He raised the morsel of "pone" between thumb and forefinger, holding it tightly. Then it was a joy to watch Satan. He tried to tug it all away at once, but only a fragment broke off. He stamped in impatience, and then went to work to nibble the bread away on all sides of Dan's fingers, very fine work for such broad, keen chisels as Satan's teeth, but he went about it with the skill of long practice, turning his head this way and that and always watching the face of the master with sidewise eyes, one ear forward and one ear back. Finally the tight fingers opened out, and Satan gathered the last crumbs from the smooth palm.

Two or three times during this performance Black Bart had half risen from his haunches and a growl swelled almost inaudibly in his throat, but now he stalked around the table and pushed his narrow head between Dan's shoulder and the stallion. A snarl of incredible ferocity made Satan turn, but without the slightest dread, apparently. For an instant the two stood nose to nose, Black Bart a picture of snarling danger and Satan with curiously p.r.i.c.king ears and bright eyes. The growling rose towards a crescendo, a terrible sound; then a lean hand shot out with that speed which Joan could never comprehend--and which always made her think, rather breathlessly, of the strike of a snake. The fingers settled around the muzzle of Bart.

"Of all the no-good houn'-dogs," declared Dan, "you're the worst, and the most jealousest. Lie down!"

Bart obeyed, slowly, but his evil eyes were fixed upwards upon the head of Satan.

"If you got any manners," remarked Dan, "you'll be sayin' that you're sorry."

The ears flattened along the snaky head; otherwise no answer.

"Sorry!" repeated the master.

Out of the deep throat of Black Bart, infinitely, ludicrously small, came a whine which was more doglike than anything Joan had ever heard, before, from the wolf.

"Now," continued the implacable master, "you go over in that corner, and lie down."

Black Bart arose with a finally ugly look for Satan and sneaked with hanging head and tail to the outer edge of the circle of light.

"Farther! Clear over there in the dark," came the order, and Bart had to uncoil himself again in the very act of lying down and retreat with another ominous growl clear into the darkness. Satan held his head high and watched triumphantly.

But Joan felt that this was a little hard on Bart; she wanted to run over and comfort him, but she knew from of old that it was dangerous to interfere where Daddy Dan was disciplining either horse or wolf; besides, she was not quite free from her new awe for Bart.

"All right," said the master presently, and without raising his voice.

It brought a dark thunder bolt rushing into the circle of the light and stopping at Dan's side with such suddenness that his paws slid in the gravel. There he stood, actually wagging his bushy tail--an unprecedented outburst of joy for Bart!--and staring hungrily into the face of Dan. She saw a wonderful softening in the eyes of her father as he looked at the great, dangerous beast.

"You ain't a bad sort," he said, "but you need puttin' in place continual."

Black Bart whined agreement.

After that, when the dishes were being cleared away and cleaned with a speed fully as marvelous as the preparation of the supper, Joan remembered with a guilty start the message which she should have given to Daddy Dan, and she brought out the paper, much rumpled.

He stood by the fire to read the letter.

"Dan come back to us. The house is empty and there's no sign of you except your clothes and the skins you left drying in the vacant room.

Joan sits all day, mourning for you, and my heart is breaking. Oh, Dan, I don't grieve so much for what has been done, but I tremble for what you may do in the future."

With the letter still in his hand Dan walked thoughtfully to Satan and took the fine head between his fingers.

"S'pose some gent was to drop you, Satan," he murmured. "S'pose he was to plug you while you was doin' your best to take me where I want to go.

S'pose he shot you not for anything you'd done but because of something agin me. And s'pose after killin' you he was to sneak up on me with a lot of other gents and try to murder me before I had a chance to fight back. Satan, wouldn't I be right to trail 'em all--and kill 'em one by one? Wouldn't it?"

Joan heard very little of the words--only a soft murmur of anxiety, and she saw that Daddy Dan was very thoughtful indeed. The stallion reached for the brim of Dan's hat--it was withdrawn from his reach--his head bowed, like a nod of a.s.sent.

"Why, even Satan can see I'm right," murmured Dan, and moving back to the fire, he tore the letter into many pieces which fluttered down in a white stream and made the blaze leap up.

Chapter XXI. The Acid Test

Mrs. Johnny Sommers managed to preserve her dignity while she escorted the visitor into the front room, and even while she asked him to sit down and wait, but once she had closed the door behind her she cast dignity far away and did two steps at a time going upstairs. The result was that she, reached the room of Betty Neal entirely out of breath; two hundred pounds of fat, good-natured widowhood do not go with speed. She tossed open the door without any preliminary knock and stood there very red with a clearly defined circle of white in the center of each check.

For a moment there was no sound except her panting and Betty Neal stared wildly at her from above her book.

"He's come!" gasped Mrs. Sommers.

"Who?"

"Him!"

As if this odd explanation made everything clear, Betty Neal sprang from her chair and she grew so pale that every freckle stood out.

"Him!" she echoed ungrammatically.

Then: "Where is he? Let me downstairs."

But the widow closed the door swiftly behind her and leaned her comfortable bulk against it.

"You ain't goin'," she a.s.serted. "You ain't goin', leastways not till you got time to think it over."

"I haven't time to think. I--he--"

"That was the way with me," nodded Mrs. Sommers, and her eyes were tragic. "I went ahead and married Johnny in spite of everything, and look at me now--a widder! No, I ain't sorry for myself because I was a fool."

"Mrs. Sommers," said Betty, "will you please step out of my way?"

"Honey, for heaven's sake think a minute before you go down and face that man. He's dangerous. When I opened the door and seen him, I tell you the shivers went up my back."

"Is he thin? Is he pale?" cried Betty Neal. "How did he get away? Did he escape? Did they parole him? Did they pardon him? Did he--"

"Let me get down!" she cried.

Mrs. Sommers flung away from the door.

"Then go and marry your man-killer!"

But Betty Neal was already clattering down the stairs. Half way to the bottom her strength and courage ebbed suddenly from her; she went on with short steps, and when at last she closed the parlor door behind her, she was staring as if she looked at a ghost.

Yet Vic Gregg was not greatly changed--a little thinner perhaps, and just now he certainly did not have his usual color. The moment she appeared he jumped to his feet as if he had heard a shot, and now he stood with his feet braced a little to meet a shock, one hand twitching and playing nervously with the embroidered cloth on the table. She did not speak; merely stood with her fingers still gripping the handle of the door as if she were ready to dart away at the first alarm. A wave of pain went over the face of Vic Gregg and remained looking at her out of his eyes, for all that his single-track, concentrated mind could perceive in her was the thing he took for fear.

"Miss Neal," he said. His voice shook, straightened out again. He made her think of one of her big school boys who had forgotten his lesson and now stood cudgeling his memory and dreading that terrible nightmare of "staying after school." She had a wild desire to laugh.

"Miss Neal, I ain't here to try to take up things that can't be took up ag'in." Apparently he had prepared the speech carefully, and now he went on with more ease: "I'm leavin' these here parts for some place unknown.

Before I go I jest want to say I know I was wrong from the beginnin'.

All I want to say is that I was jest all sort of tied up in a knot inside and when I seen you with him--" He stopped. "I hope you marry some gent that's worth you, only they ain't any such. An'--I want to wish you good-luck, an' say good-by--"

He swept the perspiration from his forehead, and caught up his hat; he had been through the seventh circle of torture.

"Oh, Vic, dear!" cried a voice he had never heard before. Then a flurry of skirts, then arms about him, then tears and laughter, and eyes which went hungrily over his face.