THE PANTHER
In the ranch house old Joseph Cumberland frowned on the floor as he
heard his daughter say: "It isn't right, Dad. I never noticed it
before I went away to school, but since I've come back I begin to feel
that it's shameful to treat Dan in this way."
Her eyes brightened and she shook her golden head for emphasis. Her
father watched her with a faintly quizzical smile and made no reply.
The dignity of ownership of many thousand cattle kept the old
rancher's shoulders square, and there was an antique gentility about
his thin face with its white goatee. He was more like a quaint
figure of the seventeenth century than a successful cattleman of the
twentieth.
"It _is_ shameful, Dad," she went on, encouraged by his silence, "or
you could tell me some reason."
"Some reason for not letting him have a gun?" asked the rancher, still
with the quizzical smile.
"Yes, yes!" she said eagerly, "and some reason for treating him in a
thousand ways as if he were an irresponsible boy."
"Why, Kate, gal, you have tears in your eyes!"
He drew her onto a stool beside him, holding both her hands, and
searched her face with eyes as blue and almost as bright as her own.
"How does it come that you're so interested in Dan?"
"Why, Dad, dear," and she avoided his gaze, "I've always been
interested in him. Haven't we grown up together?"
"Part ways you have."
"And haven't we been always just like brother and sister?"
"You're talkin' a little more'n sisterly, Kate."
"What do you mean?"
"Ay, ay! What do I mean! And now you're all red. Kate, I got an idea
it's nigh onto time to let Dan start on his way."
He could not have found a surer way to drive the crimson from her face
and turn it white to the lips.
"Dad!"
"Well, Kate?"
"You wouldn't send Dan away!"
Before he could answer she dropped her head against his shoulder
and broke into great sobs. He stroked her head with his calloused,
sunburned hand and his eyes filmed with a distant gaze.
"I might have knowed it!" he said over and over again; "I might have
knowed it! Hush, my silly gal."
Her sobbing ceased with magic suddenness.
"Then you won't send him away?"
"Listen to me while I talk to you straight," said Joe Cumberland,
"and accordin' to the way you take it will depend whether Dan goes or
stays. Will you listen?"
"Dear Dad, with all my heart!"
"Humph!" he grunted, "that's just what I don't want. This what I'm
goin' to tell you is a queer thing--a mighty lot like a fairy tale,
maybe. I've kept it back from you years an' years thinkin' you'd find
out the truth about Dan for yourself. But bein' so close to him has
made you sort of blind, maybe! No man will criticize his own hoss."
"Go on, tell me what you mean. I won't interrupt."
He was silent for a moment, frowning to gather his thoughts.
"Have you ever seen a mule, Kate?"
"Of course!"
"Maybe you've noticed that a mule is just as strong as a horse--"
"Yes."
"--but their muscles ain't a third as big?"
"Yes, but what on earth--"
"Well, Kate, Dan is built light an' yet he's stronger than the biggest
men around here."
"Are you going to send him away simply because he's strong?"
"It doesn't show nothin'," said the old man gently, "savin' that he's
different from the regular run of men--an' I've seen a considerable
pile of men, honey. There's other funny things about Dan maybe you
ain't noticed. Take the way he has with hosses an' other animals. The
wildest man-killin', spur-hatin' bronchos don't put up no fight when
them long legs of Dan settle round 'em."
"Because they know fighting won't help them!"
"Maybe so, maybe so," he said quietly, "but it's kind of queer, Kate,
that after most a hundred men on the best hosses in these parts had
ridden in relays after Satan an' couldn't lay a rope on him, Dan could
jest go out on foot with a halter an' come back in ten days leadin'
the wildest devil of a mustang that ever hated men."
"It was a glorious thing to do!" she said.
Old Cumberland sighed and then shook his head.
"It shows more'n that, honey. There ain't any man but Dan that can sit
the saddle on Satan. If Dan should die, Satan wouldn't be no more use
to other men than a piece of haltered lightnin'. An' then tell me how
Dan got hold of that wolf, Black Bart, as he calls him."
"It isn't a wolf, Dad," said Kate, "it's a dog. Dan says so himself."
"Sure he says so," answered her father, "but there was a lone wolf
prowlin' round these parts for a considerable time an' raisin' Cain
with the calves an' the colts. An' Black Bart comes pretty close to a
description of the lone wolf. Maybe you remember Dan found his 'dog'
lyin' in a gully with a bullet through his shoulder. If he was a dog
how'd he come to be shot--"
"Some brute of a sheep herder may have done it. What could it prove?"
