In the ranch house old Joseph Cumberland frowned on the floor as
he heard his daughter say: "It isn't right, Dad. I never noticed it
before I went away to school, but since I've come back I begin to
feel that it's shameful to treat Dan in this way."
Her eyes brightened and she shook her golden head for emphasis.
Her father watched her with a faintly quizzical smile and made no
reply. The dignity of ownership of many thousand cattle kept the
old rancher's shoulders square, and there was an antique gentility
about his thin face with its white goatee. He was more like a
quaint figure of the seventeenth century than a successful
cattleman of the twentieth.
"It is shameful, Dad," she went on, encouraged by his
silence, "or you could tell me some reason."
"Some reason for not letting him have a gun?" asked the rancher,
still with the quizzical smile.
"Yes, yes!" she said eagerly, "and some reason for treating him
in a thousand ways as if he were an irresponsible boy."
"Why, Kate, gal, you have tears in your eyes!"
He drew her onto a stool beside him, holding both her hands, and
searched her face with eyes as blue and almost as bright as her
own. "How does it come that you're so interested in Dan?"
"Why, Dad, dear," and she avoided his gaze, "I've always been
interested in him. Haven't we grown up together?"
"Part ways you have."
"And haven't we been always just like brother and sister?"
"You're talkin' a little more'n sisterly, Kate."
"What do you mean?"
"Ay, ay! What do I mean! And now you're all red. Kate, I got an
idea it's nigh onto time to let Dan start on his way."
He could not have found a surer way to drive the crimson from
her face and turn it white to the lips.
"Dad!"
"Well, Kate?"
"You wouldn't send Dan away!"
Before he could answer she dropped her head against his shoulder
and broke into great sobs. He stroked her head with his calloused,
sunburned hand and his eyes filmed with a distant gaze.
"I might have knowed it!" he said over and over again; "I might
have knowed it! Hush, my silly gal."
Her sobbing ceased with magic suddenness.
"Then you won't send him away?"
"Listen to me while I talk to you straight," said Joe
Cumberland, "and accordin' to the way you take it will depend
whether Dan goes or stays. Will you listen?"
"Dear Dad, with all my heart!"
"Humph!" he grunted, "that's just what I don't want. This what
I'm goin' to tell you is a queer thing—a mighty lot like a fairy
tale, maybe. I've kept it back from you years an' years thinkin'
you'd find out the truth about Dan for yourself. But bein' so close
to him has made you sort of blind, maybe! No man will criticize his
own hoss."
"Go on, tell me what you mean. I won't interrupt."
He was silent for a moment, frowning to gather his thoughts.
"Have you ever seen a mule, Kate?"
"Of course!"
"Maybe you've noticed that a mule is just as strong as a
horse—"
"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 because 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!" she said.
Old Cumberland sighed and then shook his head.
"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; "maybe that's
because Dan is kind of fond of you, gal, an' he has sort of
introduced you to his pets, damn 'em! That's just the pint! How is
he able to make his man-killers act sweet with you an' play the
devil with everybody else."
"It wasn't Dan at all!" she said stoutly, "and he isn't
queer. Satan and Black Bart let me do what I want with them because
they know I love them for their beauty and their strength."
"Let it go at that," growled her father. "Kate, you're jest like
your mother when it comes to arguin'. If you wasn't my little gal
I'd say you was plain pig-headed. But look here, ain't you ever
felt that Dan is what I call him—different? Ain't you ever seen him
get mad—jest for a minute—an' watched them big brown eyes of his
get all packed full of yellow light that chases a chill up and down
your back like a wrigglin' snake?"
She considered this statement in a little silence.
"I saw him kill a rattler once," she said in a low voice. "Dan
caught him behind the head after he had struck. He did it with his
bare hand! I almost fainted. When I looked again he had cut off the
head of the snake. It was—it was terrible!"
She turned to her father and caught him firmly by the
shoulders.
"Look me straight in the eye, Dad, and tell me just what you
mean."
