"He's clear of Joan now, Kate," whispered Buck. "Let me shoot!"
"No, no! Don't even look at him."
Then, with a scratching of sudden claws, Bart whirled at the door and was
gone like a bolt down the hall. Afterwards for a time there was no sound in
the room except the murmurings of Joan to her puppy, and then they heard
that most mournful of sounds on the mountain-desert, the long howl of a
wolf which has missed its kill, and hunts hungry on a new trail.
Chapter XL. The Failure
When Black Bart returned without Joan, without even a note of answer about
his neck, the master made ready to take by force. First he went over his
new outfit of saddle and guns, looking to every strap of the former, and
the latter, revolvers and rifle, he weighed and balanced with a meditative
look, as if he were memorizing their qualities against a time of need. With
Satan saddled and Bart on guard at the mouth of the cave, he gathered up
all the accumulation of odds and ends, provisions, skins, and made a
stirring bonfire in the middle of the gravel floor.
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