THE ACID TEST

In the living-room below they heard it, Dan and Kate c.u.mberland. All day she had sat by the fire which still blazed on the hearth, replenished from time to time by the care of Wung Lu. She had taken up some sewing, and she worked at it steadily. Some of that time Dan Barry was in the room, sitting through long intervals, watching her with lynx-eyed attention. Very rarely did he speak--almost never, and she could have numbered upon her two hands the words he had spoken--ay, and she could have repeated them one by one. Now and again he rose and went out, and the wolf-dog went with him each time. But towards the last Black Bart preferred to stay in the room, crouched in front of her and blinking at the fire, as if he knew that each time his master would return to the fire. Then, why leave the pleasant warmth for the chilly greyness of the day outside?

There he remained, stirring only now and then to lift a clumsy paw and brush it across his eyes in an oddly human gesture. Once or twice, also, he lifted that great, scarred head and laid it on her knees, looking curiously from her busy hands to her face, and from her face back again to her work, until, having apparently a.s.sured himself that all was well, he dropped his head again and lay once more motionless. She could see him open a listless eye when the master entered the room again. And with each coming of Dan Barry she felt again surrounded as if by invisible arms. Something was prying at her, striving to win a secret from her.

As the day wore on, a great, singing happiness rose in her throat, and at about the same time she heard a faint sound, impalpable, from the farther side of the room where Dan Barry sat. He was whistling.

A simple thing for a man to do, to be sure, but the astonishment of it nearly stopped the heart of Kate c.u.mberland. For in all her life she had never before heard him whistle except when he was in the open, and preferably when he was astride of the strength and the speed of Satan, with Black Bart scouting swiftly and smoothly ahead. But now he whistled here by the warmth of the fire. To be sure the sound was small and thin, but there was such music in it as she had never heard before. It was so thin that it was almost ghostly, as if the soul of wild Paganini played here on a muted violin. No tune that might be repeated, but as always when she heard it, a picture rose before the eyes of Kate. It wavered at first against the yellow glow of the firelight. Then it quite shut out all else.

It was deep night, starry night. The black horse and his rider wound up a deep ravine. To one side a bold mountain tumbled up to an infinite height, bristling with misshapen trees here and there, and losing its head against the very stars. On the other side were jagged hills, all carved in the solid rock. And down the valley, between the mountains and the stars, blew a soft wind; as if that wind made the music. They were climbing up, up, up, and now they reach--the music rising also to a soft but triumphant outburst--a high plateau. They were pressed up against the heart of the sky. The stars burned low, and low. Around them the whole earth seemed in prospect at their feet. The moon burst through a ma.s.s of clouds, and she saw, far off, a great river running silver through the night.

Happy? Ay, and he was happy too, and his happiness was one with hers. He was not even looking out the window while he whistled, but his eyes were fixed steadily, unchangingly, upon her face.

It was then that they heard it: "Dan! Dan Barry! Come out!"

A hoa.r.s.e, ringing cry, as of one who is shouting against a great wind: "Dan! Dan Barry! Come out!"

Dan Barry was on his feet and gliding to the wall, where he took down his belt from a nail and buckled it swiftly around him. And Kate ran to the window with the wolf-dog snarling beside her and saw standing in front of the house, his hat off, his black hair wildly tumbled, and two guns in his hands, Buck Daniels! Behind him the tall bay mare shook with her panting and glistened with the sweat of the long ride.

She heard a scratching next and saw the wolf-dog rear up and paw at the door. Once through that door and he would be at the throat of the man outside, she knew. Nor he alone, for Dan Barry was coming swiftly across the room with that strange, padding step. He had no eye for her. He was smiling, and she had rather have seen him in a cursing fury than to see this smile. It curled the upper lip with something like a sneer; and she caught the white glint of his teeth; the wolf-dog snarled back over his shoulder to hurry his master. It was the crisis which she had known all day was coming, sooner or later. She had only prayed that it might be delayed for a little time. And confronting the danger was like stepping into the path of runaway horses. Fear ruled her with an iron hand, and she swayed back against the wall and supported herself with an outstretched hand.

