Chapter XXV. The Battle
"It's Dan," whispered Kate. "He's come."
"Maybe Daddy Dan sent Bart back alone, munner."
"Does he do that often? Come quickly, Joan. Run!"
She ran towards the entrance, stumbling over the uneven ground anddragging Joan behind her, but when they came close the wolf-dog bristledand sent down the cavern a low growl that stopped them like an invisiblebarrier. The softest sounds in his register were ominous warnings tothose who did not know Black Bart, but Kate and Joan understood thatthis muttering, harsh thunder was an ultimatum. If she had worn herrevolver, a light, beautifully mounted thirty-two which Dan had givenher, Kate would have shot the wolf and gone on across his body; for shehad learned from Whistling Dan to shoot quickly as one points a fingerand straight by instinct. Even as she stood there barehanded she lookedabout her desperately for a weapon, seeing the daylight and the promiseof escape beyond and only this dumb beast between her and freedom.
Once before, many a year before, she had gone like this, with emptyhands, and subdued Black Bart simply through the power of quiet courageand the human eye. She determined to try again.
"Stand there quietly, Joan. Don't move until I tell you."
She made a firm step towards Bart.
"Munner, he'll bite!"
"Hush, Joan. Don't speak!"
At her forward movement the wolf-dog flattened his belly to the rock,and she saw his forepaws, large, almost, as the hands of a man, dig andwork for a purchase from which he could throw himself at her throat.
"Steady, Bart!"
His silence was more terrible than a snarl; yet she stretched out herhand and made another step. It brought a sharp tensing of the body ofBart--the fur stood up about his throat like the mane of a lion, and hiseyes were a devilish green. Another instant she kept her place, and thenshe remembered the story of Haines--how Bart had gone with his master tothat killing at Alder. If he had killed once, he would kill again; wildas he had been on that other time when she quelled him, he had neverbefore been like this. The courage melted out of her; she forgot thepleasant day outside; she saw only those blazing eyes and shrank backtowards the center of the cave. The muscles of the wolf relaxed visibly,and not till that moment did she realize how close she had been to thecrisis.
"Bad Bart!" cried Joan, running in between. "Bad, bad dog!"
"Stop, Joan! Don't go near him!"
But Joan was already almost to Bart. When Kate would have run to snatchthe child away that deep, rattling growl stopped her again, and now shesaw that Joan ran not the slightest danger. She stood beside the hugebeast with her tiny fist raised.
"I'll tell Daddy Dan on you," she shrilled.
Black Bart made a furtive, cringing movement towards the child, butinstantly stiffened again and sent his warning down the cave to Kate.Then a shadow fell across the entrance and Dan stood there with Satanwalking behind. His glance ran from the bristling body of Bart toKate, shrinking among the shadows, and lingered without a spark ofrecognition.
"Satan," he ordered, "go on in to your place."
The black stallion glided past the master and came on until he saw Kate.He stopped, snorting, and then circled her with his head suspiciouslyhigh, and ears back until he reached the place where his saddle wasusually hung. There he waited, and Kate felt the eyes of the horse, thewolf, the man, and even Joan, curiously upon her. "Evenin'," nodded Dan,"might you have come up for supper?" That was all. Not a step towardsher, not a smile, not a greeting, and between them stood Joan, her handsclasped idly before her while she looked from face to face, trying tounderstand. All the pangs of heart which come to woman between girlhoodand old age went burningly through Kate in that breathing space, andafterwards she was cold, and saw herself and all the others clearly.
"I haven't come for supper. I've come to bring you back, Dan."
Not that she had the slightest hope that he would come, but she watchedhim curiously, almost as if he were a stranger, to see how he wouldanswer.
"Come back?" he echoed. "To the cabin?"
"Where else?"
"It ain't happy there." He started. "You come up here with us, Kate."
"And raise Joan like a young animal in a cave?"
He looked at her with wonder, and then at the child.
"Ain't you happy, Joan, up here?"
"Oh, Daddy Dan, Joan's so happy!"
"You see," he said to Kate, "she's terribly happy."
It was his utter simplicity which convinced her that arguments and pleaswould be perfectly useless. Just behind the cool command which shekept over herself now was hysteria. She knew that if she relaxed herpurposefulness for an instant the love for him would rush over her,weaken her. She kept her mind clear and steady with a great effortwhich was like divorcing herself from herself. When she spoke, there wasanother being which stood aside listening in wonder to the words.
"You've chosen this life, Dan, I won't blame you for leaving me thistime any more than I blamed you the other times. I suppose it isn't you.It's the same impulse, after all, that took you south after--after thewild geese." She stopped, almost broken down by the memory, and thenrecalled herself sternly. "It's the same thing that led you away afterMacStrann through the storm. But whether it's a weakness in you, or theforce of something outside your control, I see this thing clearly; wecan't go on. This is the end."
