On the night of her failure at the cave, Kate came back to the cabin and went to her room without any word to Buck¹ or Lee Haines, but when they sat before the fire, silent, or only murmuring, they could hear her moving about. Whatever sleep they got before morning was not free from dreams, for they knew that something was impending², and after breakfast they learned what it was. She struck straight out from the shoulder. She was going up to the cave and if Dan was away she would take Joan by force; she needed help; would they give it? They sat for a long time, looking at each other and then avoiding Kate with their eyes. It was not the fear of death but of something more which both of them connected with the figure of Whistling Dan. It was not until she took her light cartridge³ belt from the wall and buckled⁴ on her gun that they rose to follow. Before the first freshness of the morning passed they were winding⁵ up the side of the mountain, Kate a little in the lead, for she alone knew the way.  
Where they rounded the shoulder, the men reined⁶ the horses with which Kate had provided them and sat looking solemnly at each other.
 
“Maybe we'll have no chance to talk alone again,” said Lee Haines. “This is the last trail either for Barry or for us. And I don't think that Barry is that close to the end of his rope. Buck, give me your hand and say good-bye. All that a man can do against Whistling Dan, and that isn't much, I'll do. Having you along won't make us a whit⁸ stronger.”
 
“Thanks,” growled⁹ Buck Daniels. “Jes save that kind farewell till I show yaller. Hurry up, she's gettin' too far ahead.”
 
At the bottom of the ravine, where they dismounted for the precipitous slope above, Kate showed her first hesitation¹⁰.
 
“You both know what it means?” she asked them.
 
“We sure do,” replied Buck.
 
“Dan will find out that you've helped me, and then he'll never forgive you. Will you risk even that?”
 
“Kate,” broke in Lee Haines, “don't stop for questions. Keep on and we'll follow. I don't want to think of what may happen.”
 
She turned without a word and went up the steep incline.
 
“What d'you think of your soft girl now?” panted Buck at the ear of Haines. The latter flashed a significant look at him but said nothing. They reached the top of the canyon¹¹ wall and passed on among the boulders¹³.
 
Kate had drawn¹⁴ back to them now, and they walked as cautiously as if there were dried leaves under foot.
 
She had only lifted a finger of warning, and they knew that they were near to the crisis. She came to the great rock around which she had first seen the entrance to the cave on the day before. Inch by inch, with Buck and Lee following her example, they worked toward the edge of the boulder¹² and peered carefully around it.
 
There opened the cave, and in front of it was Joan playing with what seemed to be a ball of gray fur. Her hair tumbled loose and bright about her shoulders; she wore the tawny¹⁵ hide which Kate had seen before, and on her feet, since the sharp rocks had long before worn out her boots, she had daintily fashioned moccasins. Bare knees, profusely¹⁶ scratched, bare arms rapidly browning to the color of the fur she wore, Haines and Buck had to rub their eyes and look again before they could recognize her.
 
They must have made a noise—perhaps merely an intaking of breath inaudible even to themselves but clear to the ears of Joan. She was on her feet, with bright, wild eyes glancing here and there. There was no suggestion of childishness in her, but a certain willingness to flee from a great danger or attack a weaker force. She stood alert, rather than frightened, with her head back as if she scented¹⁷ the wind to learn what approached. The ball of gray fur straightened into the sharp ears and the flashing teeth of a coyote puppy. Buck Daniels' foot slipped on a pebble¹⁹ and at the sound the coyote darted²⁰ to the shadow of a little shrub²¹ and crouched²² there, hardly distinguishable from the shade which covered it, and the child, with infinitely²³ cunning instinct, raced to a patch of yellow sand and tawny rocks among which she cowered²⁴ and remained there moveless.
 
One thing at least was certain. Whistling Dan was not in the cave, for if he had been the child would have run to him for protection, or at least cried out in her alarm. This information Haines whispered to Kate and she nodded, turning a white face toward him. Then she stepped out from the rock and went straight toward Joan.
 
There was no stir in the little figure. Even the wind seemed to take part in the secret and d............