What was there to be done? If she stepped in between him and his man, he would brush her aside from his path and out of his life forever. If he went on to his vengeance he would no less be started on the path which led around the world away from her. The law would be the hound which pursued him and relentlessly nipped at his heels--an eternal terror and unrest. No thought of Buck Daniels who had done so much for her. She cast his services out of her mind with the natural cruelty of woman.

Her whole thought was, selfishly, for the man before her, and for herself.

He was there--his hand was upon the k.n.o.b of the door. And then she remembered how the teeth of Black Bart had closed over her arm--and how they had not broken even the skin. In an instant she was pressed against the door before Dan Barry--her arms outstretched.

He fell back the slightest bit before her, and then he came again and brushed her slowly, gently, to one side, with an irresistible strength.

She had to meet his eyes now--there was no help for it--and she saw there that swirl of yellow light--that insatiable hunger. And she knew, fully and bitterly, that she had failed. With the wolf-dog, indeed, she had conquered, but the man escaped her. If time had been granted her she would have won, she knew, but the hand of Buck Daniels, so long her ally, had destroyed her chances. It was his hand now which shook the k.n.o.b of the door, and she turned with a sob of despair to face the new danger.

In her wildest dreams she had never visioned Buck Daniels transformed like this. She knew that in his past, as one of those long-riders who roam the mountain-desert, their hand against the hands of every man, Buck Daniels had been known and feared by the strongest. But all she had seen of Buck Daniels had been gentleness itself. Yet what faced her as the door flew wide was a nightmare thing with haggard face and shadow-buried, glittering eyes--unshaven, unkempt of hair, his shirt open at the throat, his great hands clenched for the battle. The wolf-dog, at that familiar sight, whined a low greeting, but with a glance at his master knew that there was a change--the old alliance was broken--so he bared his white teeth and changed his whine to a snarl of hate.

Then a strange terror struck Kate c.u.mberland. She had never dreamed that she could fear for Dan Barry at the hands of any man, but now the desperate resolve which breathed from every line of Buck Daniels, chilled her blood at the heart. She sprang back before Dan Barry. Facing him, she saw that demoniac glitter of yellow rising momently brighter in his eyes, and he was smiling. No execration or loud voiced curse could have contained the distilled malignancy of that smile. All this she caught in a single glimpse. The next instant she had whirled and stood before Dan, shielding him with outspread arms and facing Buck Daniels.

The latter thrust back into the holster the gun which he had drawn when he entered the room.

"Stand away from him, Kate," he commanded, and his eyes went past her to dwell on the face of Barry. "Stand away from him. It's been comin' for a long time, and now it's here. Barry I'm takin' no start on you. Stand away from the girl and pull your gun--and I'll pump you full of lead."

The softest of soft voices murmured behind her: "I been waitin' for you, Buck, days and days and days. I ain't never been so glad to see anybody!"

And she felt Barry slip shadowlike to one side. She sprang in front of him again with a wild cry.

"Buck!" she begged, "don't shoot!"

Laughter, ringing and unhuman, filled the throat of Buck Daniels.

"Is it him you're beggin' for?" he sneered at her. "Is it him you got your fears for? Ain't you got a word of pity for poor Buck Daniels that sneaked off like a whipped puppy? Bah! Dan Barry, the time is come. I been leadin' the life of a houn' dog for your sake. But it's ended. Pull your gun and get out from behind the skirts of that girl!"

As long as they faced each other with the challenge in their eyes, nothing on earth could avert the fight, she knew, but if she could delay them for one moment--she felt that swift moving form behind her slipping away from behind her--she could follow Barry's movements by the light in Daniels' eyes.

"Buck!" she cried, "for G.o.d's sake--for my sake turn away from him--and--roll another cigarette!"

For she remembered the story--how Daniels had turned under the very nose of danger and done this insane thing in the saloon at Brownsville and in her despair she could think of no other appeal.

It was the very strangeness of it that gave it point. Buck Daniels turned on his heel.

"It's the last kindness I do you, Dan," he said, with his broad back to them. "But before you die you got to know why I'm killin' you. I'm going to roll one cigarette and smoke it and while I smoke it I'm goin' to tell you the concentrated truth about your worthless self and when I'm done smokin' I'm goin' to turn around and drop you where you stand.

D'ye hear?"

"They's no need of waitin'," answered the soft voice of Barry. "Talkin'

don't mean much."

