that the hard gray eyes of the stranger narrowed ominously.

"An' who the hell are _you_?" The words whistled through the bared
teeth and a flush of fury flooded the man's face.

"What do you care? I tripped him. Hit me!" and the low, level tone
blended into silence. It seemed a _thing_--that uncanny silence when
noise should have been.

There were sounds--sounds that no one heeded nor heard--the heavy
breathing of a hundred men waiting for something to happen--the thin
creak of the table boards as men leaned forward upon hands whose
knuckles whitened under the red skin, and stared, fascinated, at the
two big men who faced each other in the broad aisle.

The swinish eyes of the brutish man glared malignantly into the gray
eyes of the stranger, in which there appeared no slightest flicker of
rage nor hate, nor any other emotion.

Only a cold, hard stare which held something of terrible intensity,
accentuated by the little fans of whitening wrinkles which radiated
from their corners.

In that instant the other's gaze wavered. He knew that this man had
lied; and he knew that every man in the room knew that he had lied.
That he had deliberately lied into the row and then, without raising
his guard, had dared him to strike.

It was inconceivable.

Had the man loudly shouted his challenge or thrown up his guard when he
dared him to strike, or had his eye twitched or burned with anger, he
would have unhesitatingly lunged into a fight to the finish.

But he found himself at a disadvantage. He was up against something he
did not understand. The calm assurance of the stranger--his fists were
not doubled and his lips smiled--disconcerted him.

A strange, prickly chill tingled at the back of his neck, and in his
heart he knew that for the first time in his life he dared not strike a
man. He cast about craftily to save his face and took his cue from the
other's smile. With an effort his loose, thick lips twisted into a
grin.

"G'wan with yer jokin', stranger," he laughed.

"Y'u damn near made me mad--fer a minute," and he turned to the table.

Instantly a clatter of noise broke forth. Men rattled dishes nervously
in relief or disappointment, and the room was filled with the rumble of
voices in unmeaning chatter. But in the quick glances which passed from
man to man there was much of meaning.

"God, man, that was Moncrossen!" whispered Fallon, when the two found
themselves seated near the end of the table. Bill smil