While she sat there, musing, she remembered a scene that had occurred not many a month before.  She had been out walking one fall day, and had gone from the house down past the corrals where a number of cattle newly driven in from the range were penned.  They were to be driven off for shipment the next day.  A bellowing caught her ear from one of the enclosures and she saw two bulls standing horn to horn, their heads lowered, and their puffing and snorting breaths knocking up the dust while they pawed the sand back in clouds against their flanks.  While she watched, they rushed together, bellowing, and for a moment they swayed back and forth.  It was an unequal battle, however, for one of the animals was a hardened veteran, scarred from many a battle on the range, while the other was a young three-year old with a body not half so strong as his heart.  For a short time he sustained the weight of the larger bull, but eventually his knees buckled, and then dropped heavily against the earth.  At that the older bull drew back a little and charged again.  This time he avoided the long horns of his rival and made the unprotected flank of the animal his target.  If he had charged squarely the horns would have been buried to the head; but striking at an angle only one of them touched the target and delivered a long, ripping blow.  With the blood streaming down his side, the wounded bull made off into a group of cows, and when the victor pursued him closely, he at length turned tail and leaped the low fence—­for the corral was a new one, hastily built for the occasion.  The conqueror raised his head inside the fence and bellowed his triumph, and outside the fence the other commenced pawing up the sand again, switching his tail across his bleeding side, and turning his little red eyes here and there.  They fixed, at length, upon Kate Cumberland, and she remembered with a start of horror that she was wearing a bright red blouse.  The next instant the bull was charging.  She turned in a hopeless flight.  Safety was hundreds of yards away in the house; the skirts tangled about her legs; and behind her the dull impacts of the bull’s hoofs swept close and closer.  Then she heard a snarl in front, a deep-throated, murderous snarl, and she saw Black Bart racing towards her.  He whizzed by her like a black thunderbolt; there was a roar and bellow behind her, and at the same time she stumbled over a fence-board and fell upon her knees.  But when she cast a glance of terror behind her she saw the bull lying on its side with lolling tongue and glazing eyes and the fangs of Black Dart were buried in its throat.

When she reached this point in her musings her glance naturally turned towards the wolf-dog, and she started violently when she saw that Bart was slinking towards her, trailing the helpless leg.  The moment he felt her eyes upon him, Bart dropped down, motionless, with a wicked baring of his teeth; his eyes closed, and he seemed, as usual, dreaming in the sun.