Then she sat down and ate her sandwiches thoughtfully, with long, meditative intervals between bites.  She regarded the pinto curiously, wondering if Starr had really taken him as security for a debt, and wishing that she had asked him what its name was.  It was queer, the way he rode up unexpectedly every few days, always bringing something he thought she needed, and seeming to take it for granted that she would accept everything he offered.  It was much queerer that she did accept everything without argument or hesitation.  For that matter, everything that concerned Starr was queer, from Helen May’s point of view.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

HELEN MAY UNDERSTANDS

Pat, lying at her feet and licking his lips contentedly after his bone and the crusts of her sandwich, raised his head suddenly and rumbled a growl somewhere deep in his chest.  His upper lip lifted and showed his teeth wickedly, and the hair on the back of his neck stood out in a ruff that made him look a different dog.

Helen May felt a cold shiver all up and down her spine.  She had never seen Pat, nor any other dog for that matter, look like that.  It was much more terrifying than that mysterious shot which had effected Starr so strangely.  Pat was staring directly behind her, and his eyes had a greenish tinge in the iris, and the white part was all pink and bloodshot.  Helen May thought he must have rabies or something; or else a rabid coyote was up on the ridge behind her.  She wanted to scream, but she was afraid; she was afraid to look behind her, even.

Pat got up and stood digging his toe nails into the earth in the most horribly suggestive way imaginable.  The green light in his eyes terrified her.  His ruff bristled bigger on his neck.  He looked ready to spring at something.  Helen May was too scared to move so much as a finger.  She waited, and her heart began beating so hard in her throat that it nearly suffocated her.  She never once thought of the six-shooter which Starr had given her.  She did not think of anything, except that a rabid coyote was right behind her, and in a minute Pat would jump at it, if it did not first jump at her!  And then Pat would be bitten, and would go mad and bite her and Vic, and they’d all die horribly of hydrophobia.

“Ah—­is this a modern, dramatic version of Beauty and the Beast?  If so, it is a masterpiece in depicting perfect repose on the part of Beauty, while the Beast vivifies the protective instinct of the stronger toward the weaker.  Speaking in the common parlance, if you will call off your dog, Miss Stevenson, I might be persuaded to venture within hand-shaking distance.”  A little laugh, that was much more humorous than the words, followed the speech.

Helen May felt as though she were going to faint.  “Pat!” she tried to say admonishingly; but her voice was a weak whisper that did not carry ten feet.  She pulled herself together and tried again.  “Pat, lie down!”