For a long time Mrs. Daniels sat without moving, with the same strange smile transfiguring her. Then she heard a soft step pause at the entrance to the room, and turning saw Kate. There was something in their faces which made them strangely alike. A marvellous grace and dignity came to Mrs. Daniels as she rose.
"My dear!" she said.
"I'm so happy!" whispered Kate.
"Yes, dear! And Dan?"
"He's sleeping like a child! Will you look at him? I think the fever's gone!"
They went hand in hand—like two girls, and they leaned above the bed where Whistling Dan lay smiling as he slept. On the floor Black Bart growled faintly, opened one eye on them, and then relapsed into slumber. There was no longer anything to guard against in that house.
* * * * *
It was several days later that Hal Purvis, returning from his scouting expedition, met no less a person than Sheriff Gus Morris at the mouth of the canyon leading to the old Salton place.
"Lucky I met you, Hal," said the genial sheriff. "I've saved you from a wild-goose chase."
"How's that?"
"Silent has jest moved."
"Where?"
"He's taken the trail up the canyon an' cut across over the hills to that old shanty on Bald-eagle Creek. It stands—"
"I know where it is," said Purvis. "Why'd he move?"
"Things was gettin' too hot. I rode over to tell him that the boys was talkin' of huntin' up the canyon to see if they could get any clue of him. They knowed from Joe Cumberland that the gang was once here."
"Cumberland went to you when he got out of the valley?" queried Purvis with a grin.
"Straight."
"And then where did Cumberland go?"
"I s'pose he went home an' joined his gal."
"He didn't," said Purvis drily.
"Then where is he? An' who the hell cares where he is?"
"They're both at Buck Daniels's house."
"Look here, Purvis, ain't Buck one of your own men? Why, I seen him up at the camp jest a while ago!"
"Maybe you did, but the next time you call around he's apt to be missin'."
"D'you think—"
"He's double crossed us. I not only seen the girl an' her father at Buck's house, but I also seen a big dog hangin' around the house. Gus, it was Black Bart, an' where that wolf is you c'n lay to it that Whistlin' Dan ain't far away!"
The sheriff stared at him in dumb amazement, his mouth open.
"They's a price of ten thousand on the head of Whistlin' Dan," suggested Purvis.
The sheriff still seemed too astonished to understand.
"I s'pose," said Purvis, "that you wouldn't care special for an easy lump sum of ten thousand, what?"
"In Buck Daniels's house!" burst out the sheriff.
"Yep," nodded Purvis, "that's where the money is if you c'n get enough men together to gather in Whistlin' Dan Barry."
"D'you really think I'd get some boys together to round up Whistlin' Dan? Why, Hal, you know there ain't no real reason for that price on his head!"
"D'you always wait for 'real reasons' before you set your fat hands on a wad of money?"
The sheriff moistened his lips.
"Ten thousand dollars!"
"Ten thousand dollars!" echoed Purvis.
"By God, I'll do it! If I got him, the boys would forget all about Silent. They're afraid of Jim, but jest the thought of Barry paralyzes them! I'll start roundin' up the boys I need today. Tonight we'll do our plannin'. Tomorrer mornin' bright an' early we'll hit the trail."
"Why not go after him tonight?"
"Because he'd have an edge on us. I got a hunch that devil c'n see in the dark."
He grinned apologetically for this strange idea, but Purvis nodded with perfect sympathy, and then turned his horse up the canyon. The sheriff rode home whistling. On ten thousand dollars more he would be able to retire from this strenuous life.
33. THE SONG OF THE UNTAMED
Buck and his father were learning of a thousand crimes charged against Dan. Wherever a man riding a black horse committed an outrage it was laid to the account of this new and most terrible of long riders. Two cowpunchers were found dead on the plains. Their half-emptied revolvers lay close to their hands, and their horses were not far off. In ordinary times it would have been accepted that they had killed each other, for they were known enemies, but now men had room for one thought only. And why should not a man with the courage to take an outlaw from the centre of Elkhead be charged with every crime on the range? Jim Silent had been a grim plague, but at least he was human. This devil defied death.
These were both sad and happy days for Kate. The chief cause of her sadness, strangely enough, was the rapidly returning strength of Dan. While he was helpless he belonged to her. When he was strong he belonged to his vengeance on Jim Silent; and when she heard Dan whistling softly his own wild, weird music, she knew its meaning as she would have known the wail of a hungry wolf on a winter night. It was the song of the untamed. She never spoke of her knowledge. She took the happiness of the moment to her heart and closed her eyes against tomorrow.
Then came an evening when she watched Dan play with Black Bart—a game of tag in which they darted about the room with a violence which threatened to wreck the furniture, but running with such soft footfalls that there was no sound except the rattle of Bart's claws against the floor and the rush of their breath. They came to an abrupt stop and Dan dropped into a chair while Black Bart sank upon his haunches and snapped at the hand which Dan flicked across his face with lightning movements. The master fell motionless and silent. His eyes forgot the wolf. Rising, they rested on Kate's face. They rose again and looked past her.
She understood and waited.
"Kate," he said at last, "I've got to start on the trail."
Her smile went out. She looked where she knew his eyes were staring, through the window and far out across the hills where the shadows deepened and dropped slanting and black across the hollows. Far away a coyote wailed. The wind which swept the hills seemed to her like a refrain of Dan's whistling —the song and the summons of the untamed.
"That trail will never bring you home," she said.
There was a long silence.
"You ain't cryin', honey?"
