pped away on either side of
Joan; now on a descent of the mountain-side he broke into a lope that
set the flowers fluttering on her bonnet; now he prowled up the ravine
beyond, utterly tireless.

He was strictly business. When she slipped a little from her place as he
veered around a rock he did not slow up, as usual, that she might regain
her seat, but switched his head back with a growl that warned her into
position. That surprise was hardly out of her mind when she saw a gay
patch of wild-flowers a little from the line of his direction, and she
tugged at his ear to swing him towards it. A sharp jerk of his head
tossed her hand aside, and again she caught the glint of wild eyes as he
looked back at her. Then she grew grave, puzzled. She trusted Black Bart
with all her heart, as only a child can trust dumb animals, but now she
sensed a change in him. She had guessed at a difference on that night
when Dan came home for the last time; and the same thing seemed to be in
the dog today.

Before she could make up her mind as to what it might be, Black Bart
swung aside up a steep slope, and whisked her into the gloom of a cave.
Into the very heart of the darkness he glided and stopped.

"Daddy Dan!" she called.

A faint echo, after a moment, came back to her from the depths of the
cave, making her voice strangely deep. Otherwise, there was no answer.

"Bart!" she whispered, suddenly frightened by the last murmur of that
echo, "Daddy Dan's not here. Go back!"

She tugged at his ear to turn him, but again that jerk of the head freed
his ear. He caught her by the cloak, crouched close to the floor, and
she found herself all at once sitting on the gravelly floor of the cave
with Bart facing her.

"Bad Bart!" she said, scrambling to her feet.

"Naughty dog!"

She was still afraid to raise her voice in that awful silence, and in
the dark. When she glanced around her, she made out vague forms through
the dimness that might be the uneven walls of the cave, or might be
strange and awful forms of night.

"Take me home!"

A growl that went shuddering down the cave stopped her, and now she saw
that the eyes of Bart glowed green and yellow. Even then she could not
believe that he would harm her, and stretched out a tentative hand. This
time she made out the flash of his teeth as he snarled. He was no longer
the Bart she had played with around the cabin, but a strange wild thing,
and with a scream she darted past him toward t