him like a boar. You know the stiff , muscle-bound motion, Doctor: the swift sling of the rigid body all on one axis, the great, brutish head swung on its thick neck, the mean little eyes slanting up evilly. That is what this hairy brute was, a boar, with all of the cunning and surly moroseness of this animal. There was something horribly brutish in the swing of his shock head between the hulking shoulders as he turned on Lynch, and some thing horribly sinister in the yellow glint of his teeth between the bristling, red mustache, which seemed to roll upwards like that which one sees on the headpieces of ancient Japanese armor. If he had turned to me like that I would have presented him with the muzzle of my pistol—Ach!—and very possibly the bullet as well, for the secret of long life in my profession is to take no chances. I could not see, however, that Lynch moved a muscle, except to smile.
"'Where got ye that name?' snarled the man. His beard was thrust almost into
[ 90 ]
