Delicate, shrinkin' flower, is she? I tell you, my boy, if it was
necessary for Joan she'd tear out your heart and mine and send Dan plumb to
hell. You fasten on to them words, because they're gospel."
It was late afternoon while they talked, and they were swinging slowly down
a gulch towards the home cabin. At that very time Kate, from the door of
the house where she sat, saw a dark form slink from rock to rock at the rim
of the little plateau, a motion so swift that it flicked through the corner
of her eye, a thing to be sensed rather than seen. She set up very stiff,
her lips white as chalk, but nothing more stirred. A few minutes later,
when her heart was beating almost at normal she heard Joan scream from
behind the house, not in terror, or pain, as her keen mother-ear knew
perfectly well, but with a wild delight. She whipped about the corner of
the house and there she saw Joan with her pudgy arms around the neck of
Black Bart.
"Bart! Dear old Bart! Has he come? Has he come?"
And she strained her eyes against the familiar mountains around her as if
she would force her vision through rock.
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