rror.

The farmer helped him into his clothes, and himself removed the
blood-stain from the lad's dazed face. "Don't be a fool!" he urged. "Pull
yourself together and clear out! This thing was an accident. I'll
engineer it."

"Accident!" The boy straightened himself sharply with the movement of
one brought roughly to his senses. "I suppose the throw broke his neck,"
he said. "But it was no accident. I did it on purpose. I told him I
should probably kill him, but he would have it." He turned and squarely
faced the other. "I don't know what I ought to do," he said, speaking
more collectedly. "But I'm certainly not going to bolt."

The farmer nodded with brief comprehension. He had the steady eyes of a
man accustomed to the wide spaces of the earth. "That's all right," he
said, and took him firmly by the arm. "You come with me. My name is
Crowther. We'll have a talk outside. There's more room there. You've got
to listen to reason. Come!"

He almost dragged the boy away with the words. No one intercepted or
spoke a word to delay them. Together they passed back through the empty
drinking-saloon--the boy with his colourless face and set lips, the man
with his resolute, far-seeing eyes--and so into the dim roadway beyond.

They left the lights of the reeking bar behind. The spacious night closed
in upon them.

PART I

THE GATES OF BRASS

CHAPTER I

A JUG OF WATER

It was certainly not Caesar's fault. Caesar was as well-meaning a
Dalmatian as ever scampered in the wake of a cantering horse. And if Mike
in his headlong Irish fashion chose to regard the scamper as a gross
personal insult, that was surely not a matter for which he could
reasonably be held responsible. And yet it was upon the luckless Caesar
that the wrath of the gods descended as a consequence of Mike's
wrong-headed deductions.

It began with a rush and a snarl from the Vicarage gate and it had
developed into a set and deadly battle almost before either of the
combatants had fully realized the other.

The rider drew rein, yelling furiously; but his yells were about as
effectual as the wail of an infant. Neither animal was so much as aware
of his existence in those moments of delirious warfare. They were locked
already in that silent, swaying grip which every fighting dog with any
knowledge of the great game seeks to establish, to break which mere
humans may put forth their utmost strength in vain.

The struggle was a desperate and a