Page:Max Brand--The Seventh Man.djvu/214

200 through the power of quiet courage and the human eye. She determined to try again.

“Stand there quietly, Joan. Don't move until I tell you.”

She made a firm step towards Bart.

“Munner, he'll bite!”

“Hush, Joan. Don't speak!”

At her forward movement the wolf-dog flattened his belly to the rock, and she saw his forepaws, large, almost, as the hands of a man, dig and work for a purchase from which he could throw himself at her throat.

“Steady, Bart!”

His silence was more terrible than a snarl; yet she stretched out her hand and made another step. It brought a sharp tensing of the body of Bart—the fur stood up about his throat like the mane of a lion, and his eyes were a devilish green. Another instant she kept her place, and then she remembered the story of Haines—how Bart had gone with his master to that killing at Alder. If he had killed once, he would kill again; wild as he had been on that other time when she quelled him, he had never before been like this. The courage melted out of her; she forgot the pleasant day outside; she saw only those blazing eyes and shrank back towards the center of the cave. The muscles of the wolf relaxed visibly, and not till that moment did she realize how close she had been to the crisis.

“Bad Bart!” cried Joan, running in between. “Bad, bad dog!”