ain as Donaldson came nearer.

"Still afraid of me?" he asked with a sad smile. "Why, there is n't
enough of me left to be afraid of, pup. There 's only about a day of
me left and we ought to be friends during that time."

He nestled his head down upon the warm body. The dog licked his hair
affectionately. The kindness went to his heart. The attention was
soothing, restful. He responded to it the more, because this dog was
to him the one thing left in the world alive. He snuggled closer to
the silky hide and continued to talk, finding comfort in the sound of
his own voice and the insensate response of the warm head.

"We ought to be good comrades--you and I--Sandy, because we 're all
alone here in this old rat trap. When a man's alone, Sandy, anything
else in the world that's alive is his brother. The only thing that
counts is being alive. Why, a fly is a better thing than the dead man
he crawls over. And if there be a live man, a dead man, and a fly,
then the fly and the live man are brothers. So you and I are brothers,
and we must fight the devil-eyes in those bottles together."

They danced before him now--yellow, blue, and blood-red. A more
perfect semblance of an evil gnome could not be made than the
flickering reflection of the sunlight in the bottle of blood-red
liquid. It was never still. It skipped from the bottom of the bottle
to the top and from one side to the other, as though in drunken ecstasy.

It fascinated Donaldson with the allurement of the gruesome. It was
such a restless, scarlet thing! It looked as though it were trying to
get out of its prison and in baffled rage was shooting its fangs at the
sides, like a bottled viper.

"See it, Sandy? It's trying to get at us. But it can't, if we keep
together. It's only when a man's alone that those things have any
power. And the little devil knows it. If it were not for you, Sandy,
the thing might drive me mad--might make me mad before I had written my
letter!"

He sprang to his feet in sudden passion, and the dog with all four feet
planted stiffly on the sofa gave a sharp bark. This broke the tension
at once.

"That's the dog," Donaldson praised him. "When the shadows get too
close bark at 'em like that!"

The bellicose attitude of the tiny body brought a smile to Donaldson's
mouth. This, too, was like a bromide to shaking nerves.

But in this position the dog did not so closely resemble that other dog
which he had held u