"Out of this quick!" commanded Mac Strann, and they started hastily down
the barn towards the door. The fire behind them, after the puff of flame
from the hay, had died away to a ghastly and irregular glow with the
crackle of the slowly catching wood. It gave small light to guide them;
only enough, indeed, to deceive the eye. The posts of the stalls grew
into vast, shadowy images; the irregularities of the floor became high
places and pits alternately. But when they were half way to the door
Haw-Haw Langley saw a form too grim to be a shadow, blocking their path.
It was merely a blacker shape among the shades, but Haw-Haw was aware of
the two shining eyes, and stopped short in his tracks.
"The wolf!" he whispered to Mac Strann. "Mac, what're we goin' to do?"
The other had not time to answer, for the shadow at the door of the
barn now leaped towards them, silently, without growl or yelp or snarl.
As if to guide the battle, the kindling wood behind them now ignited and
sent up a yellow burst of light. By it Haw-Haw Langley saw the great
beast clearly, and he leaped back behind the sheltering form of Mac
Strann. As for Mac, he did not move or flinch from the attack. His
revolver was in his hand, levelled, and following the swift course of
Black Bart.
CHAPTER XXII
PATIENCE
There is one patience greater than the endurance of the cat at the hole
of the mouse or the wolf which waits for the moose to drop, and that is
the patience of the thinking man; the measure of the Hindoo's moveless
contemplation of Nirvana is not in hours but in weeks or even in months.
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