's
been sittin' in that chair."

"If I ain't your friend," answered the black-haired brother instantly,
"it ain't any fault of mine. Lay it up to yourself, partner!"

Mac Strann stretched out his hand on the surface of the table.

He said: "I got an idea you better get out of that chair."

The other turned his head slowly on all sides and then looked Mac Strann
full in the face.

"Maybe they's something wrong with my eyes," he said, "but I don't see
no reason."

The little dialogue had lasted long enough to focus all eyes on the
table at the end of the room, and therefore there were many witnesses to
what followed. The arm of Mac Strann shot out; his hand fastened in the
collar of the black-haired man's shirt, and the latter was raised from
his seat and propelled to one side by a convulsive jerk. He probably
would have been sent crashing into the bar had not his shirt failed
under the strain. It ripped in two at the shoulders, and the seeker
after action, naked to the waist, went reeling back to the middle of the
room, before he gained his balance. After him went Mac Strann with an
agility astonishing in that squat, formless bulk. His long arms were
outstretched and his fingers tensed, and in his face there was an
uncanny joy; his lip had lifted in that peculiarly disheartening sneer.

He was not a pace from him of the black hair when a yell of rage behind
him and the other brother leaped through the air and landed on Mac
Strann's back. He doubled up, slipped his arms behind him, and the next
instant, without visible reason, the red-headed man hurtled through the
air and smashed against the bar with a jolt that set the glassware
shivering and singing. Then he relaxed on the floor, a twisted and
foolish looking mass.

As for the seeker after action, he had at first reached after his
revolver, but he changed his mind at the last instant and instead picked
up the great poker which leaned against the stove. It was a ponderous
weapon and he had to wield it in both hands. As he swung it around his
head there was a yell from men ducking out of the way, and Pale Annie
curled his hand again around his favorite empty bottle. He had no good
opportunity to demonstrate its efficiency, however. Mac Strann,
crouching in the position from which he had catapulted the red-haired
man, cast upwards a single glance at the other brother, and then he
sprang in. The poker hissed through the air with the vigour of a strong
man's arms