"He received no answer. In the meantime he gave Dan a room in the house;
and I remember how Dan sat at the table the first night--I was a very
little girl then--and how I laughed at his strange way of eating. His
knife was the only thing he was interested in and he made it serve for
knife, fork, and spoon, and he held the meat in his fingers while he cut
it. The next morning he was missing. One of Dad's range riders picked up
Dan several miles to the north, walking along, whistling gayly. The next
morning he was missing again and was caught still farther away. After
that Dad had a terrible scene with him--I don't know exactly what
happened--but Dan promised to run away no more, and ever since then Dad
has been closer to Dan than anyone else.
"So Dan grew up. From the time I could first distinctly remember, he was
very gentle and good-natured, but he was different, always. After a
while he got Black Bart, you know, and then he went out with a halter
and captured Satan. Think of capturing a wild mustang with nothing but a
halter! He played around with them so much that I was jealous of them.
So I kept with them until Bart and Satan were rather used to me. Bart
would even play with me now and then when Dan wasn't near. And so
finally Dan and I were to be married.
"Dad didn't like the idea. He was afraid of what Dan might become. And
he was right. One day, in a saloon that used to stand on that hill over
there, Dan had a fight--his first fight--with a man who had struck him
across the mouth for no good reason.
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