There was something ludicrous about the greeting--it was such an odd shade close to the human.

It was as brief as it was strange, for Black Bart at once whirled and trotted away towards the barns.
By the time Doctor Byrne and Whistling Dan caught up with him, the wolf-dog was before the heaps and ashes which marked the site of the burned barn.

Among these white and grey and black heaps he picked his way, sniffing hastily here and there.

In the very centre of the place he sat down suddenly on his haunches, pointed his nose aloft, and wailed with tremendous dreariness.
"Now," murmured the doctor to Dan, "that strikes me as a singular manifestation of intelligence in an animal--he has found the site of the very barn where he was hurt--upon my word! Even fire doesn't affect his memory!" Here he observed that the face of Whistling Dan had grown grim.

He ran to Bart and crouched beside him, muttering; and Byrne heard.
"That's about where you was lyin'," said Dan, "and you smell your own blood on the ground.