"Joan!" called Kate.The child hesitated and turned toward her.Her mother had taken up that light revolver which Dan had taught her to use so well, and now, as she leveled it at the wolf-dog, Bart laid his fangs bare in silent hate.The weapons of Buck and Lee Haines were ready, and now Bart raised himself a little and commenced to drag gradually forward to leaping distance.
"Drop your gun, Kate," cautioned Buck."For God's sake drop your gun.Even if you hit him with a bullet, he'll be at your throat.Unless you kill him with the first shot he'll have you.Drop your gun, and then he'll go at us."But Joan knew perfectly well what those gleaming bits of steel meant.She had seen Daddy Dan shoot and kill, and now she ran screaming between Bart and danger.
"Munner!" she cried."You bad, bad men.I won't let you hurt Bart.""They won't hurt you, Bart," explained Joan, taming much mollified to the great wolf-dog."They're just playin'.Now we'll go."And she started toward the door, with Bart slinking in front and keeping a watchful lookout from a corner of his eye.
"Are you going to leave the poor little puppy, Joan?" said the mother, keeping her voice steady, for all the force of the two men could not help her now.It rested with her wit.
"I'll take him with me," answered Joan, and caught up the howling puppy from the floor.His wails died out against her breast.
"But you mustn't do that, honey.He'd die in this cold night wind long before you got there.""Oh!" sighed Joan, and considered her mother with great eyes.Black Bart turned and uneasily tugged at her dress.
"Will you take good care of him, munner? Till I come back?""But I don't know how to take care of him, dear.If you go he'll cry and cry and cry until he dies."Joan sighed.
"See how quiet he is when you hold him, Joan!""Oh," muttered Joan again.The distress of the problem made her wrinkle her forehead.She turned to Kate for help.
"Munner, what'll I do?"
"You'd best stay here until the puppy is strong enough to go with you."She kept her voice well under control; it would not do to show the slightest emotion, and now she sat down and half turned away from the child.With her eyes she flashed a signal at the two troubled men and they followed her lead.Their center of vision was now upon the fire.It left Joan, to all appearances, quite out of notice.
"Oh, that'll be a long, long time, munner.""Only a little while, Joan."
"But Daddy Dan'll be lonesome up there."
"He has Satan and Bart to keep him company.""Don't you think he wants Joan, munner?"
"Not as much as the poor little puppy wants you, Joan."She added, with just the slightest tremor: "You decide for yourself, Joan.
Go if you think it is best."
"Bart, what'll Joan do?" queried the child, turning in dismay toward the wolf-dog, but as soon as he saw the puppy in her arms, he greeted her with a murderous snarl.
"You see," suggested her mother, "that Black Bart would eat up the poor little puppy if you went now with him."At this alarming thought, Joan shrank away from Bart and when he followed her, anxiously, she cried: "Go away! Bad dog! Bad Bart!"He caught the edge of her dress and drew back toward the door, and this threw Joan into a sudden panic.She struck Bart across his wrinkled forehead.
"Go away!" he slunk back, snarling at the puppy.
"Go back to Daddy Dan." Then, as he pricked his ears, still growling like distant thunder: "Go tell Daddy Dan that Joan has to stay here a while.
Munner, how long?"
"Maybe a week, dear."
"A whole week?" she cried, dismayed.
"Perhaps only one or two or three days," said Kate.
Some of her tenseness was leaving as she saw victory once more inclining to her standards.
"One, two, five days," counted Joan, "and then come for me again.Tell Daddy Dan that, Bart."His eyes left her and wandered around the room, lingering for a vicious instant on the face of each, then he backed toward the door.
"He's clear of Joan now, Kate," whispered Buck."Let me shoot!""No, no! Don't even look at him."
Then, with a scratching of sudden claws, Bart whirled at the door and was gone like a bolt down the hall.Afterwards for a time there was no sound in the room except the murmurings of Joan to her puppy, and then they heard that most mournful of sounds on the mountain-desert, the long howl of a wolf which has missed its kill, and hunts hungry on a new trail.
