Only one other
hand had ever touched that formidable head in such a manner! The teeth
no longer showed; the keen, suspicious eyes grew dim with pleasure; the
snarl sank to murmur and then died out.
"Bart!" commanded the girl, sharply.
The head jerked up, but the questing eyes did not look at her. He
glanced over his shoulder to find the danger that had made her voice so
hard. And she yearned to take the fierce head in her arms; there were
tears she could have wept over it. He was snarling again, prepared
already to battle, and for her sake.
"Bart!" she repeated, more gently. "Lie down!"
He turned his head slowly back to her and looked with the unspeakable
wistfulness of the dumb brutes into her eyes. But there was only one
voice in which Bart could speak, and that was the harsh, rattling snarl
which would have made a mountain-lion check itself mid-leap and slink
back to its lair. In such a voice he answered Kate, and then sank down,
gradually. And he lay still.
So simply, and yet so mysteriously, she was admitted to the partnership.
But though one member of that swift, grim trio had accepted her, did it
mean that the other two would take her in?
A weight sank on her feet and when she looked down she saw that Black
Bart had lowered his head upon them, and so he lay there with his eyes
closed, dreaming in the sun.
CHAPTER XXVIII
THE TRAIL
Bandages and antiseptics and constant care, by themselves could not have
healed Black Bart so swiftly, but nature took a strong hand.
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