"Dad didn't like the idea. He was afraid of what Dan might become. And he was right. One day, in a saloon that used to stand on that hill over there, Dan had a fight--his first fight--with a man who had struck him across the mouth for no good reason. That man was Jim Silent. Of course you've heard of him?" "Never." "He was a famous long-rider--an outlaw with a very black record. At the end of that fight he struck Dan down with a chair and escaped. I went down to Dan when I heard of the fight--Black Bart led me down, to be exact--but Dan would not come back to the house, and he'd have no more to do with anyone until he had found Jim Silent. I can't tell you everything that happened. Finally he caught Jim Silent and killed him--with his bare hands. Buck Daniels saw it. Then Dan came back to us, but on the first night he began to grow restless. It was last Fall--the wild geese were flying south--and while they were honking in the sky Dan got up, said good-bye, and left us. We have never seen him again until to-night. All we knew was that he had ridden south--after the wild geese." A long silence fell between them, for the doctor was thinking hard. "And when he came back," he said, "Barry did not know you? I mean you were nothing to him?" "You were there," said the girl, faintly. "It is perfectly clear," said Byrne. "If it were a little more commonplace it might be puzzling, but being so extraordinary it clears itself up. Did you really expect the dog, the wolf-dog, Black Bart, to remember you?" "I may have expected it." "But you were not surprised, of course!" "Naturally not." "Yet you see that Dan Barry--Whistling Dan, you call him--was closer to Black Bart than he was to you?" "Why should I see that?" "You watched him a moment ago when he was leaning over the dog." He watched her draw her dressing gown closer about her, as though the cold bit more keenly then. She said simply: "Yes, I saw."