Was the brute stalking her?  It was worse, in a way, than the ordeal of the day before, this stealthy, noiseless approach.  And in her panic she first thought of springing from her chair and reaching a distance which the chain would keep him from following.  Yet it was very strange.  Black Bart in his wildest days after Dan brought him to the ranch had never been prone to wantonly attack human beings.  Infringe upon his right, come suddenly upon him, and then, indeed, there was a danger to all saving his master.  But this daylight stalking was stranger than words could tell.

She forced her eyes to look straight ahead and sat with a beating heart, waiting.  Then, by slow degrees, she let her glance travel cautiously back towards Bart without turning her head.  There was no doubt about it!  The great wolf-dog was slinking towards her on his belly, still trailing the wounded foreleg.  There was something snakelike in that slow approach, so silent and so gradual.

And yet she waited, moving neither hand nor foot.

A sort of nightmare paralysis held her, as when we flee from some horror in our dreams and find that our limbs have grown numb.  Behind us races the deadly thing, closer and closer; before us is the door of safety—­only a step to reach it—­and yet we cannot move a foot!

It was not all pure terror.  There was an incredible excitement as well—­her will against the will of the dumb brute—­which would conquer?

She heard a faint rustling of the sand beside her and could hardly keep from turning her head again.  But she succeeded.  Waves of coldness broke on her mind; her whole body would have shuddered had not fear chilled her into motionlessness.  All reason told her that it was madness to sit there with the stealthy horror sliding closer; even now it might be too late.  If she rose the shaggy form might spring from the ground at her.  Perhaps the wolf had treasured up the pain from the day before and now—­

A black form did, indeed, rise from the ground, but slowly.  And standing on three legs, Bart stood a moment and stared in the face of the girl.  The fear rushed out of her heart; and her face flushed hotly with relief.  There was no enmity in the steady stare of the wolf-dog.  She could feel that even though she did not look.  Something that Whistling Dan had said long before came to her:  “Even a hoss and a dog, Kate, can get terrible lonesome.”

Black Bart moved until he faced her directly.  His ears were pricking in eagerness; she heard a snarl, but so low and muffled that there was hardly a threat in it; could it be a plea for attention?  She would not look down to the sharp eyes, until a weight fell on her knees—­it was the long, scarred head of the wolf!  The joy that swelled in her was so great that it pained her like a grief.

She stretched out her hand, slowly, slowly towards that head.  And Black Bart shrank and quivered, and his lips writhed back from the long, deadly teeth, and his snarl grew to a harsher, hoarser threat; still he did not remove his head, and he allowed the hand to touch him between the eyes and stroke the fur back to between the ears.  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.