"To the rest of us," she murmured, "Dan has nothing but silence, and
hardly a glance. Buck saved his life to-night, and yet Dan remembered
nothing except the blow which had been struck. And now--now he pours out
all the music in his soul for a dumb beast. Listen!"
He saw her straighten herself and stand taller.
"Then through the wolf--I'll conquer through the dumb beast!"
She whipped past Byrne and disappeared into the house; at the same
instant the whistling, in the midst of a faint, high climax, broke,
shivered, and was ended. There was only the darkness and the silence
around Byrne, and the unsteady wind against his face.
CHAPTER XXV
WERE-WOLF
Doctor Byrne, pacing the front veranda with his thoughtful head bowed,
saw Buck Daniels step out with his quirt dangling in his hand, his
cartridge belt buckled about his waist, and a great red silk bandana
knotted at his throat.
He was older by ten years than he had been a few days before, when the
doctor first saw him. To be sure, his appearance was not improved by a
three days' growth of beard. It gave his naturally dark skin a dirty
cast, but even that rough stubble could not completely shroud the new
hollows in Daniels' cheeks. His long, black, uncombed hair, sagged down
raggedly across his forehead, hanging almost into his eyes; the eyes
themselves were sunk in such formidable cavities that Byrne caught
hardly more than two points of light in the shadows.
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