"It only proves that Dan is queer--powerful queer! Satan an' Black
Bart are still as wild as they ever was, except that they got one
master. An' they ain't got a thing to do with other people. Black
Bart'd tear the heart out of a man that so much as patted his head."
"Why," she cried, "he'll let me do anything with him!"
"Humph!" said Cumberland, a little baffled; "maybe that's because Dan
is kind of fond of you, gal, an' he has sort of introduced you to
his pets, damn 'em! That's just the pint! How is he able to make his
man-killers act sweet with you an' play the devil with everybody
else."
"It wasn't Dan at all!" she said stoutly, "and he _isn't_ queer. Satan
and Black Bart let me do what I want with them because they know I
love them for their beauty and their strength."
"Let it go at that," growled her father. "Kate, you're jest like your
mother when it comes to arguin'. If you wasn't my little gal I'd say
you was plain pig-headed. But look here, ain't you ever felt that Dan
is what I call him--different? Ain't you ever seen him get mad--jest
for a minute--an' watched them big brown eyes of his get all packed
full of yellow light that chases a chill up and down your back like a
wrigglin' snake?"
She considered this statement in a little silence.
"I saw him kill a rattler once," she said in a low voice. "Dan caught
him behind the head after he had struck. He did it with his bare hand!
I almost fainted. When I looked again he had cut off the head of the
snake. It was--it was terrible!"
She turned to her father and caught him firmly by the shoulders.
"Look me straight in the eye, Dad, and tell me just what you mean."
"Why, Kate," said the wise old man, "you're beginnin' to see for
yourself what I'm drivin' at! Haven't you got somethin' else right on
the tip of your tongue?"
"There was one day that I've never told you about," she said in a low
voice, looking away, "because I was afraid that if I told you, you'd
shoot Black Bart. He was gnawing a big beef bone and just for fun I
tried to take it away from him. He'd been out on a long trail with Dan
and he was very hungry. When I put my hand on the bone he snapped.
Luckily I had a thick glove on and he merely pinched my wrist. Also
I think he realized what he was doing for otherwise he'd have cut
through the glove as if it had been paper. He snarled fearfully and I
sprang back with a cry. Dan hadn't seen what happened, but he
heard the snarl and saw Black Bart's bared teeth. Then--oh, it was
terrible!"
She covered her face.
"Take your time, Kate," said Cumberland softly.
"'Bart,' called Dan," she went on, "and there was such anger in his
face that I think I was more afraid of him than of the big dog.
"Bart turned to him with a snarl and bared his teeth. When Dan saw
that his face turned--I don't know how to say it!"
She stopped a moment and her hands tightened.
"Back in his throat there came a sound that was almost like the snarl
of Black Bart. The wolf-dog watched him with a terror that was uncanny
to see, the hair around his neck fairly on end, his teeth still bared,
and his growl horrible.
"'Dan!' I called, 'don't go near him!'
"I might as well have called out to a whirlwind. He leaped. Black Bart
sprang to meet him with eyes green with fear. I heard the loud click
of his teeth as he snapped--and missed. Dan swerved to one side and
caught Black Bart by the throat and drove him into the dust, falling
with him.
"I couldn't move. I was weak with horror. It wasn't a struggle between
a man and a beast. It was like a fight between a panther and a wolf.
Black Bart was fighting hard but fighting hopelessly. Those hands were
settling tighter on his throat. His big red tongue lolled out; his
struggles almost ceased. Then Dan happened to glance at me. What he
saw in my face sobered him. He got up, lifting the dog with him, and
flung away the lifeless weight of Bart. He began to brush the dust
from his clothes, looking down as if he were ashamed. He asked me if
the dog had hurt me when he snapped. I could not speak for a moment.
Then came the most horrible part. Black Bart, who must have been
nearly killed, dragged himself to Dan on his belly, choking and
whining, and licked the boots of his master!"
"Then you _do_ know what I mean when I say Dan is--different?"
She hesitated and blinked, as if she were shutting her eyes on a fact.
"I _don't_ know. I know that he's gentle and kind and loves you more
than you love him." Her voice broke a little. "Oh, Dad, you forget the
time he sat up with you for five days and nights when you got sick out
in the hills, and how he barely managed to get you back to the house
alive!"
The old man frowned to conceal how greatly he was moved.
