Black Bart lay facing his
master, and his snaky head followed every movement. Kate sat where the
firelight barely touched on her, and in her arms she held Joan, whose face
and great bright eyes were turned towards Daddy Dan. All things in the room
centered on the place where the man sat by the wall, and the sense of
something impending swept over Gregg; then a wild fear--did they know the
danger outside? He must make conversation; he turned to Kate, but at the
same moment the voice of Buck Daniels beside him, close.
"I know how you feel, old man. I remember an old bay hoss of mine, a Morgan
hoss, and when he died I grieved for near onto a year, mostly. He wasn't
much of a hoss to look at, too long coupled, you'd say, and his legs was
short, but he got about like a coyote and when he sat down on a rope you
couldn't budge him with a team of Percherons. That's how good he was! When
he was a four year old I was cutting out yearlin's with him, and how--"
The loud, cheerful tone fell away to a confidential murmur, Daniels leaned
closer, with a smile of prospective humor, but the words which came to
Gregg were: "Partner, if I was you I'd get up and git and I wouldn't stop
till I put a hell of a long ways between me and this cabin!"
It spoke well of Vic's nerve that no start betrayed him.
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