his cartridge belt, and approached the stranger with a grin. The man did
not turn; he continued to lay down his cards with monotonous regularity,
and while he was doing it he said in the gentlest voice that had ever
reached the ear of Jerry Strann: "Better stay where you are, stranger.
My dog don't like you."

And Jerry Strann perceived, under the shadow of the table, a blacker
shadow, huge and formless in the gloom, and two spots of incandescent
green twinkling towards him. He stopped; he even made a step back; and
then he heard a stifled chuckle from the bartender.

If it had not been for that untimely mirth of O'Brien's probably nothing
of what followed would have passed into the history of the Three B's.




CHAPTER VIII

THE GIFT-HORSE


"Your dog is your own dog," remarked Jerry Strann, still to the back of
the card-laying stranger, "but this ain't your back-yard. Keep your eye
on him, or I'll fix him so he won't need watching!"

So saying he made another step forward, and it brought a snarl from the
dog; not one of those high-whining noises, but a deep guttural that
sounded like indrawn breath. The gun of Jerry Strann leaped into his
hand.