THE TRAIL
Bandages and antiseptics and constant care, by themselves could not have
healed Black Bart so swiftly, but nature took a strong hand. The wound
closed with miraculous speed. Three days after he had laid his head on
the feet of Kate Cumberland, the wolf-dog was hobbling about on three
legs and tugging now and again at the restraining chain; and the day
after that the bandages were taken off and Whistling Dan decided that
Bart might run loose. It was a brief ceremony, but a vital one. Doctor
Byrne went out with Barry to watch the loosing of the dog; from the
window of Joe Cumberland's room he and Kate observed what passed. There
was little hesitancy in Black Bart. He merely paused to sniff the foot
of Randall Byrne, snarl, and then trotted with a limp towards the
corrals.
Here, in a small enclosure with rails much higher than the other
corrals, stood Satan, and Black Bart made straight for the stallion. He
was seen from afar, and the black horse stood waiting, his head thrown
high in the air, his ears pricking forward, the tail flaunting, a
picture of expectancy. So under the lower rail Bart slunk and stood
under the head of Satan, growling terribly. Of this display of anger
the stallion took not the slightest notice, but lowered his beautiful
head until his velvet nose touched the cold muzzle of Bart. There was
something ludicrous about the greeting--it was such an odd shade close
to the human. It was as brief as it was strange, for Black Bart at once
whirled and trotted away towards the barns.
By the time Doctor Byrne and Whistling Dan caught up with him, the
wolf-dog was before the heaps and ashes which marked the site of the
burned barn. Among these white and grey and black heaps he picked his
way, sniffing hastily here and there. In the very centre of the place he
sat down suddenly on his haunches, pointed his nose aloft, and wailed
with tremendous dreariness.
"Now," murmured the doctor to Dan, "that strikes me as a singular
manifestation of intelligence in an animal--he has found the site of the
very barn where he was hurt--upon my word! Even fire doesn't affect his
memory!"
Here he observed that the face of Whistling Dan had grown grim. He ran
to Bart and crouched beside him, muttering; and Byrne heard.
"That's about where you was lyin'," said Dan, "and you smell your own
blood on the ground. Keep tryin', Bart. They's something else to find
around here."
The wolf-dog looked his master full in the face with pricking ears,
whined and then started off sniffling busily at the heaps of ashes.
"The shooting of the dog is quite a mystery," said Byrne, by way of
conversation. "Do you suppose that one of the men from the bunk-house
could have shot him?"
But Dan seemed no longer aware of the doctor's presence. He slipped here
and there with the wolf-dog among the ash-heaps, pausing when Bart
paused, talking to the brute continually. Sometimes he pointed out to
Bart things which the doctor did not perceive and Bart whined with a
terrible, slavering, blood-eagerness.
The wolf-dog suddenly left the ash-heaps and now darted in swiftly
entangled lines here and there among the barns. Dan Barry stood
thoughtfully still, but now and then he called a word of encouragement.
And Black Bart stayed with his work. Now he struck out a wide circle,
running always with his nose close to the ground. Again he doubled back
sharply to the barn-site, and began again in a new direction. He ran
swiftly, sometimes putting his injured leg to the ground with hardly a
limp, and again drawing it up and running on three feet. In a moment he
passed out of sight behind a slight rise of ground to the left of the
ash-heaps, and at some little distance. He did not reappear. Instead, a
long, shrill wail came wavering towards the doctor and Dan Barry. It
raised the hair on the head of the doctor and sent a chill through his
veins; but it sent Whistling Dan racing towards the place behind which
Black Bart had disappeared. The doctor hurried after as fast as he
might and came upon the wolf-dog making small, swift circles, his nose
to the ground, and then crossing to and fro out of the circles. And the
face of the master was black while he watched. He ran again to Bart and
began talking swiftly.
"D'you see?" he asked, pointing. "From behind this here hill you could
get a pretty good sight of the barn--and you wouldn't be seen, hardly,
from the barn. Someone must have waited here. Look about, Bart, you'll
be findin' a pile of signs, around here. It means that them that done
the shootin' and the firin' of the barn stood right here behind this
hill-top and watched the barn burn--and was hopin' that Satan and you
wouldn't ever come out alive. That's the story."
He dropped to his knees and caught Bart as the big dog ran by.
"Find'em, Bart!" he whispered. "Find'em!"
And he struck sharply on the scar where the bullet had ploughed its way
into Bart's flesh.
The answer of Bart was a yelp too sharp and too highly pitched to have
come from the throat of any mere dog. Once more he darted out and ran
here and there, and Doctor Byrne heard the beast moaning as it ran. Then
Bart ceased circling and cut down the slope away from the hill at a
sharp trot.
A cry of inarticulate joy burst from Dan, and then: "You've found it!
You have it!" and the master ran swiftly after the dog. He followed the
latter only for a short distance down the slope and then stood still
and whistled. He had to repeat the call before the dog turned and ran
back to his master, where he whined eagerly about the man's feet. There
was something uncanny and horrible about it; it was as if the dumb beast
was asking for a life, and the life of a man. The doctor turned back and
walked thoughtfully to the house.
At the door he was met by Kate and a burst of eager questions, and he
told, simply, all that he had seen.
"You'll get the details from Mr. Barry," he concluded.
"I know the details," answered the girl. "He's found the trail and he
knows where it points, now. And he'll want to be following it before
many hours have passed. Doctor Byrne, I need you now--terribly. You must
convince Dan that if he leaves us it will be a positive danger to Dad.
Can you do that?"
"At least," said the doctor, "there will be little deception in that. I
will do what I can to persuade him to stay."
"Then," she said hurriedly, "sit here, and I shall sit here. We'll meet
Dan together when he comes in."
They had hardly taken their places when Barry entered, the wolf at his
heels; at the door he paused to flash a glance at them and then crossed
the room. On the farther side he stopped again.
"I might be tellin' you," he said in his soft voice, "that now's Bart's
well I got to be travellin' again. I start in the morning."
The pleading eyes of Kate raised Byrne to his feet.
"My dear Mr. Barry!" he called. The other turned again and waited. "Do
you mean that you will leave us while Mr. Cumberland is in this critical
condition?"
A shadow crossed the face of Barry.
"I'd stay if I could," he answered. "But it ain't possible!"
"What takes you away is your affair, sir," said the doctor. "My concern
is Mr. Cumberland. He is in a very precarious condition. The slightest
nerve shock may have--fatal--results."
Dan Barry sighed.
"Seemed to me," he answered, "that he was buckin' up considerable. Don't
look so thin, doc."
"His body may be well enough," said the doctor calmly, "but his nerves
are wrecked. I am afraid to prophesy the consequences if you leave him."
It was apparent that a great struggle was going on in Barry. He answered
at length: "How long would I have to stay? One rain could wipe out all
the sign and make me like a blind man in the desert. Doc, how long would
I have to stay?"
"A few days," answered Byrne, "may work wonders with him."
The other hesitated.
"I'll go up and talk with him," he said, "and what he wants I'll do."