through the power of quiet courage
and the human eye. She determined to try again.

"Stand there quietly, Joan. Don't move until I tell you."

She made a firm step towards Bart.

"Manner, he'll bite!"

"Hush, Joan. Don't speak!"

At her forward movement the wolf-dog flattened his belly to the rock,
and she saw his forepaws, large, almost, as the hands of a man, dig and
work for a purchase from which he could throw himself at her throat.

"Steady, Bart!"

His silence was more terrible than a snarl; yet she stretched out her
hand and made another step. It brought a sharp tensing of the body of
Bart--the fur stood up about his throat like the mane of a lion, and his
eyes were a devilish green. Another instant she kept her place, and then
she remembered the story of Haines--how Bart had gone with his master to
that killing at Alder. If he had killed once, he would kill again; wild
as he had been on that other time when she quelled him, he had never
before been like this. The courage melted out of her; she forgot the
pleasant day outside; she saw only those blazing eyes and shrank back
towards the center of the cave. The muscles of the wolf relaxed visibly,
and not till that moment did she realize how close she had been to the
crisis.

"Bad Bart!" cried Joan, running in between. "Bad, bad dog!"

"Stop, Joan! Don't go near him!"

But Joan was already almost to Bart. When Kate would have run to snatch
the child away that deep, rattling growl stopped her again, and now she
saw that Joan ran not the slightest danger. She stood beside the huge
beast with her tiny fist raised.

"I'll tell Daddy Dan on you," she shrilled.

Black Bart made a furtive, cringing movement towards the child, but
instantly stiffened again and sent his warning down the cave to Kate.
Then a shadow fell across the entrance and Dan stood there with Satan
walking behind. His glance ran from the bristling body of Bart to
Kate, shrinking among the shadows, and lingered without a spark of
recognition.

"Satan," he ordered, "go on in to your place."

The black stallion glided past the master and came on until he saw Kate.
He stopped, snorting, and then circled her with his head suspiciously
high, and ears back until he reached the place where his saddle was
usually hung. There he waited, and Kate felt the eyes of the horse, the
wolf, the man, and even Joan, curiously upon her. "Evenin'," nodded Dan,
"might you have come up for supper?" That was a