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"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."
"Only a little while, Joan." "But Daddy Dan'll be lonesome up there." "He has Satan and Bart to keep him company." "Don't you think he wants Joan, munner?" "Not as much as the poor little puppy wants you, Joan." She added, with just the slightest tremor: "You decide for yourself, Joan. Go if you think it is best."
There followed the setting of the table, and then a long, aching time of hunger when the food was in sight, but one could not eat until Daddy Dan had done this, and Munner had done that. Also, when one did eat, half the taste was taken from things by the necessity of various complicated evolutions of knife and fork.
"Joan!" cried Kate. "Joan!" She reached Buck and unwound his arms from the struggling body of the child. "Honey, why are you afraid? Oh, my baby!" For an instant Joan stood free, wavering, and her eyes held steadily upon her mother bright with nothing but fear and strangeness. Then something melted in her little round face, she sighed. "Munner!" and stole a pace closer.
But Joan knew perfectly well what those gleaming bits of steel meant. She had seen Daddy Dan shoot and kill, and now she ran screaming between Bart and danger. "Munner!" she cried. "You bad, bad men. I won't let you hurt Bart." "They won't hurt you, Bart," explained Joan, taming much mollified to the great wolf-dog. "They're just playin'. Now we'll go."
And my, Daddy Dan knows how to fix things." "Of course he does. Now put on your hat and your cloak, Joan." "This is lots warmer, munner." "Don't you like it?" she added in alarm, stroking the delicate fur. "Take it off!" Kate ripped away the fastenings and tossed the skin far away. "Oh!" breathed Joan. "It isn't clean! It isn't clean," cried Kate. "Oh, my poor, darling baby!
She canted her head to one side and considered him with fearless blue eyes. "I want to," she sighed. "Why can't you, honey?" "Munner says no." He attempted to turn further towards her, but the pain in his right shoulder prevented. He found that his arm was bandaged to the elbow and held close to his side by a complex swathing. "Who is your mother?" asked Vic.
She stopped barely in time, and stood with her fingers interlaced, staring up at him, half delighted, half afraid. She read his mind by microscopic changes in his eyes and lips. "Munner sent me." That was wrong, she saw at once. "And Bart brought me." Much better, now. "And oh, Daddy Dan, I've been lonesome for you!"
"Joan, darling," she said, "munner wants you to go with Bart up through the mountains. Will you be afraid?" A very decided shake of the head answered her, for Joan's eyes were already over her shoulder looking towards the big dog. And she was a little sullen at these unnecessary words. "It might grow dark," she said. "You wouldn't care?"
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