o be trouble." They stood on
tiptoe, and watched eagerly.

"Gentlemen," announced Burrell, standing near the ashen-gray wretch,
and facing the tentful of men, "this man is a thief, but you can't kill
him!"

Stark leaned across the bar, his eyes blazing, and touched the
Lieutenant on the shoulder.

"Do you mean to take a hand in all of my affairs?"

"This isn't your affair; it's mine," said the officer. "This is what I
was sent here for, and it's my particular business. You seem to have
overlooked that important fact."

"He stole my stuff, and he'll take his medicine."

"I say he won't!"

For the second time in their brief acquaintance these two men looked
fair into each other's eyes. Few men had dared to look at Stark thus
and live; for when a man has once shed the blood of his fellow, a mania
obsesses him, a disease obtains that is incurable. There is an
excitation of every sense when a hunter stands up before big game; it
causes a thrill and flutter of undiscovered nerves, which nothing else
can conjure up, and which once lived leaves an incessant hunger. But
the biggest game of all is man, and the fiercest sensation is hate.
Stark had been a killer, and his brain had been seared with the flame
till the scar was ineradicable. He had lived those lurid seconds when a
man gambles his life against his enemy's, and, having felt the great
sensation, it could never die; yet with it all he was a cautious man,
given more to brooding on his injuries and building up a quarrel than
to reckless paroxysms of passion, and experience had taught him the
value of a well-handled temper as well as the wisdom of knowing when to
use it and put it in action. He knew intuitively that his hour with
Burrell had not yet come.

The two men battled with their eyes for an opening. Lee and the others
mastered their surprise at the interruption, and then began to babble
until Burrell turned from the gambler and threw up his arm for silence.

"There's no use arguing," he told the mob. "You can't do it. I'll hold
him till the next boat comes, then I'll send him down-river to St.
Michael's."

He laid his hand upon the negro and made for the door, with face set
and eyes watchful and alert, knowing that a hair's weight might shift
the balance and cause these men to rive him like wolves.

Lee's indignation at this miscarriage of justice had him so by the
throat as to strangle expostulation for a moment, till he saw the
soldier actually bear