efore. Inch by inch,
with Buck and Lee following her example, they worked toward the edge of
the boulder and peered carefully around it.

There opened the cave, and in front of it was Joan playing with what
seemed to be a ball of gray fur. Her hair tumbled loose and bright about
her shoulders; she wore the tawny hide which Kate had seen before, and
on her feet, since the sharp rocks had long before worn out her boots,
she had daintily fashioned moccasins. Bare knees, profusely scratched,
bare arms rapidly browning to the color of the fur she wore, Haines and
Buck had to rub their eyes and look again before they could recognize
her.

They must have made a noise--perhaps merely an intaking of breath
inaudible even to themselves but clear to the ears of Joan. She was on
her feet, with bright, wild eyes glancing here and there. There was no
suggestion of childishness in her, but a certain willingness to flee
from a great danger or attack a weaker force. She stood alert, rather
than frightened, with her head back as if she scented the wind to learn
what approached. The ball of gray fur straightened into the sharp ears
and the flashing teeth of a coyote puppy. Buck Daniels' foot slipped on
a pebble and at the sound the coyote darted to the shadow of a little
shrub and crouched there, hardly distinguishable from the shade which
covered it, and the child, with infinitely cunning instinct, raced to
a patch of yellow sand and tawny rocks among which she cowered and
remained there moveless.

One thing at least was certain. Whistling Dan was not in the cave, for
if he had been the child would have run to him for protection, or at
least cried out in her alarm. This information Haines whispered to Kate
and she nodded, turning a white face toward him. Then she stepped out
from the rock and went straight toward Joan.

There was no stir in the little figure. Even the wind seemed to take
part in the secret and did not lift the golden hair. Once the eyes of
the child glittered as they turned toward Kate, but otherwise she made
no motion, like a rabbit which will not budge until the very shadow of
the reaching hand falls over it.

So it was with Joan, and as Kate leaned silently over her she sprang to
her feet and darted between the hands of her mother and away among the
rocks. Past the reaching hands of Lee Haines she swerved, but it was
only to run straight into the grip of Buck Daniels. Up to that moment
she had not uttered a soun