"I haven't forgot nothin', Kate," he said, "an' everything is for his
own good. Do you know what I've been tryin' to do all these years?"
"What?"
"I've been tryin' to hide him from himself! Kate, do you remember how I found him?"
"I was too little to know. I've heard you tell a little about it. He
was lost on the range. You found him twenty miles south of the house."
"Lost on the range?" repeated her father softly. "I don't think he
could ever have been lost. To a hoss the corral is a home. To us our
ranch is a home. To Dan Barry the whole mountain-desert is a home!
This is how I found him. It was in the spring of the year when the
wild geese was honkin' as they flew north. I was ridin' down a gulley
about sunset and wishin' that I was closer to the ranch when I heard a
funny, wild sort of whistlin' that didn't have any tune to it that
I recognized. It gave me a queer feelin'. It made me think of fairy
stories--an' things like that! Pretty soon I seen a figure on the
crest of the hill. There was a triangle of geese away up overhead an'
the boy was walkin' along lookin' up as if he was followin' the trail
of the wild geese.
"He was up there walkin' between the sunset an' the stars with his
head bent back, and his hands stuffed into his pockets, whistlin' as
if he was goin' home from school. An' such whistlin'."
"Nobody could ever whistle like Dan," she said, and smiled.
"I rode up to him, wonderin'," went on Cumberland.
"'What're you doin' round here?' I says.
"Says he, lookin' at me casual like over his shoulder: 'I'm jest
takin' a stroll an' whistlin'. Does it bother you, mister?'
"'It doesn't bother me none,' says I. 'Where do you belong, sonny?'
"'Me?' says he, lookin' sort of surprised, 'why, I belong around over
there!' An' he waved his hand careless over to the settin' sun.
"There was somethin' about him that made my heart swell up inside of
me. I looked down into them big brown eyes and wondered--well, I don't
know what I wondered; but I remembered all at once that I didn't have
no son.
"'Who's your folks?' says I, gettin' more an' more curious.
"He jest looked at me sort of bored.
"'Where does your folks live at?' says I.
"'Oh, they live around here,' says he, an' he waved his hand again,
an' this time over towards the east.
"Says I: 'When do you figure on reachin' home?'
"'Oh, most any day,' says he.
"An' I looked around at them brown, naked hills with the night comin'
down over them. Then I stared back at the boy an' there was something
that come up in me like hunger. You see, he was lost; he was alone;
the queer ring of his whistlin' was still in my ears; an' I couldn't
help rememberin' that I didn't have no son.
"'Then supposin' you come along with me,' says I, 'an' I'll send you
home in a buckboard tomorrow?'
"So the end of it was me ridin' home with the little kid sittin' up
before me, whistlin' his heart out! When I got him home I tried to
talk to him again. He couldn't tell me, or he wouldn't tell me where
his folks lived, but jest kept wavin' his hand liberal to half the
points of the compass. An' that's all I know of where he come from. I
done all I could to find his parents. I inquired and sent letters to
every rancher within a hundred miles. I advertised it through the
railroads, but they said nobody'd yet been reported lost. He was still
mine, at least for a while, an' I was terrible glad.
"I give the kid a spare room. I sat up late that first night listenin'
to the wild geese honkin' away up in the sky an' wonderin' why I was
so happy. Kate, that night there was tears in my eyes when I thought
of how that kid had been out there on the hills walkin' along so happy
an' independent.
"But the next mornin' he was gone. I sent my cowpunchers out to look
for him.
"'Which way shall we ride?' they asked.
"I don't know why, but I thought of the wild geese that Dan had seemed
to be followin'.
"'Ride north,' I said.
"An' sure enough, they rode north an' found him. After that I didn't
have no trouble with him about runnin' away--at least not durin' the
summer. An' all those months I kept plannin' how I would take care of
this boy who had come wanderin' to me. It seemed like he was sort of a
gift of God to make up for me havin' no son. And everythin' went well
until the next fall, when the geese began to fly south.
"Sure enough, that was when Dan ran away again, and when I sent my
cowpunchers south after him, they found him and brought him back. It
seemed as if they'd brought back half the world to me, when I seen
him. But I saw that I'd have to put a stop to this runnin' away. I
tried to talk to him, but all he'd say was that he'd better be movin'
on. I took the law in my hands an' told him he had to be disciplined.
