The Untamed (5 page)

"How can you keep such a wild fellow as this without hobbling him?" asked Calder.

"He ain't wild," said Dan.

"Why, he won't let me put a hand on him."

"Yes, he will. Steady, Satan!"

The stallion stood motionless with the veritable fires of hell in his eyes as Calder approached. The latter stopped.

"Not for me," he said. "I'd rather rub the moustache of the lion in the zoo than touch that black devil!"

Bart at that moment led in the cowpony and Calder started to remove the saddle. He had scarcely done so and hobbled his horse when he was startled by a tremendous snarling and snorting. He turned to see the stallion plunging hither and thither, striking with his fore-hooves, while around him, darting in and out under the driving feet, sprang the great black wolf, his teeth clashing like steel on steel. In another moment they might sink in the throat of the horse! Calder, with an exclamation of horror, whipped out his revolver, but checked himself at the very instant of firing. The master of the two animals stood with arms folded, actually smiling upon the fight!

"For God's sake!" cried the marshal. "Shoot the damned wolf, man, or he'll have your horse by the throat!"

"Leave 'em be," said Dan, without turning his head. "Satan an' Black Bart ain't got any other dogs an' hosses to run around with. They's jest playing a little by way of exercise."

Calder stood agape before what seemed the incarnate fury of the pair. Then he noticed that those snapping fangs, however close they came, always missed the flesh of the stallion, and the driving hoofs never actually endangered the leaping wolf.

"Stop 'em!" he cried at last. "It makes me nervous to watch that sort of play. It isn't natural!"

"All right," said Dan. "Stop it, boys."

He had not raised his voice, but they ceased their wild gambols instantly, the stallion, with head thrown high and arched tail and heaving sides, while the wolf, with lolling red tongue, strolled calmly towards his master.

The latter paid no further attention to them, but set about kindling a small fire over which to cook supper. Calder joined him. The marshal's mind was too full for speech, but now and again he turned a long glance of wonder upon the stallion or Black Bart. In the same silence they sat under the last light of the sunset and ate their supper. Calder, with head bent, pondered over the man of mystery and his two tamed animals. Tamed? Not one of the three was tamed, the man least of all.

He saw Dan pause from his eating to stare with wide, vacant eyes among the trees. The wolf-dog approached, looked up in his master's face, whined softly, and getting no response went back to his place and lay down, his eyes never moving from Dan. Still he stared among the trees. The gloom deepened, and he smiled faintly. He began to whistle, a low, melancholy strain so soft that it blended with the growing hush of the night. Calder listened, wholly overawed. That weird music seemed an interpretation of the vast spaces of the mountains, of the pitiless desert, of the limitless silences, and the whistler was an understanding part of the whole.

He became aware of a black shadow behind the musician. It was Satan, who rested his nose on the shoulder of the master. Without ceasing his whistling Dan raised a hand, touched the small muzzle, and Satan went at once to a side of the clearing and lay down. It was almost as if the two had said good-night! Calder could stand it no longer.

"Dan, I've got to talk to you," he began.

The whistling ceased; the wide brown eyes turned to him.

"Fire away-partner."

Ay, they had eaten together by the same fire-they had watched the coming of the night-they had shaken hands in friendship-they were partners. He knew deep in his heart that no human being could ever be the actual comrade of this man. This lord of the voiceless desert needed no human companionship; yet as the marshal glanced from the black shadow of Satan to the gleaming eyes of Bart, and then to the visionary face of Barry, he felt that he had been admitted by Whistling Dan into the mysterious company. The thought stirred him deeply. It was as if he had made an alliance with the wandering wind. Why he had been accepted he could not dream, but he had heard the word "partner" and he knew it was meant. After all, stranger things than this happen in the mountain-desert, where man is greater and convention less. A single word has been known to estrange lifelong comrades; a single evening beside a camp-fire has changed foes to partners. Calder drew his mind back to business with a great effort.

"There's one thing you don't know about Jim Silent. A reward of ten thousand dollars lies on his head. The notices aren't posted yet."

Whistling Dan shrugged his shoulders.

"I ain't after money," he answered.

Calder frowned. He did not appreciate a bluff.

"Look here," he said, "if we kill him, because no power on earth will take him alive-we'll split the money."

"If you lay a hand on him," said Dan, without emotion, "we won't be friends no longer, I figger."

Calder stared.

"If you don't want to get him," he said, "why in God's name are you trailing him this way?"

Dan touched his lips. "He hit me with his fist."

He paused, and spoke again with a drawling voice that gave his words an uncanny effect.

"My blood went down from my mouth to my chin. I tasted it. Till I get him there ain't no way of me forgettin' him."

His eyes lighted with that ominous gleam.

"That's why no other man c'n put a hand on him. He's laid out all for me. Understand?"

The ring of the question echoed for a moment through Calder's mind.

"I certainly do," he said with profound conviction, "and I'll never forget it." He decided on a change of tactics. "But there are other men with Jim Silent and those men will fight to keep you from getting to him."

"I'm sorry for 'em," said Dan gently. "I ain't got nothin' agin any one except the big man."

Calder took a long breath.

"Don't you see," he explained carefully, "if you shoot one of these men you are simply a murderer who must be apprehended by the law and punished."

"It makes it bad for me, doesn't it?" said Dan. "An' I hope I won't have to hurt more'n one or two of 'em. You see,"-he leaned forward seriously towards Calder-"I'd only shoot for their arms or their legs. I wouldn't spoil them altogether."

Calder threw up his hands in despair. Black Bart snarled at the gesture.

"I can't listen no more," said Dan. "I got to start explorin' the willows pretty soon."

"In the dark?" exclaimed Calder.

"Sure. Black Bart'll go with me. The dark don't bother him."

