But Black Bart apparently did. He slouched a pace closer, crouched, and bared his fangs with a tremendous snarl. At this the lean man left his chair and sprang back to a distance. Terror convulsed his face; but his eyes glittered with a fascinated interest and he glanced first at his companion and then at the great wolf-dog, as if he were making a comparison between them. It was the broad shouldered man who first spoke. "Partner," he said in a thick voice, in which the articulation was almost lost, "maybe you better take your dog out before he gets hurt. He don't like me and I don't like him none too much." "Bart!" called Dan Barry. But Black Bart gave no heed. There had been a slight flexing of his muscles as he crouched, and now he leaped--a black bolt of fighting weight--squarely in the face of the giant. He was met and checked midway in his spring. For the two long arms darted out, two great hands fastened in the throat of the beast, and Black Bart fell back upon the floor, with Mac Strann following, his grip never broken by the fall. A scurry of many feet running towards the scene; a shouting of twenty voices around him; but all that Whistling Dan saw were the fangs of Bart as they gnashed fruitlessly at the wrists of Mac Strann, and then the great red tongue lolling out and the eyes bulging from their sockets--all he heard was the snarling of the wolf and the peculiar whine of rage which came from the throat of the man-beast fighting the wolf. Then he acted. His hands darted between the thick forearms of Mac Strann--his elbows jerked out and snapped the grip; next he dragged Black Bart away from the danger. The wolf was instantly on his feet and lunging again, but a sharp "Heel!" from Dan checked him mid-leap. He came to a shuddering halt behind the legs of his master. Whistling Dan slipped a little closer to the giant. "I should have knowed you before," he said in a voice which carried only to the ears of Strann. "You're the brother of Jerry Strann. And they's a reason why Bart hates you, partner!" The thick upper lip of Strann lifted slightly as he spoke. "Him or you--you and your wolf together or one by one--it don't make no difference to me. I've come for you, Barry!" The other straightened a little, and his eyes travelled slowly up and down the form of Strann. "I been hungering to meet a man like you," he said. "Hungerin', partner." "North of town they's the old McDuffy place, all in ruins and nobody ever near it. I'll be there in an hour, m'frien'."