"He left you here alone?" she murmured.
The child looked at her with a sort of curious amazement.
"Joan isn't alone."
She whistled softly, and around the corner of the rock peered two tiny,
beady-bright eyes, and the sharp nose of a coyote puppy. It disappeared at
once at the sight of the stranger, and now all the strength went from Kate.
She slipped helplessly down, and sat on a boulder trying to think, trying
to master the panic which chilled her; for she thought of the day when
Whistling Dan brought home to the Cumberland Ranch the wounded wolf-dog,
Black Bart. But the call of Joan had traveled far, and now a squirrel came
in at a gallop with his vast tail bobbing behind him, and ran right up the
rock until he was on the shoulder of the child. From this point of vantage,
however, he saw Kate, and was instantly on the floor of the cave and
scurrying for the entrance, chattering with rage.
The wild things came to Joan as they came to her father, and the eyes of
the child were the eyes of Dan Barry. It came home to Kate and she saw the
truth for the first time in her life.
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