Page:Max Brand--The Seventh Man.djvu/331

Rh Daddy Dan that Joan has to stay here a while. Munner, how long?”

“Maybe a week, dear.”

“A whole week?” she cried, dismayed.

“Perhaps only one or two or three days,” said Kate.

Some of her tenseness was leaving as she saw victory once more inclining to her standards.

“One, two, five days,” counted Joan, “and then come for me again. Tell Daddy Dan that, Bart.”

His eyes left her and wandered around the room, lingering for a vicious instant on the face of each, then he backed toward the door.

“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.