“Tell me what you know.”

“Only what I think I know.  It may be painful to hear.”

“I’m very used to pain.”

“Well, a moment ago, when Barry was walking beside his dog, smiling, you murmured that he once was like that always.  It gave me light.  So I’d say that there was a time when Dan Barry lived here with you and your father.  Am I right?”

“Yes, for years and years.”

“And in those times he was not greatly different from other men.  Not on the surface.”

“No.”

“You came to be very fond of him.”

“We were to marry,” answered Kate Cumberland, and Byrne winced.

He went on:  “Then something happened—­suddenly—­that took him away from you, and you did not see him again until to-night.  Am I right?”

“Yes.  I thought you must have heard the story—­from the outside.  I’ll tell you the truth.  My father found Dan Barry wandering across the hills years ago.  He was riding home over the range and he heard a strange and beautiful whistling, and when he looked up he saw on the western ridge, walking against the sky, a tattered figure of a boy.  He rode up and asked the boy his name.  He learned it was Dan Barry—­Whistling Dan, he was called.  But the boy could not, or would not, tell how he came to be there in the middle of the range without a horse.  He merely said that he came from ‘over there,’ and waved his hand to the south and east.  That was all.  He didn’t seem to be alarmed because he was alone, and yet he apparently knew nothing of the country; he was lost in this terrible country where a man could wander for days without finding a house, and yet the boy was whistling as he walked!  So Dad took him home and sent out letters all about—­to the railroad in particular—­to find out if such a boy was missing.

“He received no answer.  In the meantime he gave Dan a room in the house; and I remember how Dan sat at the table the first night—­I was a very little girl then—­and how I laughed at his strange way of eating.  His knife was the only thing he was interested in and he made it serve for knife, fork, and spoon, and he held the meat in his fingers while he cut it.  The next morning he was missing.  One of Dad’s range riders picked up Dan several miles to the north, walking along, whistling gayly.  The next morning he was missing again and was caught still farther away.  After that Dad had a terrible scene with him—­I don’t know exactly what happened—­but Dan promised to run away no more, and ever since then Dad has been closer to Dan than anyone else.

“So Dan grew up.  From the time I could first distinctly remember, he was very gentle and good-natured, but he was different, always.  After a while he got Black Bart, you know, and then he went out with a halter and captured Satan.  Think of capturing a wild mustang with nothing but a halter!  He played around with them so much that I was jealous of them.  So I kept with them until Bart and Satan were rather used to me.  Bart would even play with me now and then when Dan wasn’t near.  And so finally Dan and I were to be married.