but in their lowest moments it is easier for him to kill a man than a horse. There is the story, for instance, of the cattleman who saw the bull-fight in Juarez, and when the bull gored the first horse the cowpuncher rose in the crowd and sent a bullet through the picador to square the deal. So Haw-Haw sighed.
"Mac," he whispered, "has it got to be done? Ain't there any other way? I've seen that hoss. When the sun hits him it sets him on fire, he's that sleek. And his legs is like drawn-iron, they're that fine. And he's got a head that's finer than a man's head, Mac."
"I've seen him close enough," answered Mac Strann grimly. "An' I've follered him for a day and a half, damn near. S'pose Barry finds out I'm on his trail; s'pose he won't foller the wolf when the wolf tries to lead him to me. S'pose he gets on this hoss and cuts away? Can I foller the wind, Haw-Haw? This hoss has got to die!"
From the manger he threw out several armfuls of hay, wrenched down from behind the manger several light boards, and tossed them on the hay. He lighted a match and was approaching the small flame to the pile of inflammables when Haw-Haw Langley cried softly: "Hark, Mac!"
The big man instantly extinguished the match. For a moment they could distinguish nothing, but then they heard the sharp, high chorus of the wild geese flying north. Haw-Haw Langley snickered apologetically.
"That was what I heard a minute ago!" he said. "And it sounded like voices comin'."
A snarl of contempt came from Mac Strann; then he scratched another match and at once the flame licked up the side of the hay and cast a long arm up the wooden wall.
"Out of this, quick!" commanded Mac Strann, and they started hastily down the barn towards the door. The fire behind them, after the puff of flame from the hay, had died away to a ghastly and irregular glow with the crackle of the slowly catching wood. It gave small light to guide them—only enough, indeed, to deceive the eye. The posts of the stalls grew into vast, shadowy images; the irregularities of the floor became high places and pits alternately. But when they were halfway to the door, Haw-Haw Langley saw a form too grim to be a shadow, blocking their path. It was merely a blacker shape among the shades, but Haw-Haw was aware of the two shining eyes, and stopped short in his tracks.
"The wolf!" he whispered to Mac Strann. "Mac, what're we goin' to do?"
The other had not time to answer, for the shadow at the door of the barn now leaped towards them, silently, without growl or yelp or snarl. As if to guide the battle, the kindling wood behind them now ignited and sent up a yellow burst of light. By it Haw-Haw Langley saw the great beast clearly, and he leaped back behind the sheltering form of Mac Strann. As for Mac, he did not move or flinch from the attack. His revolver was in his hand, levelled, and following the swift course of Black Bart.
XXII. PATIENCE
There is one patience greater than the endurance of the cat at the hole of the mouse or the wolf which waits for the moose to drop, and that is the patience of the thinking man; the measure of the Hindoo's moveless contemplation of Nirvana is not in hours but in weeks or even in months. Randall Byrne sat at his sentinel post with his hands folded and his grave eyes steadily fixed before him, and for hour after hour he did not move. Though the wind rose, now and again, and whistled through the upper chambers or mourned down the empty halls, Randall Byrne did not stir so much as an eyelash in observance. Two things held him fascinated. One was the girl who had passed up yonder stairs so wearily without a single backward glance at him; the other was the silent battle which went on in the adjoining room. Now and then his imagination wandered away to secondary pictures. He would see Barry meeting Buck Daniels, at last, and striking him down as remorselessly as the hound strikes the hare; or he would see him riding back towards Elkhead and catch a bright, sad vision of Kate Cumberland waving a careless adieu to him, and then hear her singing carelessly as she turned away. Such pictures as these, however, came up but rarely in the mind of Byrne. Mostly he thought of the stranger leaning over the body of old Joe Cumberland, reviving him, restoring him with electric energy, paying back, as it were, some ancient debt. And he thought of the girl as she had turned at the landing place of the stairs, her head fallen; and he thought of her lying in her bed, with her arm under the mass of bright hair, trying to sleep, very tired, but remorsely held awake by that same power which was bringing Joe Cumberland back from the verge of death.
It was all impossible. This thing could not be. It was really as bad as the yarn of the Frankenstein monster. He considered how it would seem in print, backed by his most solemn asseverations, and then he saw the faces of the men who associated with him, pale thoughtful faces striving to conceal their smiles and their contempt. But always he came back, like the desperate hare doubling on his course, upon the picture of Kate Cumberland there at the turning of the stairs, and that bent, bright head which confessed defeat. The man had forgotten her. It made Byrne open his eyes in incredulity even to imagine such a thing. The man had forgotten her! She was no more to him than some withered hag he might ride past on the road.
His ear, subconsciously attentive to everything around him, caught a faint sound from the next room. It was a regular noise. It had the rhythm of a quick footfall, but in its nature it was more like the sound of a heavily beating pulse. Randall Byrne sat up in his chair. A faint creaking attested that it was, indeed, a footfall traversing the room to and fro, steadily.
The stranger, then, no longer leaned over the couch of the old cattleman. He was walking up and down the floor with that characteristic, softly padding step. Of what did he think as he walked? It carried Byrne automatically out into the darkest night, with a wind in his face, and the rhythm of a long striding horse carrying him on to a destination unknown.
Here he heard a soft scratching, repeated, at the door. When it came again he rose and opened the door—at once the tall, shaggy dog slipped through the opening and glided past him. It startled Byrne oddly to see the animal stealing away, as if Barry himself had been leaving. He called to the beast, but he was met by a silent baring of white fangs that stopped him in his tracks. The great dog was gone without a sound, and Byrne closed the door again without casting a look inside. He was stupidly, foolishly afraid to look within.
After that the silence had a more vital meaning. No pictures crowded his brain. He was simply keyed to a high point of expectancy, and therefore, when the door was opened silently, he sprang up as if in acknowledgment of an alarm and faced Barry. The latter closed the door behind him and glided after the big dog. He had almost crossed the big room when Byrne was able to speak.
"Mr. Barry!" he called.
The man hesitated.
"Mr. Barry," he repeated.
And Dan Barry turned. It was something like the act of the wolf the moment before—a swift movement, a flash of the eyes in something like defiance.
"Mr. Barry, are you leaving us?"
"I'm going outside."
"Are you coming back?"
"I dunno."
A great joy swelled in the throat of Doctor Byrne. He felt like shouting in triumph; yet he remembered once more how the girl had gone up the stairs, wearily, with fallen head. He decided that he would do what he could to keep the stranger with them, and though Randall Byrne lived to be a hundred he would never do a finer thing than what he attempted then. He stepped across the room and stood before Barry, blocking the way.
"Sir," he said gravely, "if you go now, you will work a great sorrow in this
