Ross sat back and surveyed me with a mischievous grin. "We don't seem to be in luck," he remarked. "Ask him if he's friendly with the dog." My eyes travelled through the open window towards the low-lying shore and the straggling clump of trees opposite. A more peaceful scene it would have been difficult to imagine, but its outward calm did nothing to allay the ever-growing sense of danger which haunted me like a persistent shadow. I turned back to Ross, however, with a well-assumed air of indifference. "I expected to find that Uncle Richard had queered the pitch. I shall have to begin at the bottom and endear myself to the neighborhood gradually." "Well, you've started the right way by bringing me along," he retorted. "It will at least show 'em that you have got some respectable friends." I beckoned to the landlord, who was again disengaged. "Is there a boat of any sort you could let us have?" I asked. "We want to go across to the island." Whatever may have been the drift of his private thoughts, he was evidently prepared to be civil and obliging. "Why, certainly, sir," he said. "There's one down alongside the jetty." He walked to the window and thrust his head out. "Jim," he shouted, "just get that boat ready. There's a couple o' gents comin' along in a minute." I settled up for the drinks, and we made our way out of the room and down the rickety flight of steps. We found Jim, a shock-headed youth of about eleven, unhitching the painter of a small weather-beaten dinghy. "Will you want me, sir?" he enquired. "Not to-day, James," I said. "We are only going over to the island. I think we can manage that between us." He glanced at us both a little doubtfully. "You'll 'ave to row up stream a bit," he announced. "The tide runs very strong 'bout here." I thanked him for this well-meant information, and, having given him sixpence, took my place at the sculls. With another grin Ross settled himself comfortably in the stern. "Even the children mistrust us," he observed, as I tugged the boat out into the tideway. It was not more than a couple of hundred yards across but so rapid was the current that it took us some little while to make the passage. I pulled well up until I was almost opposite the furthest point of the island, and then, getting into comparatively slack water, rowed down under the shelter of the shore. At last we came alongside the landing-stage, where Ross leaned over and grabbed hold of a rusty chain. "There doesn't seem to be anyone about," he said. "I wonder if the blighter got your wire." The words had hardly left his lips when there was a sudden rustle amongst the trees, and a huge black shape bounded out into the open. It was a dog, but the biggest dog I have ever seen--an enormous brute that looked like a cross between a great Dane and an old English mastiff.