As the door closed
on man and dog, the saloon broke once more into murmur, and then into
an excited clamoring. Pale Annie stepped from behind the bar and leaned
upon the table beside Mac Strann. Even while leaning in this manner the
bartender was as tall as the average man; he waved back the others with
a gesture of his tremendous arm. Then he reached out and took the hand
of Mac Strann in his clammy fingers.
"My friend," said the ex-undertaker in his careful manner, "I seen a man
once California a husky two-year-old--which nobody said could be done,
and I've seen some other things, but I've never seen anything to touch
the way you handled Black Bart. D'you know anything about that dog?"
Mac Strann shook his ponderous head and his dull eyes considered Pale
Annie with an expression of almost living curiosity.
"Black Bart has a record behind him that an old time gun-man would have
heard with envy. There are dead men in the record of that dog, sir!"
All this he had spoken in a comparatively loud voice, but now, noting
that the others had heeded his gesture and had made back towards the bar
to drink on the strength of that strange fight between man and beast,
the bartender approached his lips close to the ear of the giant.
He said in a rapid murmur: "I watched you talking with Dan Barry and I
saw Barry's face when he went out. You and he are to meet somewhere
again to-day. My friend, don't throw yourself away.
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