Essential Novelists - Max Brand. Max Brand
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from the cabin, yet they had a good half hour's labor between that greeting and the moment they came out on the level before Kate. From the instant they called she remained in motionless, deep thought, and when they came now into full view, she cried out joyously: “Buck, oh Buck!” and ran towards them. Even the burros stopped and the men stood statue-like; it is rarely enough that one finds a human being in those mountains, almost an act of Providence that lead to a house, and a miracle when the trail crosses the path of a friend. The prospectors came out of their daze with a shout and rushed to meet her. Each of them had her by a hand, wringing it; they talked all together in a storm of words.
“Kate, I'm dreamin'!—Dear old Buck!—Have you forgotten me?—Lee Haines! I should say not.—Don't pay any attention to him. Five years. And I've been hungerin' to see you all that—.—Where have you been?—Everywhere! but this is the best thing I've seen.—Come in.—Wait till we get these packs off the poor little devils.—Oh, I'm so glad to see you; so glad!—Hurry up, Lee. Your fingers asleep?—How long have you been out?—Five months.—Then you're hungry.—We've just ate.—But a piece of pie?—pie? I've been dreamin' of pie!”
A fire already burned in the big living-room of the cabin, for at this season, at such an altitude, the shadows were always cold, and around the fire they gathered, each of the men with half a huge pie before him. They were such as one might expect that mountain region to produce, big, gaunt, hard-muscled. They had gone unshaven for so long that their faces were clothed not with an unsightly stubble but with strong, short beard that gave them a certain grim dignity and made their eyes seem sunken. They were opposite types, which is usually the case when two men strike out together. Buck Daniels was black-haired, with an ugly, shrewd face and a suggestion of rather dangerous possibilities of swift action; but Lee Haines was a great bulk of a man, with tawny beard, handsome, in a leonine fashion, more poised than Daniels, fitted to crush. The sharp glance of Buck flitted here and there, in ten seconds he knew everything in the room; the steady blue eye of Lee Haines went leisurely from place to place and lingered; but both of them stared at Kate as if they could not have enough of her. They talked without pause while they ate. A stranger in the room would have sealed their lips in utter taciturnity, but here they sat with a friend, five months of loneliness and labor behind them, and they gossiped like girls.
Into the jangle of talk cut a thin, small voice from outside, a burst of laughter. Then: “Bart, you silly dog!” and Joan stood at the open door with her hand buried in the mane of the wolf-dog. The fork of Buck Daniels stopped halfway to his lips and Lee Haines straightened until the chair groaned.
They spoke together, hushed voices: “Kate!”
“Come here, Joan!” Her face glistened with pride, and Joan came forward with wide eyes, tugging Black Bart along in a reluctant progress.
“It ain't possible!” whispered Buck Daniels. “Honey, come here and shake hands with your Uncle Buck.” The gesture called forth deep throated warning from Bart, and he caught back his hand with a start.
“It's always that way,” said Kate, half amused, half vexed; “Bart won't let a soul touch her when Dan isn't home. Good old Bart, go away, you foolish dog! Don't you see these are friends?”
He cringed a little under the shadow of the hand which waved him off but his only answer was a silent baring of the teeth.
“You see how it is. I'm almost afraid to touch her myself when Dan's away; she and Bart bully me all day long.”
In the meantime the glance of Joan had cloyed itself with sufficient examination of the strangers, and now she turned back towards the door and the meadow beyond.
“Bart!” she called softly. The sharp ears of the dog quivered; he came to attention with a start. “Look! Get it for me!”
One loud scraping of his claws on the floor as he started, and Black Bart went like a bolt through the door with Joan scrambling after him, screaming with excitement; from the outside, they heard the cry of a frightened squirrel, and then its angry chattering from a place of safety up a tree.
“Shall I call her back again?” asked Kate.
“Not if Bart comes with her,” answered Lee Haines. “I've seen enough of him to last me a while.”
“Well, we'll have her to ourselves when Dan comes; of course Bart leaves her to tag around after Dan.”
“When is he comin' back?” asked Buck, with polite interest.
“Anytime. I don't know. But he's always here before it's completely dark.”
The glance of Buck Daniels kicked over to Lee Haines, exchanged meanings with him, and came back to Kate.
“Terrible sorry,” he said, “but I s'pose we'll have to be on our way before it's plumb dark.”
“Go so soon as that? Why, I won't let you.”
“I—” began Haines, fumbling for words.
“We got to get down in the valley before it's dark,” filled in Buck.
Suddenly she laughed, frankly, happily.
“I know what you mean, but Dan is changed; he isn't the same man he used to be.”
“Yes?” queried Buck, without conviction.
“You'll have to see him to believe; Buck, he doesn't even whistle any more.”
“What?”
“Only goes about singing, now.”
The two men exchanged glances of such astonishment that Kate could not help but notice and flush a little.
“Well,” murmured Buck, “Bart doesn't seem to have changed much from the old days.”
She laughed slowly, letting her mind run back through such happiness as they could not understand and when she looked up she seemed to debate whether or not it would be worth while to let them in on the delightful secret. The moment she dwelt on the burning logs they gazed at her and then to each other with utter amazement as if they sat in the same room with the dead come to life. No care of motherhood had marked her face, but on the white, even forehead was a sign of peace; and drifting over her hands and on the white apron across her lap the firelight pooled dim gold, the wealth of contentment.
“If you'd been here today you would have seen how changed he is. We had a man with us whom Dan had taken while he was running from a posse, wounded, and kept him here until he was well, and—”
“That's Dan,” murmured Lee Haines. “He's gold all through when a man's in trouble.”
“Shut up, Lee,” cut in Buck. He sat forward in his chair, drinking up her story.
“Go on.”
“This morning we saw the same posse skirting through the valley and knew that they were on the old trail. Dan sent Gregg over the hills and rode Vic's horse down so that the posse would mistake him, and he could lead them out of the way. I was afraid, terribly, I was afraid that if the posse got close and began shooting Dan would—”
She stopped; her eyes begged them to understand.
“Go on,” said Lee Haines, shuddering slightly. “I know what you mean.”
“But I watched him ride down the slope,” she cried joyously, “and I saw the posse close on him—almost on top of him when he reached the valley. I saw the flash of their guns. I saw them shoot. I wasn't afraid that Dan would be hurt, for he seems to wear a charm against bullets—I wasn't much afraid of that, but I dreaded to see him turn and go back through that posse like a storm. But—” she caught both hands to her breast and her bright face tilted up—“even when the bullets must have been whistling around him he didn't look back. He rode straight on and on, out of view, and I knew”—her voice broke with emotion—“oh, Buck, I knew that he had won, and I had won; that he was safe forever; that there was no danger of him ever slipping back into that terrible other self; I knew that