"That's him," nodded the woman. "He's always goin' about whistling to
himself. Kind of a nut, he is."
"It's him!" cried Buck Daniels. "It's him!"
And with this ungrammatical burst of joy he bolted from the room.
CHAPTER XIII
THE THREE
The whistling came from behind the hotel, and although it ended as soon
as he reached the veranda of the building, Buck Daniels hurried to the
rear of the place. There were the long, low sheds of the barn, and
behind these, he knew, must be the corrals. He raced around the corner
of the shed and there came to a halt, for he saw a thing that turned his
blood to ice.
One of those rare rains of the mountain-desert had recently fallen and
the corrals behind the barn were carpeted with a short, thick grass. In
the small corral nearest him he beheld, rolling on that carpet of grass,
a great wolf--or a dog as large and as rough-coated as a wolf, and a
man; and they were engaged in a desperate and silent struggle for
mastery. Their movements were so lightning fast that Buck Daniels could
not make out distinct forms from the tangle. But he saw the great white
teeth of the wolf flash in the sun one instant, and the next the man had
whirled on top. It was Dan and Bart at play.
No outcry from Dan; no growl from the wolf. Buck felt the old chill
which never left him when he saw the fierce game of the wolf and the
wolf-man. All this passed in the twinkling of an eye, and then Dan, by a
prodigious effort, had thrown the great beast away from him, so that
Bart fell upon its back.
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