e.

Some of her tenseness was leaving as she saw victory once more inclining
to her standards.

"One, two, five days," counted Joan, "and then come for me again. Tell
Daddy Dan that, Bart."

His eyes left her and wandered around the room, lingering for a vicious
instant on the face of each, then he backed toward the door.

"He's clear of Joan now, Kate," whispered Buck. "Let me shoot!"

"No, no! Don't even look at him."

Then, with a scratching of sudden claws, Bart whirled at the door and
was gone like a bolt down the hall. Afterwards for a time there was no
sound in the room except the murmurings of Joan to her puppy, and then
they heard that most mournful of sounds on the mountain-desert, the
long howl of a wolf which has missed its kill, and hunts hungry on a new
trail.

Chapter XL. The Failure

When Black Bart returned without Joan, without even a note of answer
about his neck, the master made ready to take by force. First he went
over his new outfit of saddle and guns, looking to every strap of the
former, and the latter, revolvers and rifle, he weighed and balanced
with a meditative look, as if he were memorizing their qualities against
a time of need. With Satan saddled and Bart on guard at the mouth of the
cave, he gathered up all the accumulation of odds and ends, provisions,
skins, and made a stirring bonfire in the middle of the gravel floor.
It was like burning his bridges before starting out to the battle; he
turned his back to the cave and started on his journey.

He had to travel in a loose semicircle, for there were two points which
he must reach on the ride, the town of Alder, where lived the seventh
man who must die for Grey Molly, and the Cumberland ranch, last of all,
where he would take Joan. Very early after his start he reached the
plateau where he had lived all those years with Kate, and he found it
already sinking back to ruin, with nothing in the corrals, and the front
door swinging to and fro idly in the wind, just as Joan had often played
with it. Inside, he knew, the rooms were empty; a current of air down
the chimney had scattered the ashes from the hearth all about the living
room. Here must be a chair overturned, and there the sand had drifted
through the open door. All this he saw clearly enough with his mind's
eye, and urged Satan forward. For a chill like the falling of sudden
night had swept over him, and he shrugged his shoulders with relief when
he swept past the hou