"Why, Kate," said the wise old man, "you're beginnin' to see for
yourself what I'm drivin' at! Haven't you got somethin' else right
on the tip of your tongue?"
"There was one day that I've never told you about," she said in
a low voice, looking away, "because I was afraid that if I told
you, you'd shoot Black Bart. He was gnawing a big beef bone and
just for fun I tried to take it away from him. He'd been out on a
long trail with Dan and he was very hungry. When I put my hand on
the bone he snapped. Luckily I had a thick glove on and he merely
pinched my wrist. Also I think he realized what he was doing for
otherwise he'd have cut through the glove as if it had been paper.
He snarled fearfully and I sprang back with a cry. Dan hadn't seen
what happened, but he heard the snarl and saw Black Bart's bared
teeth. Then—oh, it was terrible!"
She covered her face.
"Take your time, Kate," said Cumberland softly.
"'Bart,' called Dan," she went on, "and there was such anger in
his face that I think I was more afraid of him than of the big
dog.
"Bart turned to him with a snarl and bared his teeth. When Dan
saw that his face turned—I don't know how to say it!"
She stopped a moment and her hands tightened.
"Back in his throat there came a sound that was almost like the
snarl of Black Bart. The wolf-dog watched him with a terror that
was uncanny to see, the hair around his neck fairly on end, his
teeth still bared, and his growl horrible.
"'Dan!' I called, 'don't go near him!'
"I might as well have called out to a whirlwind. He leaped.
Black Bart sprang to meet him with eyes green with fear. I heard
the loud click of his teeth as he snapped—and missed. Dan swerved
to one side and caught Black Bart by the throat and drove him into
the dust, falling with him.
"I couldn't move. I was weak with horror. It wasn't a struggle
between a man and a beast. It was like a fight between a panther
and a wolf. Black Bart was fighting hard but fighting hopelessly.
Those hands were settling tighter on his throat. His big red tongue
lolled out; his struggles almost ceased. Then Dan happened to
glance at me. What he saw in my face sobered him. He got up,
lifting the dog with him, and flung away the lifeless weight of
Bart. He began to brush the dust from his clothes, looking down as
if he were ashamed. He asked me if the dog had hurt me when he
snapped. I could not speak for a moment. Then came the most
horrible part. Black Bart, who must have been nearly killed,
dragged himself to Dan on his belly, choking and whining, and
licked the boots of his master!"
"Then you do know what I mean when I say Dan
is—different?"
She hesitated and blinked, as if she were shutting her eyes on a
fact. "I don't know. I know that he's gentle and kind and
loves you more than you love him." Her voice broke a little. "Oh,
Dad, you forget the time he sat up with you for five days and
nights when you got sick out in the hills, and how he barely
managed to get you back to the house alive!"
The old man frowned to conceal how greatly he was moved.
"I haven't forgot nothin', Kate," he said, "an' everything is
for his own good. Do you know what I've been tryin' to do all these
years?"
"What?"
"I've been tryin' to hide him from himself! Kate, do you
remember how I found him?"
"I was too little to know. I've heard you tell a little about
it. He was lost on the range. You found him twenty miles south of
the house."
"Lost on the range?" repeated her father softly. "I don't think
he could ever have been lost. To a hoss the corral is a home. To us
our ranch is a home. To Dan Barry the whole mountain-desert is a
home! This is how I found him. It was in the spring of the year
when the wild geese was honkin' as they flew north. I was ridin'
down a gulley about sunset and wishin' that I was closer to the
ranch when I heard a funny, wild sort of whistlin' that didn't have
any tune to it that I recognized. It gave me a queer feelin'. It
made me think of fairy stories—an' things like that! Pretty soon I
seen a figure on the crest of the hill. There was a triangle of
geese away up overhead an' the boy was walkin' along lookin' up as
if he was followin' the trail of the wild geese.
