that all between them would one day be her own land; that the men who rode yonder were doing her work; that the cattle who ranged the hills were marked with her brand.
She said it all in small words so that Joan could understand, but as far as Buck and Lee could make out, there was never a flicker of intelligence or interest in the eyes of the child.
It was a hard battle every hour, and after supper Kate sat in a big chair by the fire with her eyes half closed, admitting defeat, perhaps.For Joan was curled up on the couch at the farthest, dimmest end of the room, and with her chin propped in both small hands she stared in silence through the window and over the darkening hills.Buck and Lee were there, never speaking, but now and then their eyes sought each other with a vague hope.For Kate might see that her task was impossible, send Joan back, and that would free them of the danger.
But where Kate left off, chance took up the battle and turned the scales.
Old Li, the Chinese cook, had not seen Kate for six long years, and now he celebrated the return by hanging about her on a thousand pretexts.It was just after he had brought in some delicacy from the kitchen, leaving the door a little ajar, when a small ball of gray fur nosed its way through the aperture and came straight for the glare of the fire on the hearth.It was a small shepherd puppy, and having observed the faces of the men with bright, unafraid eyes, it went wobbling on to the very hearth, sniffling.
Even at that age it knew enough to keep away from the bright coals of wood, but how could it know that the dark, cold-looking andirons had been heated to the danger point by the fire? It thrust out a tentative nose, touched the iron, and then its shrill yelp of pain went startlingly through the room.It pulled the three grown-ups out of their thoughts; it brought Joan scampering across the room with a little happy cry.
The puppy would have escaped if it could, for it had in mind the dark, warm, familiar corner in Li's kitchen where no harm ever came near, but the agile hands of Joan caught him; he was swept into her arms.That little wail of helpless pain, the soft fluff of fur against her check, wiped all other things from Joan's mind.Out the window and across the gloomy hills she had been staring at the picture of the cave, and bright-eyed Satan, and the shadowy form of Bart, and the swift, gentle hand of Daddy Dan; but the cry of the puppy blotted the picture out.She was no longer lonely, having this small, soft body to protect.There sat her mother, leaning a little toward her with a glance at once misted and bright, and she forgot forthwith all the agency of Kate in carrying her away from that cave of delight.
"Look, munner! He's burned his nose!"
The puppy was licking the injured nose industriously and whimpering the while.And Joan heard no answer from her mother except an inarticulate little sound somewhere deep in Kate's throat.Over her child mind, vaguely, like all baby memories, moved a recollection of the same sound, coming deeply from the throat of the mother and marvelously soothing, reassuring.
It moved a fiber of trust and sympathy in Joan, an emotion as real as the sound of music, and with the puppy held idly in her arms for a moment, she looked curiously into Kate's face.On her own, a faint smile began in the eyes and spread to the lips.
"Poor little puppy, munner," said Joan.
The hands of Kate trembled with desire to bring Joan closer to her, but very wisely she merely stroked the cringing head of the dog.
"Poor little puppy," she echoed.
