The outlaw went back to his remotest fastnesses. He may be there yet, boss of the Croton brakes.
V
SHIELA
A panther’s scream split the whine of the wind and Shiela reared herself in front of the fire, her body retched by an answering challenge.
“Shee-la,” her master rebuked. “Lie down, girl.”
The wolfhound sank to the floor with a reluctant flop, but the hairs on her neck and along her spine bristled still. She continued to rumble.
There were four men playing at cards in the bunkhouse. Cold weather had set in and the Tumbling H outfit were eating out their hearts in winter camps. Here at headquarters, the range boss, wagon boss, blacksmith and cook played half the day at seven-up and pitch; and listened to Mit’s varying accounts of high life in the East, as he had plumbed it in Fort Worth; and raved at the climate and cursed petty annoyances with the savage irritability of full-blooded men lacking enough to do.
“Hark to that ol’ wind,” mourned the wagon boss--he was fifty and considered fourteen hours a day in the saddle mere child’s play--“It was sixty-six above this morning, and now it’s zero. No wonder a man cain’t be healthy.”
The others nodded gravely and the cook shuffled the cards.
“It’s a wonder, Steve,” he observed, “that you don’t--my deal?--you don’t try that dog in wolf huntin’. Not by herself, but with a bunch of ’em.”
“Wait till she’s used to the country and has got her growth. Then you’ll see.”