The New Alliance

: The Seventh Man

"And so," said Lee Haines, when he joined Buck Daniels in the living-room,

"there goes our reinforcements. That whole crew will scatter like dead

leaves when Barry breezes in. It looks to me--"



"Shut up!" cut in Daniels. "Shut up!"



His dark, homely face turned to the larger man with a singular expression

of awe. He whispered: "D'you hear? She's in the next room whippin' Joan for

runnin' away and never a yap out of the kid!"



He held up a lean finger for caution and then Haines heard the sound of the

willow switch. It stopped.



"If you run away again," warned Kate, her voice pitched high and trembling,

"munner will whip harder, and put you in a dark place for a long, long

time."



Still there was not a sound of the child's voice, not even the pulse of

stifled weeping. Presently the door opened and Kate stood there.



"Go out in the kitchen and tell Li to give you breakfast. Naughty girls

can't eat with munner."



Through the door came Joan, her little round face perfectly white,

perfectly expressionless. She did not cringe, passing her mother; she

walked steadily across the room, rose on tip-toe to open the kitchen door,

and disappeared through it. Kate dropped into a chair, shaking.



"Out!" whispered Buck to Lee Haines. "Beat it. I got to talk alone." And as

soon as Haines obeyed, Buck sat down close to the girl. She was twisting

and untangling her fingers in a dumb agony.



"What has he done to her, Buck? What has he done?"



It was a maxim with Buck that talk is to woman what swearing is to man; it

is a safety valve, and therefore he waited in silence until the first rush

of her grief had passed.



"She only looked at me when I whipped her. My heart turned in me. She

didn't cry; she wasn't even angry. She just stood there--my baby!--and

looked at me!"



She threw herself back in the chair with her eyes closed, and he saw where

the trouble had marked her face. He wanted to lean over and take her in his

arms.



"I'm going mad, Buck. I can't stand it. How could he have changed her to

this?"



"Listen to me, Kate. Joan ain't been changed. She's only showin' what she

is."



The mother stared wildly at him.



"Don't look like I was a murderer. God knows I'm sorry, Kate, but if they's

Dan's blood in your little girl it ain't my fault. It ain't anything he's

taught her. It's just that bein' alone with him has brought out what she

really is."



"I won't believe you, Buck. I don't dare listen to you!"



"You got to listen, Kate, because you know I'm right. D'you think that any

kind of teachin' could make her learn how to stand and keep from cryin'

when she was whipped?"



"I know."



She spoke softly, as if some terrible power might overhear them talk, and

Buck lowered his voice in turn.



"She's wild, Kate, I knew it when I seen the way she handled Bart. She's

wild!"



"Then I'll have her tame again."



"You tried that once and failed."



"Dan was a man when I tried, and his nature was formed. Joan is only a

baby--my baby. She's half mine. She has my hair and my eyes."



"I don't care what the color of her eyes is, I know what's behind them.

Look at 'em, and then tell me who she takes after."



"Buck, why do you talk like this? What do you want me to do?"



"A hard thing. Send Joan back to Dan."



"Never!"



"He'll never give her up, I tell you."



"Oh, God help me. What shall I do? I'll keep her! I'll make her tame."



"But you'll never keep her that way. Think of Dan. Think of the yaller in

his eyes, Kate."



"Until I die," she said with sudden quiet, "I'll fight to keep her."



And he answered with equal solemnity: "Until Dan dies he'll fight to have

her. And he's never been beat yet."



Through a breathing space he stared at her and she at him, and the eyes of

Buck Daniels were the first to turn. Everything that was womanly and gentle

had died from her face, and in its stead was something which made Buck rise

and wander from the room.



