hat mountain region to produce, big,
gaunt, hard-muscled. They had gone unshaven for so long that their faces
were clothed not with an unsightly stubble but with strong, short beard
that gave them a certain grim dignity and made their eyes seem sunken.
They were opposite types, which is usually the case when two men strike
out together. Buck Daniels was black-haired, with an ugly, shrewd face
and a suggestion of rather dangerous possibilities of swift action; but
Lee Haines was a great bulk of a man, with tawny beard, handsome, in a
leonine fashion, more poised than Daniels, fitted to crush. The sharp
glance of Buck flitted here and there, in ten seconds he knew everything
in the room; the steady blue eye of Lee Haines went leisurely from place
to place and lingered; but both of them stared at Kate as if they could
not have enough of her. They talked without pause while they ate. A
stranger in the room would have sealed their lips in utter taciturnity,
but here they sat with a friend, five months of loneliness and labor
behind them, and they gossiped like girls.

Into the jangle of talk cut a thin, small voice from outside, a burst of
laughter. Then: "Bart, you silly dog!" and Joan stood at the open door
with her hand buried in the mane of the wolf-dog. The fork of Buck
Daniels stopped halfway to his lips and Lee Haines straightened until
the chair groaned.

They spoke together, hushed voices: "Kate!"

"Come here, Joan!" Her face glistened with pride, and Joan came forward
with wide eyes, tugging Black Bart along in a reluctant progress.

"It ain't possible!" whispered Buck Daniels. "Honey, come here and shake
hands with your Uncle Buck." The gesture called forth deep throated
warning from Bart, and he caught back his hand with a start.

"It's always that way," said Kate, half amused, half vexed; "Bart won't
let a soul touch her when Dan isn't home. Good old Bart, go away, you
foolish dog! Don't you see these are friends?"

He cringed a little under the shadow of the hand which waved him off but
his only answer was a silent baring of the teeth.

"You see how it is. I'm almost afraid to touch her myself when Dan's
away; she and Bart bully me all day long."

In the meantime the glance of Joan had cloyed itself with sufficient
examination of the strangers, and now she turned back towards the door
and the meadow beyond.

"Bart!" she called softly. The sharp ears of the dog quivered; he came
to attention with a sta