brushed his cheek, slid to his shoulder and clenched there.
Then came the crackle of a match up a trouser leg, and the hold loosed on the boy as Murray said:
“Roddy! You young imp! What the devil are you doing here?”
“Murray—Murray—Murray!” Roddy held him tight. “I thought you was Pipi———”
“Pipi is down in the township. I saw him as I was going over to Cardigan’s. That is why I was certain I was after a burglar when I spotted the light up here. And I’m not sure that I wasn’t right, either, Roddy.”
“You—got pluck ter come up here,” said Roddy, very low.
Murray laughed shortly.
“There’s very much in the world that we don’t understand, Roddy. But we can fight it, all the same. Evil is a tangible thing, in whatever form it comes—tangible enough to stand up to, anyway.”
“But you believe that Pipi—that Pipi———”
Murray turned, lighting a tallow dip that stood within three nails on a board.
“I was dog-tired that night Pipi started his yarns,” he said, “and I was afraid—I was dead afraid that he might do some foolery. That’s what gave him the hold, do you see? You take my tip, Roddy: When a fellow begins to funk, morally or physically, he is bound to