"I'll go along."

"I'd rather be alone. I might meet him."

"Any way you want," said Calder, "but first hear my plan-it doesn't take long to tell it."

The darkness thickened around them while he talked. The fire died out-the night swallowed up their figures.

* * *

Haines muttered at Kate's ear: "This is the man. Now keep up your courage."

"He doesn't like this," went on Haines in the same muffled voice, "but when he understands just why you're here I think he'll be as glad as any of us."

Silent beckoned to him and he went to the chief.

"What about the girl?" asked the big fellow curtly.

"Didn't Rhinehart tell you?"

"Rhinehart's a fool and so are the rest of them. Have you gone loco too, Haines, to let a girl come here?"

"Where's the harm?"

"Why, damn it, she's marked every man here."

"I let her in because she is trying to get hold of Whistling Dan."

"Which no fool girl c'n take that feller off the trail. Nothin' but lead can do that."

"I tell you," said Haines, "the boy's in love with her. I watched them at Morgan's place. She can twist him around her finger."

A faint light broke the gloom of Silent's face.

"Yaller hair an' blue eyes. They c'n do a lot. Maybe you're right. What's that?" His voice had gone suddenly husky.

A russet moon pushed slowly up through the trees. Its uncertain light fell across the clearing. For the first time the thick pale smoke of the fire was visible, rising straight up until it cleared the tops of the willows, and then caught into swift, jagging lines as the soft wind struck it. A coyote wailed from the distant hills, and before his complaint was done another sound came through the hushing of the willows, a melancholy whistling, thin with distance.

"We'll see if that's the man you want," suggested Haines.

"I'll go along," said Shorty Rhinehart.

"And me too," said a third. The whole group would have accompanied them, but the heavy voice of Jim Silent cut in: "You'll stay here, all of you except the girl and Lee."

They turned back, muttering, and Kate followed Haines into the willows.

"Well?" growled Bill Kilduff.

"What I want to know-" broke in Terry Jordan.

"Go to hell with your questions," said Silent, "but until you go there you'll do what I say, understand?"

"Look here, Jim," said Hal Purvis, "are you a king an' we jest your slaves, maybe?"

"You're goin' it a pile too hard," said Shorty Rhinehart.

Every one of these speeches came sharply out while they glared at Jim Silent. Hands were beginning to fall to the hip and fingers were curving stiffly as if for the draw. Silent leaned his broad shoulders against the side of his roan and folded his arms. His eyes went round the circle slowly, lingering an instant on each face. Under that cold stare they grew uneasy. To Shorty Rhinehart it became necessary to push back his hat and scratch his forehead. Terry Jordan found a mysterious business with his bandana. Every one of them had occasion to raise his hand from the neighbourhood of his six-shooter. Silent smiled.

"A fine, hard crew you are," he said sarcastically at last. "A great bunch of long riders, lettin' a slip of a yaller-haired girl make fools of you. You over there-you, Shorty Rhinehart, you'd cut the throat of a man that looked crosswise at the Cumberland girl, wouldn't you? An' you, Purvis, you're aching to get at me, ain't you? An' you're still thinkin' of them blue eyes, Jordan?"

Before any one could speak he poured in another volley between wind and water: "One slip of a girl can make fools out of five long riders? No, you ain't long riders. All you c'n handle is hobby hosses!"

"What do you want us to do?" growled swarthy Bill Kilduff.

"Keep your face shut while I'm talkin', that's what I want you to do!"

There was a devil of rage in his eyes. His folded arms tugged at each other, and if they got free there would be gun play. The four men shrank, and he was satisfied.

"Now I'll tell you what we're goin' to do," he went on. "We're goin' out after Haines an' the girl. If they come up with this Whistlin' Dan we're goin' to surround him an' fill him full of lead, while they're talkin'."

"Not for a million dollars!" burst in Hal Purvis.

"Not in a thousan' years!" echoed Terry Jordan.

Silent turned his watchful eyes from one to the other. They were ready to fight now, and he sensed it at once.

"Why?" he asked calmly.

"It ain't playin' square with the girl," announced Rhinehart.

"Purvis," said Silent, for he knew that the opposition centred in the figure of the venomous little gun fighter; "if you seen a mad dog that was runnin' straight at you, would you be kep' from shootin' it because a pretty girl hollered out an' asked you not to?"

Their eyes shifted rapidly from one to another, seeking a way out, and finding none.

"An' is there any difference between this hero Whistlin' Dan an' a mad dog?"

Still they were mute.

"I tell you, boys, we got a better chance of dodgin' lightnin' an' puttin' a bloodhound off our trail than we have of gettin' rid of this Whistlin' Dan. An' when he catches up with us-well, all I'm askin' is that you remember what he done to them four dollars before they hit the dust?"

"The chief's right," growled Kilduff, staring down at the ground. "It's Whistlin' Dan or us. The mountains ain't big enough to hold him an' us!"

* * * * *

Before Whistling Dan the great wolf glided among the trees. For a full hour they had wandered through the willows in this manner, and Dan had made up his mind to surrender the search when Bart, returning from one of his noiseless detours, sprang out before his master and whined softly. Dan turned, loosening his revolver in the holster, and followed Bart through the soft gloom of the tree shadows and the moonlight. His step was almost as silent as that of the slinking animal which went before. At last the wolf stopped and raised his head. Almost instantly Dan saw a man and a woman approaching through the willows. The moonlight dropped across her face. He recognized Kate, with Lee Haines walking a pace before her.

"Stand where you are," he said.

Haines leaped to one side, his revolver flashing in his hand. Dan stepped out before them while Black Bart slunk close beside him, snarling softly.

He seemed totally regardless of the gun in Haines's hand. His manner was that of a conqueror who had the outlaw at his mercy.