But Kate c.u.mberland turned and faced him. He was fairly a-quiver with eagerness and the hate welled and blazed and flickered in his eyes; his face was pale--very pale--and it seemed to her that she could make out in the pallor the print of the fingers of Buck Daniels and that blow those many days before. And she feared him as she had never feared him before--yet she blocked his way still with the outspread arms.

They could hear the crinkle of the cigarette paper as Buck rolled his smoke.

"No," said Buck, his voice suddenly altered to an almost casual moderation, "talk don't mean nothin' to you. Talk is human, and nothin'

human means nothin' to you. But I got to tell you why you ought to die, Barry.

"I started out this mornin' hatin' the ground you walked on, but now I see that they ain't no use to hate you. Is they any use hatin' a mountain-lion that kills calves? No, you don't hate it, but you get a gun and trail it and shoot it down. And that's the way with you."

They heard the scratch of his match.

"That's the way with you. I got my back to you right now because if I looked you in the eye I couldn't let you live no more'n I could let a mountain-lion live. I know you're faster with your gun than I am and stronger than I am, and made to fight. But I know I'm going to kill you.

You've done your work--you've left h.e.l.l on all sides of you--it's your time to die. I know it! You been lyin' like a snake in the rocks with your poison ready for any man that walks past you. Now your poison is about used up."

He paused, and then when he spoke again there was a ring of exultation in his voice: "I tell you, Dan, I don't fear you, and I know that the bullet in this gun here on my hips is the one that's goin' to tear your heart out. I _know_ it!"

Something like a sob came from the lips of Dan Barry. His hands moved out towards Buck Daniels as though he were plucking something from the empty air.

"You've said enough," he said. "You said plenty. Now turn around and fight!"

And Kate c.u.mberland stepped back, out of line of the two. She knew that in what followed she could not play the part of the protector or the delayer. Here they stood, hungry, for battle, and there was no power in her weak hands to separate them. She stood far back and fumbled with her hands at the wall for support. She tried to close her eyes, but the fascination of the horror forced her to watch against her strongest will. And the chief part of that dreadful suspense lay in the even, calm voice of Buck Daniels as he went on: "I'll turn around and fight soon enough. But Kate asked me to smoke another cigarette. I know what she means. She wants me to leave you the way I done in the saloon that day.

I ain't goin' to leave, Dan. But I'm glad she asked me to turn away, because it gives me a chance to tell you some things you got to know before you go west.

"Dan, you been like a fire that burns every hand that touches you." He inhaled a long breath of smoke and blew it up towards the ceiling.

"You've busted the heart of the friend that follered you; you've busted the heart of the girl that loves you."

He paused again, for another long inhalation, and Kate c.u.mberland, staring in fearful suspense, waiting for the instant when Buck should at last turn and when the shots should explode, saw that the yellow glow was now somewhat misted in the eyes of Barry. He frowned, as one bewildered.

"Think of her, Dan!" went on Buck Daniels. "Think of her wasting herself on a no-good houn' dog like you--a no-good wild _wolf_! My G.o.d A'mighty, she might of made some good man happy--some man with a soul and a heart--but instead of that G.o.d sent you like a blast across her--you with your d.a.m.ned soul of wind and your heart of stone! Think of it! When you see what you been, Barry, I wonder you don't go out and take your own gun and blow off your head."

"Buck," called Dan Barry, "so help me G.o.d, if you don't turn your face to me--I'll shoot you through the back!"

"I knew," said the imperturbable Daniels, "that you'd come to that in the end. You used to fight like a man, but now you're followin' your instincts, and you fight like a huntin' wolf. Look at the brute that's slinkin' up to me there! That's what you are. You kill for the sake of killin'--like the beasts.

"If you was a man, could you treat me like you've done? Your d.a.m.ned cold heart and your yaller eyes and all would of burned up in the barn the other night--you and your wolf and your d.a.m.ned hoss. Why didn't I let you burn? Because I was a fool. Because I still thought they was something of the man in you. But I seen afterwards what you was, and I rode off to get out of your way--to keep your hands from gettin' red with my blood. And then you plan on follerin' me--d.a.m.n you!--on follerin' _me!_

"So that, Dan, is why I've come to put you out of the world--as I'm goin' to do now! Once you hated to give pain, and if you hurt people it was because you couldn't help it. But now you live on torturin' others.