Page:The Untamed.djvu/21

 The Panther 11

"Yes."

"...but their muscles ain't a third as big?"

"Yes, but what on earth..."

"Well, Kate, Dan is built light an' yet he's stronger than the biggest men around here."

"Are you going to send him away simply be cause he's strong?"

"It doesn't show nothin',"said the old man gently, "savin' that he's different from the regular run of men an' I've seen a considerable pile of men, honey. There's other funny things about Dan maybe you ain't noticed. Take the way he has with hosses an' other animals. The wildest man-killin', spur-hatin' bronchos don't put up no fight when them long legs of Dan settle round 'em."

"Because they know fighting won't help them!"

"Maybe so, maybe so," he said quietly, "but it's kind of queer, Kate, that after most a hundred men on the best hosses in these parts had ridden in relays after Satan an' couldn t lay a rope on him, Dan could jest go out on foot with a halter an' come back in ten days leadin' the wildest devil of a mustang that ever hated men."

"It was a glorious thing to do!"

Old Cumberland sighed and then shook his head.