on Brodie that he had no thought of aught else. Brodie,
however, turned his small, restless eyes, that were like two shiny
bright-blue buttons, upon the intruder. His great mouth stood open
showing his teeth. On that lower, deformed, undershot jaw of Swen Brodie
were those monstrous teeth which were his pride, a misshapen double row
which he kept clean while his body went unwashed, and between which the
man could bend a nail.

Swen Brodie was the biggest man who had ever come to the mountains, men
said, unless that honour went to one of the Seven who more than a
half-century ago had perished with Gus Ingle. And even so Brodie kept
the honour in his own blood, boasting that Ingle's giant companion, the
worst of a bad lot, was his own father's father. The elder Brodie had
come from Iceland, had lived with a squaw, had sired the first "Swen"
Brodie. And this last scion of a house of outlawry and depravity, the
Blue Devil, as many called him, stood six or eight clear inches above
Mark King, who was well above six feet. Whatever pride was in him went
first to his teeth, next to his enormous stature; he denied that his
father had been so big a man; he flew into a towering rage at the
suggestion; he cursed his father's memory as a fabric of lies. His head
was all face, flattening off an inch above the hairless brows; his face
was all enormous, double-toothed mouth.

Slowly the big mouth closed. The shiny blue eyes narrowed and glinted;
the coarse face reddened. Brodie's throat corded, the Adam's apple moved
repeatedly up and down as he swallowed inarticulately. This old
Honeycutt saw. He jerked about and quick lights sprang up in his
despairing eyes. He began to sputter but Brodie's loud voice had come
back to him and drowned out the old man's shrillings. Brodie ripped out
a string of oaths, demanding:

"Who told _you_ to come in? You--you----"

"He was aiming to kill me," cried old Honeycutt, dragging and pulling at
King's sleeve. "He was for doin' for me--like that!"

He pointed to the floor. There lay a heavy iron poker bent double.

"He done it. Brodie done it. He was for doin' me----"

"You old fool, I'll do you yet," growled Brodie. "And you, King, what
are you after?"

Always truculent, to-day Brodie was plainly spoiling for trouble. King
had stepped in at a moment when Brodie was in no mood to brook any
interruption or interference.

"I came for a word with Honeycutt, not with you," King flashed back at
him