on himself as falls a pole-axed bullock, and lay, unconscious, in a
crumpled heap on the ground.

For a little Dunn waited, crouching above him and listening for the
least sound to show that their brief scuffle had been heard.

But it had all passed nearly as silently as quickly. Within the
house everything remained silent, there was no sound audible, no
gleam of light to show that any of the inmates had been disturbed.

Taking from his pocket a small electric flash-lamp Dunn turned its
light on his victim.

He seemed a man of middle age with a brutal, heavy-jawed face and a
low, receding forehead. His lips, a little apart, showed yellow,
irregular teeth, of which two at the front of the lower jaw had been
broken, and the scar of an old wound, running from the corner of his
left eye down to the centre of his cheek, added to the sinister and
forbidding aspect he bore.

His build was heavy and powerful and near by, where he had dropped
it when he fell, lay the jemmy with which he had struck at Dunn.
It was a heavy, ugly-looking thing, about two feet in length and
with one end nearly as sharp as that of a chisel.

Dunn picked it up and felt it thoughtfully.

"Just as well I got my blow in first," he mused. "If he had landed
that fairly on my skull I don't think anything else in this world
would ever have interested me any more."