VICTORY
The grey light which Buck Daniels saw that morning, hardly brightened as
the day grew, for the sky was overcast with sheeted mist and through it
a dull evening radiance filtered to the earth. Wung Lu, his celestial,
slant eyes now yellow with cold, built a fire on the big hearth in the
living-room. It was a roaring blaze, for the wood was so dry that it
flamed as though soaked in oil, and tumbled a mass of yellow fire up the
chimney. So bright was the fire, indeed, that its light quite
over-shadowed the meagre day which looked in at the window, and every
chair cast its shadow away from the hearth. Later on Kate Cumberland
came down the backstairs and slipped into the kitchen.
"Have you seen Dan?" she asked of the cook.
"Wung Lu make nice fire," grinned the Chinaman. "Misser Dan in there."
She thought for an instant.
"Is breakfast ready, Wung?"
"Pretty soon quick," nodded Wung Lu.
"Then throw out the coffee or the eggs," she said quickly. "I don't want
breakfast served yet; wait till I send you word."
As the door closed behind her, the eye-brows of Wung rose into perfect
Roman arches.
"Ho!" grunted Wung Lu, "O ho!"
In the hall Kate met Randall Byrne coming down the stairs. He was
dressed in white and he had found a little yellow wildflower and stuck
it in his button-hole. He seemed ten years younger than the day he rode
with her to the ranch, and now he came to her with a quick step,
smiling.
"Doctor Byrne," she said quietly, "breakfast will be late this morning.
Also, I want no one to go into the living-room for a while. Will you
keep them out?"
The doctor was instantly gone.
"He hasn't gone, yet?" he queried.
"Not yet."
The doctor sighed and then, apparently following a sudden impulse, he
reached his hand to her.
"I hope something comes of it," he said.
Even then she could not help a wan smile.
"What do you mean by that, doctor?"
The doctor sighed again.
"If the inference is not clear," he said, "I'm afraid that I cannot
explain. But I'll try to keep everyone from the room."
She nodded her thanks, and went on; but passing the mirror in the hall
the sight of her face made her stop abruptly. There was no vestige of
colour in it; and the shadow beneath her eyes made them seem inhumanly
large and deep. The bright hair, to be sure, waved over her head and
coiled on her neck, but it was like a futile shaft of sunlight falling
on a dreary moor in winter. She went on thoughtfully to the door of the
living-room but there she paused again with her hand upon the knob; and
while she stood there she remembered herself as she had been only a few
months before, with the colour flushing in her face and a continual
light in her eyes. There had been little need for thinking then. One had
only to let the wind and the sun strike on one, and live. Then, in a
quiet despair, she said to herself: "As I am--I must win or lose--as I
am!" and she opened the door and stepped in.
She had been cold with fear and excitement when she entered the room to
make her last stand for happiness, but once she was in, it was not so
hard. Dan Barry lay on the couch at the far end of the room with his
hands thrown under his head, and he was smiling in a way which she well
knew; it had been a danger signal in the old days, and when he turned
his face and said good-morning to her, she caught that singular glimmer
of yellow which sometimes came up behind his eyes. In reply to his
greeting she merely nodded, and then walked slowly to the window and
turned her back to him.
It was a one-tone landscape. Sky, hills, barns, earth, all was a single
mass of lifeless grey; in such an atmosphere old Homer had seen the
wraiths of his dead heroes play again at the things they had done on
earth. She noted these things with a blank eye, for a thousand thoughts
were leaping through her mind. Something must be done. There he lay in
the same room with her. He had turned his head back, no doubt, and was
staring at the ceiling as before, and the yellow glimmer was in his eyes
again. Perhaps, after this day, she should never see him again; every
moment was precious beyond the price of gold, and yet there she stood at
the window, doing nothing. But what _could_ she do?
Should she go to him and fall on her knees beside him and pour out her
heart, telling him again of the old days. No, it would be like striking
on a wooden bell; no echo would rise; and she knew beforehand the deadly
blackness of his eyes. So Black Bart lay often in the sun, staring at
infinite distance and seeing nothing but his dreams of battle. What were
appeals and what were words to Black Bart? What were they to Dan Barry?
Yet once, by sitting still--the thought made her blood leap with a
great, joyous pulse that set her cheeks tingling.
She waited till the first impulse of excitement had subsided, and then
turned back and sat down in a chair near the fire. From a corner of her
eye she was aware that Whistling Dan had turned his head again to await
her first speech. Then she fixed her gaze on the wall of yellow flame.
The impulse to speak to him was like a hand tugging to turn her around,
and the words came up and swelled in her throat, but still she would not
stir.
In a moment of rationality she felt in an overwhelming wave of mental
coldness the folly of her course, but she shut out the thought with a
slight shudder. Silence, to Dan Barry, had a louder voice and more
meaning than any words.
