glad hand just to size
things up."

"Yes."

"She had the address of Miss O'Neill, that Irish girl staying at the
Pagets, the one that came in--"

"Go on," snapped his chief.

"So I directed her how she could get there and--"

Wally found himself lifted from the chair and hammered down into it
again. His soft flesh quaked like a jelly. As he stared pop-eyed at the
furious face above him, the fat chin of the little man drooped.

"My God, Mac, don't do that!" he whined.

Macdonald wheeled abruptly away, crossed the room in long strides, and
came back. He had a grip on himself again.

"What's the use?" he said aloud. "You're nothing but a spineless
putterer. Haven't you enough sense even to give me a chance to decide
for myself? Why didn't you keep the woman with you till you could send
for me, you daft donkey?"

"I swear I never thought of that."

"What have you got up there in your head instead of brains? I send you
outside to look after things and you fall down on the job. I give you
plain instructions what to do at Kamatlah and you let Elliot make a
monkey of you. You see him on the boat with a woman coming to make
trouble for me, and the best you can do is to help her on the way. Man,
man, use your gumption."

"If I had known--"

"D'ye think you've got sense enough to take a plain, straight message as
far as the hotel? Because if you have, I've got one to send."

Wally caressed tenderly his bruised flesh. He had a childlike desire to
weep, but he was afraid Macdonald would kick him out of the office.

"'Course I'll do whatever you say, Mac," he answered humbly.

The Scotch-Canadian brushed the swivel chair and its occupant to one
side, drew up another chair in front of the desk, and faced Selfridge
squarely. The eyes that blazed at the little man were the grimmest he
had ever looked into.

"Go to the hotel and see this man Elliot alone. Tell him he's gone too
far--butted into my affairs once too often. There's not a man alive I'd
stand it from. My orders are for him to get out on the next boat. If
he's here after that, I'll kill him on sight."

The color ebbed out of the florid face of Wally. He moistened his lips
to speak. "Good God, Mac, you can't do that. He'll go out and
report--"

"To hell with his report. Let him say what he likes. Put this to him
straight: that he and I can't stay in this town--_and both of us
live_."

Wally had lapped up too many highballs in the past ten years to rel