Chapter XXXVIII. The New Alliance
"And so," said Lee Haines, when he joined Buck Daniels in theliving-room, "there goes our reinforcements. That whole crew willscatter like dead leaves when Barry breezes in. It looks to me--"
"Shut up!" cut in Daniels. "Shut up!"
His dark, homely face turned to the larger man with a singularexpression of awe. He whispered: "D'you hear? She's in the next roomwhippin' Joan for runnin' away, and never a yap out of the kid!"
He held up a lean finger for caution and then Haines heard the sound ofthe willow switch. It stopped.
"If you run away again," warned Kate, her voice pitched high andtrembling, "munner will whip harder, and put you in a dark place for along, long time."
Still there was not a sound of the child's voice, not even the pulse ofstifled weeping. Presently the door opened and Kate stood there.
"Go out in the kitchen and tell Li to give you breakfast. Naughty girlscan't eat with munner."
Through the door came Joan, her little round face perfectly white,perfectly expressionless. She did not cringe, passing her mother; shewalked steadily across the room, rose on tip-toe to open the kitchendoor, and disappeared through it. Kate dropped into a chair, shaking.
"Out!" whispered Buck to Lee Haines. "Beat it. I got to talk alone."And as soon as Haines obeyed, Buck sat down close to the girl. She wastwisting and untangling her fingers in a dumb agony.
"What has he done to her, Buck? What has he done?"
It was a maxim with Buck that talk is to woman what swearing is to man;it is a safety valve, and therefore he waited in silence until the firstrush of her grief had passed.
"She only looked at me when I whipped her. My heart turned in me. Shedidn't cry; she wasn't even angry. She just stood there--my baby!--andlooked at me!"
She threw herself back in the chair with her eyes closed, and he sawwhere the trouble had marked her face. He wanted to lean over and takeher in his arms.
"I'm going mad, Buck. I can't stand it. How could he have changed her tothis?"
"Listen to me, Kate. Joan ain't been changed. She's only showin' whatshe is."
The mother stared wildly at him.
"Don't look like I was a murderer. God knows I'm sorry, Kate, but ifthey's Dan's blood in your little girl it ain't my fault. It ain'tanything he's taught her. It's just that bein' alone with him hasbrought out what she really is."
"I won't believe you, Buck. I don't dare listen to you!"
"You got to listen, Kate, because you know I'm right. D'you think thatany kind of teachin' could make her learn how to stand and keep fromcryin' when she was whipped?"
"I know."
She spoke softly, as if some terrible power might overhear them talk,and Buck lowered his voice in turn.
"She's wild, Kate, I knew it when I seen the way she handled Bart. She'swild!"
"Then I'll have her tame again."
"You tried that once and failed."
"Dan was a man when I tried, and his nature was formed. Joan is only ababy--my baby. She's half mine. She has my hair and my eyes."
"I don't care what the color of her eyes is, I know what's behind them.Look at 'em, and then tell me who she takes after."
"Buck, why do you talk like this? What do you want me to do?"
"A hard thing. Send Joan back to Dan."
"Never!"
"He'll never give her up, I tell you."
"Oh, God help me. What shall I do? I'll keep her! I'll make her tame."
"But you'll never keep her that way. Think of Dan. Think of the yallerin his eyes, Kate."
"Until I die," she said with sudden quiet, "I'll fight to keep her."
And he answered with equal solemnity: "Until Dan dies he'll fight tohave her. And he's never been beat yet."
Through a breathing space he stared at her and she at him, and the eyesof Buck Daniels were the first to turn. Everything that was womanly andgentle had died from her face, and in its stead was something which madeBuck rise and wander from the room.
He found Lee Haines and told him briefly all that had passed. The greatbattle, they decided, had begun between Kate and Barry for the sake ofthe child, and that battle would go on until one of them was dead or theprize for which they struggled lost. Barry would come on the trail andfind them at the ranch, and then he would strike for Joan. And they hadno help for the struggle against him. The cowpunchers would scatterat the first sign of Barry, at the first shrill of his ill-omenedwhistling. They might ride for Elkhead and raise a posse from among thecitizens, but it would take two days to do that and gather a number ofeffective fighters for the crisis, and in the meantime the chances werelarge that Barry would strike the ranch while the messenger was away.There was really nothing to do but sit patiently and wait. They wereboth brave men, very; and they were both not unpracticed fighters; butthey began to wait for the coming of Barry as the prisoner waits for theday of his execution.
It spoke well for the quality of their nerves that they would not speakto Kate of the time to come; they sat back like spectators at a play andwatched the maneuvers of the mother to win back Joan.
There was not an idle moment from breakfast to dark. They went out togather wildflowers on the western hill from the house; they sat on theveranda where Kate told Joan stories of the ranch and pointed out thedistant mountains which were its boundaries, and explained that allbetween them would one day be her own land; that the men who rode yonderwere doing her work; that the cattle who ranged the hills were markedwith her brand. She said it all in small words so that Joan couldunderstand, but as far as Buck and Lee could make out, there was never aflicker of intelligence or interest in the eyes of the child.
It was a hard battle every hour, and after supper Kate sat in a bigchair by the fire with her eyes half closed, admitting defeat, perhaps.For Joan was curled up on the couch at the farthest, dimmest end ofthe room, and with her chin propped in both small hands she stared insilence through the window and over the darkening hills. Buck and Leewere there, never speaking, but now and then their eyes soughteach other with a vague hope. For Kate might see that her task wasimpossible, send Joan back, and that would free them of the danger.
But where Kate left off, chance took up the battle and turned thescales. 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 thousandpretexts. It was just after he had brought in some delicacy from thekitchen, leaving the door a little ajar, when a small ball of gray furnosed its way through the aperture and came straight for the glareof the fire on the hearth. It was a small shepherd puppy, and havingobserved the faces of the men with bright, unafraid eyes, it wentwobbling on to the very hearth, sniffling. Even at that age it knewenough to keep away from the bright coals of wood, but how could it knowthat the dark, cold-looking andirons had been heated to the danger pointby the fire? It thrust out a tentative nose, touched the iron, and thenits shrill yelp of pain went startlingly through the room. It pulled thethree grown-ups out of their thoughts; it brought Joan scampering acrossthe 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, butthe agile hands of Joan caught him; he was swept into her arms. Thatlittle wail of helpless pain, the soft fluff of fur against her cheek,wiped all other things from Joan's mind. Out the window and acrossthe gloomy hills she had been staring at the picture of the cave, andbright-eyed Satan, and the shadowy form of Bart, and the swift, gentlehand of Daddy Dan; but the cry of the puppy blotted the picture out. Shewas no longer lonely, having this small, soft body to protect. There sather mother, leaning a little toward her with a glance at once misted andbright, and she forgot forthwith all the agency of Kate in carrying heraway from that cave of delight.
"Look, munner! He's burned his nose!"
The puppy was licking the injured nose industriously and whimpering thewhile. And Joan heard no answer from her mother except an i
narticulatelittle 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 emotionas real as the sound of music, and with the puppy held idly in her armsfor a moment, she looked curiously into Kate's face. On her own, a faintsmile 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, butvery wisely she merely stroked the cringing head of the dog.
"Poor little puppy," she echoed.