He nestled his head down upon the warm body. The dog licked his hair affectionately. The kindness went to his heart. The attention was soothing, restful. He responded to it the more, because this dog was to him the one thing left in the world alive. He snuggled closer to the silky hide and continued to talk, finding comfort in the sound of his own voice and the insensate response of the warm head. "We ought to be good comrades--you and I--Sandy, because we 're all alone here in this old rat trap. When a man's alone, Sandy, anything else in the world that's alive is his brother. The only thing that counts is being alive. Why, a fly is a better thing than the dead man he crawls over. And if there be a live man, a dead man, and a fly, then the fly and the live man are brothers. So you and I are brothers, and we must fight the devil-eyes in those bottles together." They danced before him now--yellow, blue, and blood-red. A more perfect semblance of an evil gnome could not be made than the flickering reflection of the sunlight in the bottle of blood-red liquid. It was never still. It skipped from the bottom of the bottle to the top and from one side to the other, as though in drunken ecstasy. It fascinated Donaldson with the allurement of the gruesome. It was such a restless, scarlet thing! It looked as though it were trying to get out of its prison and in baffled rage was shooting its fangs at the sides, like a bottled viper. "See it, Sandy? It's trying to get at us. But it can't, if we keep together. It's only when a man's alone that those things have any power. And the little devil knows it. If it were not for you, Sandy, the thing might drive me mad--might make me mad before I had written my letter!" He sprang to his feet in sudden passion, and the dog with all four feet planted stiffly on the sofa gave a sharp bark. This broke the tension at once. "That's the dog," Donaldson praised him. "When the shadows get too close bark at 'em like that!" The bellicose attitude of the tiny body brought a smile to Donaldson's mouth. This, too, was like a bromide to shaking nerves. But in this position the dog did not so closely resemble that other dog which he had held upon his knee. He looked thinner, more angular. His ears were cocked like two stiff v-shaped funnels. Now he looked like an older dog. It was more reasonable to suppose, Donaldson realized, that Barstow had two dogs of this same breed than that a dead dog had come to life. "Sandy!" he called sharply. The dog wagged his stub-tail with vigor. "Spike!" he called again. The tail wagged on with undiminished enthusiasm. Donaldson passed his hand over his forehead.