He seemed troubled, vaguely, as a dog is anxious when it sees a childweep and cannot make out the reason.
"Oh, Dan," she burst out, "I love you more than ever! If it were Ialone, I'd follow you to the end of the world, and live as you live, anddo as you do. But it's Joan. She has to be raised as a child should beraised. She isn't going to live with--with wild horses and wolves allher life. And if she stays on here, don't you see that the same thingwhich is a curse in you will grow strong and be a curse in her? Don'tyou see it growing? It's in her eyes! Her step is too light. She's losther fear of the dark. She's drifting back into wildness. Dan, she has togo with me back to the cabin!"
At that she saw him start again, and his hand went out with a swift,subtle gesture towards Joan.
"Let me have her! I have to have her! She's mine!" Then more gently:"You can come to see her whenever you will. And, finally pray God youwill come and stay with us always."
He had stepped to Joan while she spoke, and his hands made a quickmovement of cherishing about her golden head, without touching it. Forthe first and the last time in her life, she saw something akin to fearin his eyes.
"Kate, I can't come back. I got things to do--out here!"
"Then let me take her."
She watched the wavering in him.
"Things would be kind of empty if she was gone, Kate."
"Why?" she asked bitterly. "You say you have your work to do--out here?"
He considered this gravely.
"I dunno. Except that I sort of need her."
She knew from of old that such questions only puzzled him, and soon hewould cast away the attempt to decide, and act. Action was his sphere.There was only one matter in which he was unfailingly, relentlessly thesame, and that was justice. To that sense in him she would make her lastappeal.
"Dan, I can't take her. I only ask you to see that I'm right. Shebelongs to me, I bought her with pain."
It was a staggering blow to Whistling Dan. He took off his sombrero andpassed his hand slowly across his forehead, then looked at her with adumb appeal.
"I only want you to do the thing you think is square, Dan."
Once more he winced.
Then, slowly: "I'm tryin' to be square. Tryin' hard. I know you got aclaim in her. But it seems like I have, too. She's like a part of me,mostly. When she's happy, I feel like smilin' sort of. When she cries ithurts me so's I can't hardly stand it."
He paused, looking wistfully from the staring child to Kate.
He said with sudden illumination: "Let her do the judgin'! You ask herto go to you, and I'll ask her to come to me. Ain't that square?"
For a moment Kate hesitated, but as she looked at Joan it seemed to herthat when she stretched out her arms to her baby nothing in the worldcould keep them apart.
"It's fair," she answered. Dan dropped to one knee.
"Joan, you got to make up your mind. If you want to stay with, withSatan--speak up, Satan!"
The stallion whinnied softly, and Joan smiled.
"With Satan and Black Bart"--the wolf-dog had glided near, and now stoodwatching--"and with Daddy Dan, you just come to me. But if you want togo to--to Munner, you just go." On his face the struggle showed--thestruggle to be perfectly just. "If you stay here, maybe it'll be cold,sometimes when the wind blows, and maybe it'll be hard other ways. Andif you go to munner, she always be takin' care of you, and no harm'llever come to you and you'll sleep soft between sheets, and if you wakeup in the night she'll be there to talk to you. And you'll have prettylittle dresses with all kinds of colors on 'em, most like. Joan, do youwant to go to munner, or stay here with me?"
Perhaps the speech was rather long for Joan to follow, but theconclusion was plain enough; and there was Kate, she also upon one kneeand her arms stretched out.
"Joan, my baby, my darling!"
"Munner!" whispered the child and ran towards her.
A growl came up in the throat of Black Bart and then sank away into awhine; Joan stopped short, and turned her head.
"Joan!" cried Kate.
Anguish made her voice loud, and from the loudness Joan shrank, forthere was never a harsh sound in the cave except the growl of Bartwarning away danger. She turned quite around and there stood Daddy Dan,perfectly erect, quite indifferent, to all seeming, as to her choice.She went to him with a rush and caught at his hands.
"Oh, Daddy Dan, I don't want to go. Don't you want Joan?"
He laid a hand upon her head, and she felt the tremor of his fingers;the wolf-dog lay down at her feet and looked up in her face; Satan, fromthe shadows beyond, whinnied again.
After that there was not a word spoken, for Kate looked at the pictureof the three, saw the pity in the eyes of Whistling Dan, saw the wonderin the eyes of Joan, saw the truth of all she had lost. She turnedtowards the entrance and went out, her head bowed, stumbling over thepebbles.