It's this: Tupper lost a
sheep to the Killer last night."

"And what if he did?" The little man rose smoothly to his feet. Each
noticed the others' face--dead-white.

"Why, he--lost--it--on--Wheer d'yo' think?" He drawled the words out,
dwelling almost lovingly on each.

"Where?"

"On--the--Red--Screes."

The crash was coming--inevitable now. David knew it, knew that nothing
could avert it, and braced himself to meet it. The smile had fled from
his face, and his breath fluttered in his throat like the wind before a
thunderstorm.

"What of it?" The little man's voice was calm as a summer sea.

"Why, your Wullie--as I told yo'--was on the Screes last night."

"Go on, David."

"And this," holding up the paper, "tells you that they ken as I ken
noo, as maist o' them ha' kent this mony a day, that your Wullie, Red
Wull--the Terror--"

"Go on."

"Is--"

"Yes."

"The Black Killer."

It was spoken.

The frayed string was snapped at last. The little man's hand flashed to
the bottle that stood before him.

"Ye--liar!" he shrieked, and threw it with all his strength at the boy's
head. David dodged and ducked, and the bottle hurtled over his shoulder.

Crash! it whizzed into the lamp behind, and broke on the wall beyond,
its contents trickling down the wall to the floor.

For a moment, darkness. Then the spirits met the lamp's smouldering wick
and blazed into flame.

By the sudden light David saw his father on the far side the table,
pointing with crooked forefinger. By his side Red Wull was standing
alert, hackles up, yellow fangs bared, eyes lurid; and, at his feet, the
wee brown mouse lay still and lifeless.

"Oot o' ma hoose! Back to Kenmuir! Back to yer ----" The unpardonable
word, unmistakable, hovered for a second on his lips like some foul
bubble, and never burst.

"No mither this time!" panted David, racing round the table.

"Wullie!"

The Terror leapt to the attack; but David overturned the table as
he ran, the blunderbuss crashing to the floor; it fell, opposing a
momentary barrier in the dog's path.

"Stan' off, ye--!" screeched the little man, seizing a chair in both
hands; "stan' off, or I'll brain ye!"

But David was on him.

"Wullie, Wullie, to me!"

Again the Terror came with a roar like the sea. But David, with a mighty
kick catching him full on the jaw, repelled the attack.

Then he gripped his father round the waist and lifted him from the
ground. The little man, struggli