eep, and his
whole build powerful in the extreme, and Dunn, looking him up and down
with the quick glance of one accustomed to judge men, thought that he
had seldom seen one more capable of holding his own.

Answering his companion's remark, he said lightly:

"Oh, no, I shall cut across the wood, it's ever so much shorter, you
know."

"But it's so dark and lonely," the girl protested. "And then, after last
week--"

He interrupted her with a laugh, and he lifted his head with a certain
not unpleasing swagger.

"I don't think they'll trouble me for all their threats," he said. "For
that matter, I rather hope they will try something of the sort on. They
need a lesson."

"Oh, I do hope you'll be careful," the girl exclaimed.

He laughed again and made another lightly-confident, almost-boastful
remark, to the effect that he did not think any one was likely to
interfere with him.

For a minute or two longer they lingered, chatting together as they
stood in the gas-light on the veranda and from his hiding-place Dunn
watched them intently. It seemed that it was the girl in whom he was
chiefly interested, for his eyes hardly moved from her and in them there
showed a very grim and hard expression.

"Pretty enough," he mused. "More than pretty. No wonder poor Charles
raved about her, if it's the same girl--if it is, she ought to know
what's become of him. But then, where does this big chap come in?"

The "big chap" seemed really going now, though reluctantly, and it was
not difficult to see that he would have been very willing to stay longer
had she given him the least encouragement.

But that he did not get, and indeed it seemed as if she were a little
bored and a little anxious for him to say good night and go.

At last he did so, and she retired within the house, while he came
swinging down the garden path, passing close to where Dunn lay hidden,
but without any suspicion of his presence, and out into the high road.

CHAPTER II. THE FIGHT IN THE WOOD

From his hiding-place in the bushes Dunn slipped out, as the big man
vanished into the darkness down the road, and for the fraction of a
second he seemed to hesitate.

The lights in the house were coming and going after a fashion that
suggested that the inmates were preparing for bed, and almost at once
Dunn turned his back to the building and hurried very quickly and softly
down the road in the direction the big man had just taken.

"After all," he thou