Page:The Untamed.djvu/22

 12 The Untamed

"It shows more'n that, honey. There ain't any man but Dan that can sit the saddle on Satan. If Dan should die, Satan wouldn't be no more use to other men than a piece of haltered lightnin'. An' then tell me how Dan got hold of that wolf, Black Bart, as he calls him."

"It isn't a wolf, Dad," said Kate, "it's a dog. Dan says so himself."

"Sure he says so," answered her father,"but there was a lone wolf prowlin' round these parts for a considerable time an' raisin' Cain with the calves an' the colts. An' Black Bart comes pretty close to a description of the lone wolf. Maybe you remember Dan found his dog lyin' in a gully with a bullet through his shoulder. If he was a dog how d he come to be shot..."

"Some brute of a sheep herder may have done it. What could it prove?"

"It only proves that Dan is queer - powerful queer! Satan an' Black Bart are still as wild as they ever was, except that they got one master. An' they ain't got a thing to do with other people. Black Bart'd tear the heart out of a man that so much as patted his head."

"Why," she cried,"he'll let me do anything with him!"

"Humph!" said Cumberland, a little baffled;