"They ain't any doubt of it," he said reassuringly. "He'll know what you
do, Mac. What was it that Pale Annie said to you?"
"Wanted me not to meet Barry. Said that Barry had once cleaned up a
gang of six."
"And here we are only two."
"You ain't to fight!" warned Mac Strann sharply. "It'll be man to man,
Haw-Haw."
"But he might not notice that," cried Haw-Haw, and he caressed his
scrawny neck as though he already felt fingers closing about his
windpipe. "Him bein' used to fight crowds, Mac. Did you think of that?"
"I never asked you to come," responded Mac Strann.
"Mac," cried Haw-Haw in a sudden alarm, "s'pose you wasn't to win.
S'pose you wasn't able to keep him away from me?"
The numb lips of Mac Strann sprawled in an ugly smile, but he made no
other answer.
"_You_ don't think you'll lose," hurried on Haw-Haw, "but neither did
them six that Pale Annie was tellin' about, most like. But they did!
They lost; but if you lose what'll happen to me?"
"They ain't no call for you to stay here," said Mac Strann with utter
indifference.
Haw-Haw answered quickly: "I wouldn't go--I wouldn't miss it for
nothin'. Ain't I come all this way to see it--I mean to help? Would I
fall down on you now, Mac? No, I wouldn't!"
And twisting those bony fingers together he burst once more into that
rattling, unhuman laughter which all the Three B's knew so well and
dreaded as the dying dread the sight of the circling buzzard above.
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