Then she knew that he was sitting up on the couch. Was he about to stand
up and walk out of the room? For moment after moment he did not stir;
and at length she knew, with a breathless certainty, that he was staring
fixedly at her! The hand which was farthest from him, and hidden, she
gripped hard upon the arm of the chair. That was some comfort, some
added strength.
She had now the same emotion she had had when Black Bart slunk towards
her under the tree--if a single perceptible tremor shook her, if she
showed the slightest awareness of the subtle approach, she was undone.
It was only her apparent unconsciousness which could draw either the
wolf-dog or the master.
She remembered what her father had told her of hunting young deer--how
he had lain in the grass and thrust up a leg above the grass in sight of
the deer and how they would first run away but finally come back step by
step, drawn by an invincible curiosity, until at length they were within
range for a point blank shot.
Now she must concentrate on the flames of the fireplace, see nothing but
them, think of nothing but the swiftly changing domes and walls and
pinnacles they made. She leaned a little forward and rested her cheek
upon her right hand--and thereby she shut out the sight of Dan Barry
effectually. Also it made a brace to keep her from turning her head
towards him, and she needed every support, physical and mental.
Still he did not move. Was he in truth looking at her, or was he staring
beyond her at the grey sky which lowered past the window? The faintest
creaking sound told her that he had risen, slowly, from the crouch. Then
not a sound, except that she knew, in some mysterious manner, that he
moved, but whether towards her or towards the door she could not dream.
But he stepped suddenly and noiselessly into the range of her vision and
sat down on a low bench at one side of the hearth. If the strain had
been tense before, it now became terrible; for there he sat almost
facing her, and looking intently at her, yet she must keep all awareness
of him out of her eyes. In the excitement a strong pulse began to beat
in the hollow of her throat, as if her heart were rising. She had won,
she had kept him in the room, she had brought him to a keen thought of
her. A Pyrrhic victory, for she was poised on the very edge of a cliff
of hysteria. She began to feel a tremor of the hand which supported her
cheek. If that should become visible to him he would instantly know that
all her apparent unconsciousness was a sham, and then she would have
lost him truly!
Something sounded at one of the doors--and then the door opened softly.
She was almost glad of the interruption, for another instant might have
swept away the last reserve of her strength. So this, then, was the end.
But the footfall which sounded in the apartment was a soft, padding
step, with a little scratching sound, light as a finger running on a
frosty window pane. And then a long, shaggy head slipped close to
Whistling Dan. It was Black Bart!
A wave of terror swept through her. She remembered another scene, not
many months before, when Black Bart had drawn his master away from her
and led him south, south, after the wild geese. The wolf-dog had come
again like a demoniac spirit to undo her plans!
Only an instant--the crisis of a battle--then the great beast turned
slowly, faced her, slunk with his long stride closer, and then a cold
nose touched the hand which gripped the arm of her chair. It gave her a
welcome excuse for action of some sort; she reached out her hand,
slowly, and touched the forehead of Black Bart. He winced back, and the
long fangs flashed; her hand remained tremulously poised in air, and
then the long head approached again, cautiously, and once more she
touched it, and since it did not stir, she trailed the tips of her
fingers backwards towards the ears. Black Bart snarled again, but it was
a sound so subdued as to be almost like the purring of a great cat. He
sank down, and the weight of his head came upon her feet. Victory!
In the full tide of conscious power she was able to drop her hand from
her face, raise her head, turn her glance carelessly upon Dan Barry; she
was met by ominously glowing eyes. Anger--at least it was not
indifference.
He rose and stepped in his noiseless way behind her, but he reappeared
instantly on the other side, and reached out his hand to where her
fingers trailed limp from the arm of the chair. There he let them lie,
white and cool, against the darkness of his palm. It was as if he sought
in the hand for the secret of her power over the wolf-dog. She let her
head rest against the back of the chair and watched the nervous and
sinewy hand upon which her own rested. She had seen those hands fixed in
the throat of Black Bart himself, once upon a time. A grim simile came
to her; the tips of her fingers touched the paw of the panther. The
steel-sharp claws were sheathed, but suppose once they were bared, and
clutched. Or she stood touching a switch which might loose, by the
slightest motion, a terrific voltage. What would happen?
Nothing! Presently the hand released her fingers, and Dan Barry stepped
back and stood with folded arms, frowning at the fire. In the weakness
which overcame her, in the grip of the wild excitement, she dared not
stay near him longer. She rose and walked into the dining-room.
"Serve breakfast now, Wung," she commanded, and at once the gong was
struck by the cook.
Before the long vibrations had died away the guests were gathered around
the table, and the noisy marshal was the first to come. He slammed back
a chair and sat down with a grunt of expectancy.
"Mornin', Dan," he said, whetting his knife across the table-cloth, "I
hear you're ridin' this mornin'? Ain't going my way, are you?"
Dan Barry sat frowning steadily down at the table. It was a moment
before he answered.
"I ain't leavin," he said softly, at length, "postponed my trip."