Yet even when the
wolf glided silently across the room and crouched before the bandit,
at watch, his lips grinned back from the white teeth, the man had no
eyes for him. Instead, his stare held steadily upon that open door and
on his raised face there was still the terror of that whistling which
swept closer and closer.
It ceased. A footfall crossed the porch. How different from the
ponderous stride of Jim Silent! This was like the padding step of the
panther. And Whistling Dan stood in the door. He did not fill it as
the burly shoulders of Silent had done. He seemed almost as slender as
a girl, and infinitely boyish in his grace--a strange figure, surely,
to make all these hardened fighters of the mountain-desert crouch, and
stiffen their fingers around the butts of their revolvers! His eyes
were upon Silent, and how they lighted! His face changed as the
face of the great god Pan must have altered when he blew into the
instrument of reeds and made perfect music, the first in the world.
"Bart," said the gentle voice, "go out to Satan."
The wolf turned and slipped from the room. It was a little thing, but,
to the men who saw it, it was terrible to watch an untamed beast obey
the voice of a man.
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