He found Lee Haines and told him briefly all that had passed. The great

battle, they decided, had begun between Kate and Barry for the sake of the

child, and that battle would go on until one of them was dead or the prize

for which they struggled lost. Barry would come on the trail and find them

at the ranch, and then he would strike for Joan. And they had no help for

the struggle against him. The cowpunchers would scatter at the first sign

of Barry, at the first shrill of his ill-omened whistling. They might ride

for Elkhead and raise a posse from among the citizens, but it would take

two days to do that and gather a number of effective fighters for the

crisis, and in the meantime the chances were large that Barry would strike

the ranch while the messenger was away. There was really nothing to do but

sit patiently and wait. They were both brave men, very; and they were both

not unpracticed fighters; but they began to wait for the coming of Barry as

the prisoner waits for the day of his execution.



It spoke well for the quality of their nerves that they would not speak to

Kate of the time to come; they sat back like spectators at a play and

watched the maneuvers of the mother to win back Joan.



There was not an idle moment from breakfast to dark. They went out to

gather wildflowers on the western hill from the house; they sat on the

veranda where Kate told Joan stories of the ranch and pointed out the

distant mountains which were its boundaries, and explained that all between

them would one day be her own land; that the men who rode yonder were doing

her work; that the cattle who ranged the hills were marked with her brand.

She said it all in small words so that Joan could understand, but as far as

Buck and Lee could make out, there was never a flicker of intelligence or

interest in the eyes of the child.



It was a hard battle every hour, and after supper Kate sat in a big chair

by the fire with her eyes half closed, admitting defeat, perhaps. For Joan

was curled up on the couch at the farthest, dimmest end of the room, and

with her chin propped in both small hands she stared in silence through the

window and over the darkening hills. Buck and Lee were there, never speaking,

but now and then their eyes sought each other with a vague hope. For

Kate might see that her task was impossible, send Joan back, and that would

free them of the danger.



But where Kate left off, chance took up the battle and turned the scales.

Old Li, the Chinese cook, had not seen Kate for six long years, and now he

celebrated the return by hanging about her on a thousand pretexts. It was

just after he had brought in some delicacy from the kitchen, leaving the

door a little ajar, when a small ball of gray fur nosed its way through the

aperture and came straight for the glare of the fire on the hearth. It was

a small shepherd puppy, and having observed the faces of the men with

bright, unafraid eyes, it went wobbling on to the very hearth, sniffling.

Even at that age it knew enough to keep away from the bright coals of wood,

but how could it know that the dark, cold-looking andirons had been heated

to the danger point by the fire? It thrust out a tentative nose, touched

the iron, and then its shrill yelp of pain went startlingly through the

room. It pulled the three grown-ups out of their thoughts; it brought Joan

scampering across the room with a little happy cry.



The puppy would have escaped if it could, for it had in mind the dark,

warm, familiar corner in Li's kitchen where no harm ever came near, but the

agile hands of Joan caught him; he was swept into her arms. That little

wail of helpless pain, the soft fluff of fur against her cheek, wiped all

other things from Joan's mind. Out the window and across the gloomy hills

she had been staring at the picture of the cave, and bright-eyed Satan, and

the shadowy form of Bart, and the swift, gentle hand of Daddy Dan; but the

cry of the puppy blotted the picture out. She was no longer lonely, having

this small, soft body to protect. There sat her mother, leaning a little

toward her with a glance at once misted and bright, and she forgot forthwith

all the agency of Kate in carrying her away from that cave of delight.



"Look, munner! He's burned his nose!"



The puppy was licking the injured nose industriously and whimpering the

while. And Joan heard no answer from her mother except an inarticulate

little sound somewhere deep in Kate's throat. Over her child mind, vaguely,

like all baby memories, moved a recollection of the same sound, coming

deeply from the throat of the mother and marvelously soothing, reassuring.

It moved a fiber of trust and sympathy in Joan, an emotion as real as the

sound of music, and with the puppy held idly in her arms for a moment, she

looked curiously into Kate's face. On her own, a faint smile began in the

eyes and spread to the lips.



"Poor little puppy, munner," said Joan.



The hands of Kate trembled with desire to bring Joan closer to her, but

very wisely she merely stroked the cringing head of the dog.



"Poor little puppy," she echoed.