But The Ghost was not one of those who strive to win battles by sheer bulk and brawn, regardless of the punishment they receive. He was one of those terrible and wary fighters who slash another to pieces without receiving much punishment in return. Now, though he came like a driving arrow at the mongrel, he intended no battering assault. He swerved and, shooting past the other, slashed him down the shoulder as he shot by; then he whirled at a little distance for another charge.
The mongrel was himself an old and practiced fighter. Against an ordinary wolf he would have put up a fair battle, but he was unable to cope with this whirlwind of muscle and teeth. He turned to meet the new attack, but he turned too late and would have received the great teeth of The Ghost in his throat, had not a rescuer intervened. Bull Hunter lunged up and across the fire, a mighty figure. His two outstretched hands caught the breast and throat of The Ghost, as the wolf dog sprang. Despite his weight the shock staggered him. For a moment they stood, a strange pair of combatants, the wolf dog forced erect on his hind legs and almost as huge as the man.
The battle lust was hot in The Ghost. He had forgotten that it was his master who checked him. He only knew that this was a bar which kept him from getting at the mongrel again. All his primitive killing instincts were aroused. Twice, swinging his head from side to side, his teeth clashed as loudly as the closing of a steel trap, as he strove to get at the arms of the man. Before he could bite again he was lifted high up and cast crashing down to the ground.
The force of the fall stunned him. When he gained his feet he stood trembling on his braced legs and growling feebly at his master. Then, his brain partially clearing, he backed slowly away, slinking closer and closer to the ground.
Bull Hunter followed him carefully, his hand extended, his voice softened almost to pleading. “Steady, boy. Couldn’t let you kill. Steady, old boy!”
“He’s gone, Bull,” said Pete Reeve, with a sort of cruel satisfaction. “There’s all our work undone by one taste of flesh.” Then he broke into shrill, mirthless laughter; for it had been a horrible thing to see, that battle of the man and the wolf, and, having been greatly moved, Pete laughed, for it was his nature to go by opposites.
But laughter was the one thing which the wolf dog dreaded the most. This was the one attribute which no animal other than man had. This was the thing which The Ghost trembled at and shrank from, and he had loved Bull Hunter because the big man rarely laughed. There was no mockery in his nature.
Now the laughter of Pete Reeve came to The Ghost as the final blow. He had been beaten and crushed by the physical strength of a man; and now the sense of man’s superiority was borne to him in derisive mockery. He turned upon Pete Reeve with a snarl so terrible that the little man instinctively reached for his gun; then The Ghost wheeled and faded instantly into the friendly night.
That was his country; fire light was the country of man.
Chapter XIII
The Locket
Filled with dread, Bull Hunter first followed at a quick walk, then broke into a run, shouting after the fugitive. But presently he saw a faintly outlined form glimmer on the top of a hill and dip away on the other side, and he knew that The Ghost, whose confidence he had won with such pain and trouble, whom he had come to love as if he were a human friend, was indeed gone and had fled back to his own kind.
Bull came back to the camp fire, stumbling like a stunned man. Pete Reeve, in the darkness, failed to note the emotion of his friend. He broke into fresh laughter.
“He ran like a whipped cur, Bull. He’s gone back to his cattle killing. I think it was more my laughing than your throwing him down that drove him off.”
His fresh peals of mirth fell away to silence when the deep, stern voice of Bull Hunter cut in on him. “Yep, it was your laughing that done it. Otherwise I’d of won him back. It was your laughing and your friend’s cur dog.”
The face of Pete Reeve wrinkled with pain and flushed with anger, but he controlled himself instantly. If he were a little inclined to mock the big, slow-moving, slow-thinking fellow in ordinary times, on occasions when Bull Hunter became grave, Pete Reeve instantly showed his respect. He held out his hand now.
“I’m sorry, Bull,” he said. “Come to think of it, that was a fool thing I done, laughing at The Ghost when he was kind of on edge that way.”
Bull Hunter accepted both the hand and the apology. It was impossible for him to hold malice for more than a moment. But when he sat down again by the fire, he was buried in deep and gloomy thought.
The neigh of a horse far off, a tired horse returning to its home, broke in on his reflections; presently he could make out a horseman climbing the hillside below them. Pete Reeve was already on his feet, gathering wood to freshen the fire.
“It’s Dunkin,” he said, “and he’s come back lucky, if he’s come back this early.”
Presently Dunkin came out of the night and dismounted into the lights of the new-leaping flames of the camp fire, a lithe, long fellow with a sinister face. He was gayly clad for a desert rider, with all the cow-puncher’s finery of spurs and boots and silk shirt and neckerchief and big bandanna, Mexican style. But the dust of long riding had reduced his flaring colors to a common drab. He greeted his companions with no word, but drew a small sack from one of his saddlebags and flung it with a melodious clinking down on the ground by the fire.
“There it is,” he said.
Bull Hunter dropped his head, but Pete Reeve picked up the sack and weighed it with a brightening face. “All good stuff, Dunkin, eh?”
“Good stuff? Would I take it if it wasn’t?”
Pete untied the mouth of the sack and peered inside. ”I wished I’d been along with you, Dunkin.”
“I’d rather have you along on a party than any gent that ever wore spurs,” said Dunkin flatteringly, “but you wouldn’t be no help down yonder in that country.” He waved toward the lowlands. “If talk gets dull for me when I’m down yonder, I just mention your name, Pete, and then they buzz around like a lot of hornets. Old Culver come in and raised the price on you by fifteen hundred, and that’s started a new posse on your trail.”
“Know which way?”
“Just exactly the wrong way,” said Dunkin. “They sure don’t dream you’re up here.”
While Pete cooked for the newcomer, the latter sat down on his heels to smoke a cigarette and tell of the adventure.
“It was easy. I just sort of happened to be walking down the road when old man Hood drove along in his buckboard. He stopped to chin, just the way I knew he would. First thing off he seen the saddle marks on my trousers. But I started telling him a cock-and-bull story about losing my hoss, and pretty soon I got up close and shoved my gat under his nose. He’s a fast one on the draw, but he didn’t have no chance that way. I had him cold. Well, I went through him and got his guns, and the old cuss had two of ‘em. Then I grabbed the bag. Pay roll for this month, I figure, and a stake that’ll float us for a pretty long time.
“When he seen me with the bag in my hand he loosened up and began to get fresh. So for that I went through him again and got his own wallet with fifty in it and a locket that was strung around his neck. He went plumb nutty when I got that and told me I’d burn in hell for taking his daughter’s picture off’n him. But who’s been cutting up my dog?”
The last was a veritable yell of astonishment and rage, as the mongrel, with his wounded shoulder, crawled to the feet of his master. Luckily for him The Ghost had slipped a little in his spring, and his snap, as he shot past, had been a fraction of an inch short of his intention. Therefore the wound was a shallow gash which would heal quickly, but, in the meantime, the crimson scab made it seem like a death wound.