"He was up there walkin' between the sunset an' the stars with
his head bent back, and his hands stuffed into his pockets,
whistlin' as if he was goin' home from school. An' such
whistlin'."
"Nobody could ever whistle like Dan," she said, and smiled.
"I rode up to him, wonderin'," went on Cumberland.
"'What're you doin' round here?' I says.
"Says he, lookin' at me casual like over his shoulder: 'I'm jest
takin' a stroll an' whistlin'. Does it bother you, mister?'
"'It doesn't bother me none,' says I. 'Where do you belong,
sonny?'
"'Me?' says he, lookin' sort of surprised, 'why, I belong around
over there!' An' he waved his hand careless over to the settin'
sun.
"There was somethin' about him that made my heart swell up
inside of me. I looked down into them big brown eyes and
wondered—well, I don't know what I wondered; but I remembered all
at once that I didn't have no son.
"'Who's your folks?' says I, gettin' more an' more curious.
"He jest looked at me sort of bored.
"'Where does your folks live at?' says I.
"'Oh, they live around here,' says he, an' he waved his hand
again, an' this time over towards the east.
"Says I: 'When do you figure on reachin' home?'
"'Oh, most any day,' says he.
"An' I looked around at them brown, naked hills with the night
comin' down over them. Then I stared back at the boy an' there was
something that come up in me like hunger. You see, he was lost; he
was alone; the queer ring of his whistlin' was still in my ears;
an' I couldn't help rememberin' that I didn't have no son.
"'Then supposin' you come along with me,' says I, 'an' I'll send
you home in a buckboard tomorrow?'
"So the end of it was me ridin' home with the little kid sittin'
up before me, whistlin' his heart out! When I got him home I tried
to talk to him again. He couldn't tell me, or he wouldn't tell me
where his folks lived, but jest kept wavin' his hand liberal to
half the points of the compass. An' that's all I know of where he
come from. I done all I could to find his parents. I inquired and
sent letters to every rancher within a hundred miles. I advertised
it through the railroads, but they said nobody'd yet been reported
lost. He was still mine, at least for a while, an' I was terrible
glad.
"I give the kid a spare room. I sat up late that first night
listenin' to the wild geese honkin' away up in the sky an'
wonderin' why I was so happy. Kate, that night there was tears in
my eyes when I thought of how that kid had been out there on the
hills walkin' along so happy an' independent.
"But the next mornin' he was gone. I sent my cowpunchers out to
look for him.
"'Which way shall we ride?' they asked.
"I don't know why, but I thought of the wild geese that Dan had
seemed to be followin'.
"'Ride north,' I said.
"An' sure enough, they rode north an' found him. After that I
didn't have no trouble with him about runnin' away—at least not
durin' the summer. An' all those months I kept plannin' how I would
take care of this boy who had come wanderin' to me. It seemed like
he was sort of a gift of God to make up for me havin' no son. And
everythin' went well until the next fall, when the geese began to
fly south.
"Sure enough, that was when Dan ran away again, and when I sent
my cowpunchers south after him, they found him and brought him
back. It seemed as if they'd brought back half the world to me,
when I seen him. But I saw that I'd have to put a stop to this
runnin' away. I tried to talk to him, but all he'd say was that
he'd better be movin' on. I took the law in my hands an' told him
he had to be disciplined. So I started thrashin' him with a quirt,
very light. He took it as if he didn't feel the whip on his
shoulders, an' he smiled. But there came up a yellow light in his
eyes that made me feel as if a man was standin' right behind me
with a bare knife in his hand an' smilin' jest like the kid was
doin'. Finally I simply backed out of the room, an' since that day
there ain't been man or beast ever has put a hand on Whistlin' Dan.
To this day I reckon he ain't quite forgiven me."
"Why!" she cried, "I have never heard him mention it!"
