He
stood facing the door, motionless.
"It's Dan," cried Kate. "Bart hears him! Good old Bart!"
The dog pointed up his nose, the hair about his neck bristled into a ruff,
and out of his quaking body came a sound that seemed to moan and whimper
from the distance at first, but drew nearer, louder, packed the room with
terror, the long drawn howl of a wolf.
Chapter XIII. Equal Payment
They knew what it meant; even Joan had heard the cry of the lone wolf
hunting in the lean time of winter, and of all things sad, all things
lonely, all things demoniacal, the howl of a wolf stands alone. Lee Haines
reached for his gun, little Joan stood up silent on the hearth, but Kate
and Buck Daniels sat listening with a sort of hungry terror, as the cry
sobbed away to quiet. Then out of the mountains and the night came an
answer so thin, so eerie, one might have said it was the voice of the
mountains and white stars grown audible; it stole on the ear as the pulse
of a heart comes to the consciousness.
Truly it was an answer to the cry of the wolf-dog, for in the slender
compass it carried the same wail, the same unearthly quality with this
great difference, that a thrilling happiness went through it, as if some
one walked through the mountains and rejoiced in the unknown terrors.
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