me refrain. Joan was calling to him.

At that he stepped forward, but the thing which stirred him, had
hardened the mind of Kate. The weakness passed in a flash. It was Joan,
and for Joan!

"Not a step!" she whispered, and jerked out her gun. "Not a step!"

He stood with one hand trailing carelessly from his hip, and at the
gleam of her steel his other hand dropped to a holster, fumbled there,
and came away empty; he could not touch her, not with the weight of
a finger. That thoughtful whistle came again: once more the answering
whistle drifted out from the house; and he moved forward another pace.

She had chosen her mark carefully, the upper corner of the seam of the
pocket upon his shirt, and before his foot struck the ground she fired.
For an instant she felt that she missed the mark, for he stood perfectly
upright, but when she saw that the yellow was gone from his eyes. They
were empty of everything except a great wonder. He wavered to his knees,
and then sank down with his arms around Black Bart. He seemed, indeed,
to crumple away into the night. Then she heard a shouting and trampling
in the house, and a breaking open of doors, and she knew that she had
killed Whistling Dan. She would have gone to him, but the snarl of Bart
drove her back. Then she saw Satan galloping up the path and come to a
sliding halt where he stood with his delicate nose close to the face of
the master. There was no struggle with death, only a sigh like a motion
of wind in far off trees, and then, softly, easily Black Bart extricated
himself from the master, and moved away down the path, all wolf, all
wild. Behind him, Satan whirled with a snort, and they rushed away into
the night each in an opposite direction. The long companionship of the
three was ended, and the seventh man was dead for Grey Molly.

Lee Haines and Buck Daniels were around her now. She heard nothing
distinctly, only a great, vague clamor of voices while she kneeled and
turned the body of Barry on its back. It was marvelously light; she
could almost have picked it up in her arms, she felt. She folded the
hands across his breast, and the limp fingers were delicate as the
fingers of a sick child. Buck Daniels lay prone by the dead man weeping
aloud; and Lee Haines stood with his face buried in his hands; but there
was no tear on the face of Kate.

As she closed the eyes, the empty, hollow eyes, she heard a distant
calling, a hoarse and dissonant chiming. She looked up