the boy when he's abroad nights. He is not, of course, to let my son
know he is under surveillance."

"I will attend to the matter immediately," Daney promised, and The
Laird, much relieved, hung up and rejoined his son.

"Take care of yourself--and watch that Greek, boy," he cautioned, as
he swung aboard the train.

Donald stood looking after the train until the tail-lights had
disappeared round a curve.

XII

Daney readily discovered in a pool-hall the man he sought. "Dirty Dan"
O'Leary was a chopper in the McKaye employ, and had earned his
sobriquet, not because he was less cleanly than the average lumberjack
but because he was what his kind described as a "dirty" fighter. That
is to say, when his belligerent disposition led him into battle, which
it frequently did, Mr. O'Leary's instinct was to win, quickly and
decisively, and without consideration of the niceties of combat, for a
primitive person was Dirty Dan. Fast as a panther, he was as equally
proficient in the use of all his extremities, and, if hard pressed,
would use his teeth. He was a stringy, big-boned man of six feet, and
much too tall for his weight, wherefore belligerent strangers were
sometimes led to the erroneous conclusion that Mr. O'Leary would not
be hard to upset. In short, he was a wild, bad Irishman who had gotten
immovably fixed in his head an idea that old Hector McKaye was a
"gr-rand gintleman," and a gr-rand gintleman was one of the three
things that Dirty Dan would fight for, the other two being his
personal safety and the love of battle.

Daney drew Dirty Dan out of the pool-hall and explained the situation
to him. The knowledge that The Laird had, in his extremity, placed
reliance on him moved Dirty Dan to the highest pitch of enthusiasm and
loyalty. He pursed his lips, winked one of his piggy eyes craftily,
and, without wasting time in words of assurance, set forth in search
of the man he was to follow and protect. Presently he saw Donald
entering the butcher shop; so he stationed himself across the street
and watched the young laird of Tyee purchase a fowl and walk out with
it under his arm. Keeping his man dimly in view through the gloom,
Dirty Dan, from the opposite side of the street, followed on velvet
feet to the outskirts of the town, where Donald turned and took a path
through some vacant lots, arriving at last at the Sawdust Pile. Dirty
Dan heard him open and close the gate to Caleb Brent's garden.

"Oh, ho,