So I started thrashin' him with a quirt, very light. He took it as if
he didn't feel the whip on his shoulders, an' he smiled. But there
came up a yellow light in his eyes that made me feel as if a man was
standin' right behind me with a bare knife in his hand an' smilin'
jest like the kid was doin'. Finally I simply backed out of the room,
an' since that day there ain't been man or beast ever has put a hand
on Whistlin' Dan. To this day I reckon he ain't quite forgiven me."
"Why!" she cried, "I have never heard him mention it!"
"That's why I know he's not forgotten it. Anyway, Kate, I locked him
in his room, but he wouldn't promise not to run away. Then I got an
inspiration. You was jest a little toddlin' thing then. That day you
was cryin' an awful lot an' I suddenly thought of puttin' you in Dan's
room. I did it. I jest unlocked the door quick and then shoved you in
an' locked it again. First of all you screamed terrible hard. I was
afraid maybe you'd hurt yourself yellin' that way. I was about to take
you out again when all at once I heard Dan start whistlin' and pretty
quick your cryin' stopped. I listened an' wondered. After that I never
had to lock Dan in his room. I was sure he'd stay on account of you.
But now, honey, I'm gettin' to the end of the story, an' I'm goin' to
give you the straight idea the way I see it.
"I've watched Dan like--like a father, almost. I think he loves me,
sort of--but I've never got over being afraid of him. You see I can't
forget how he smiled when I licked him! But listen to me, Kate, that
fear has been with me all the time--an' it's the only time I've ever
been afraid of any man. It isn't like being scared of a man, but of a
panther.
"Now we'll jest nacherally add up all the points we've made about
Dan--the queer way I found him without a home an' without wantin'
one--that strength he has that's like the power of a mule compared
with a horse--that funny control he has over wild animals so that they
almost seem to know what he means when he simply looks at them (have
you noticed him with Black Bart and Satan?)--then there's the yellow
light that comes in his eyes when he begins to get real mad--you an' I
have both seen it only once, but we don't want to see it again! More
than this there's the way he handles either a knife or a gun. He
hasn't practiced much with shootin' irons, but I never seen him miss a
reasonable mark--or an unreasonable one either, for that matter. I've
spoke to him about it. He said: 'I dunno how it is. I don't see how
a feller can shoot crooked. It jest seems that when I get out a gun
there's a line drawn from the barrel to the thing I'm shootin' at. All
I have to do is to pull the trigger--almost with my eyes closed!' Now,
Kate, do you begin to see what these here things point to?"
"Tell me what you see," she said, "and then I'll tell you what I think
of it all."
"All right," he said. "I see in Dan a man who's different from the
common run of us. I read in a book once that in the ages when men
lived like animals an' had no weapons except sticks and stones, their
muscles must have been two or three times as strong as they are
now--more like the muscles of brutes. An' their hearin' an' their
sight an' their quickness an' their endurance was about three times
more than that of ordinary men. Kate, I think that Dan is one of those
men the book described! He knows animals because he has all the powers
that they have. An' I know from the way his eyes go yellow that he has
the fightin' instinct of the ancestors of man. So far I've kept him
away from other men. Which I may say is the main reason I bought Dan
Morgan's place so's to keep fightin' men away from our Whistlin' Dan.
So I've been hidin' him from himself. You see, he's my boy if he
belongs to anybody. Maybe when time goes on he'll get tame. But I
reckon not. It's like takin' a panther cub--or a wolf pup--an tryin'
to raise it for a pet. Some day it gets the taste of blood, maybe its
own blood, an' then it goes mad and becomes a killer. An' that's what
I fear, Kate. So far I've kept Dan from ever havin' a single fight,
but I reckon the day'll come when someone'll cross him, and then
there'll be a tornado turned loose that'll jest about wreck these
parts."
Her anger had grown during this speech. Now she rose.
"I won't believe you, Dad," she said. "I'd sooner trust our Dan than
any man alive. I don't think you're right in a single word!"
"I was sure loco," sighed Cumberland, "to ever dream of convincin' a
woman. Let it drop, Kate. We're about to get rid of Morgan's place,
an' now I reckon there won't be any temptation near Dan. We'll see
what time'll do for him. Let the thing drop there. Now I'm goin' over
to the Bar XO outfit an' I won't be back till late tonight. There's
only one thing more. I told Morgan there wasn't to be any gun-play in
his place today. If you hear any shootin' go down there an' remind
Morgan to take the guns off'n the men."
Kate nodded, but her stare travelled far away, and the thing she saw
was the yellow light burning in the eyes of Whistling Dan.