"That's why I know he's not forgotten it. Anyway, Kate, I locked
him in his room, but he wouldn't promise not to run away. Then I
got an inspiration. You was jest a little toddlin' thing then. That
day you was cryin' an awful lot an' I suddenly thought of puttin'
you in Dan's room. I did it. I jest unlocked the door quick and
then shoved you in an' locked it again. First of all you screamed
terrible hard. I was afraid maybe you'd hurt yourself yellin' that
way. I was about to take you out again when all at once I heard Dan
start whistlin' and pretty quick your cryin' stopped. I listened
an' wondered. After that I never had to lock Dan in his room. I was
sure he'd stay on account of you. But now, honey, I'm gettin' to
the end of the story, an' I'm goin' to give you the straight idea
the way I see it.
"I've watched Dan like—like a father, almost. I think he loves
me, sort of—but I've never got over being afraid of him. You see I
can't forget how he smiled when I licked him! But listen to me,
Kate, that fear has been with me all the time—an' it's the only
time I've ever been afraid of any man. It isn't like being scared
of a man, but of a panther.
"Now we'll jest nacherally add up all the points we've made
about Dan—the queer way I found him without a home an' without
wantin' one—that strength he has that's like the power of a mule
compared with a horse—that funny control he has over wild animals
so that they almost seem to know what he means when he simply looks
at them (have you noticed him with Black Bart and Satan?)—then
there's the yellow light that comes in his eyes when he begins to
get real mad—you an' I have both seen it only once, but we don't
want to see it again! More than this there's the way he handles
either a knife or a gun. He hasn't practiced much with shootin'
irons, but I never seen him miss a reasonable mark—or an
unreasonable one either, for that matter. I've spoke to him about
it. He said: 'I dunno how it is. I don't see how a feller can shoot
crooked. It jest seems that when I get out a gun there's a line
drawn from the barrel to the thing I'm shootin' at. All I have to
do is to pull the trigger—almost with my eyes closed!' Now, Kate,
do you begin to see what these here things point to?"
"Tell me what you see," she said, "and then I'll tell you what I
think of it all."
"All right," he said. "I see in Dan a man who's different from
the common run of us. I read in a book once that in the ages when
men lived like animals an' had no weapons except sticks and stones,
their muscles must have been two or three times as strong as they
are now—more like the muscles of brutes. An' their hearin' an'
their sight an' their quickness an' their endurance was about three
times more than that of ordinary men. Kate, I think that Dan is one
of those men the book described! He knows animals because he has
all the powers that they have. An' I know from the way his eyes go
yellow that he has the fightin' instinct of the ancestors of man.
So far I've kept him away from other men. Which I may say is the
main reason I bought Dan Morgan's place so's to keep fightin' men
away from our Whistlin' Dan. So I've been hidin' him from himself.
You see, he's my boy if he belongs to anybody. Maybe when time goes
on he'll get tame. But I reckon not. It's like takin' a panther
cub—or a wolf pup—an tryin' to raise it for a pet. Some day it gets
the taste of blood, maybe its own blood, an' then it goes mad and
becomes a killer. An' that's what I fear, Kate. So far I've kept
Dan from ever havin' a single fight, but I reckon the day'll come
when someone'll cross him, and then there'll be a tornado turned
loose that'll jest about wreck these parts."
Her anger had grown during this speech. Now she rose.
"I won't believe you, Dad," she said. "I'd sooner trust our Dan
than any man alive. I don't think you're right in a single
word!"
"I was sure loco," sighed Cumberland, "to ever dream of
convincin' a woman. Let it drop, Kate. We're about to get rid of
Morgan's place, an' now I reckon there won't be any temptation near
Dan. We'll see what time'll do for him. Let the thing drop there.
Now I'm goin' over to the Bar XO outfit an' I won't be back till
late tonight. There's only one thing more. I told Morgan there
wasn't to be any gun-play in his place today. If you hear any
shootin' go down there an' remind Morgan to take the guns off'n the
men."
Kate nodded, but her stare travelled far away, and the thing she
saw was the yellow light burning in the eyes of Whistling Dan.