“God!” whispered Silent, and at that instant the ominous crouched animal with the yellow eyes, the nameless thing which had been Whistling Dan a moment before, sprang up and forward with a leap like that of a panther.

Morgan stood behind the bar with a livid face and a fixed smile.  His fingers still stiffly clutched the whisky bottle from which the last glass had been filled.  Not another man in the room stirred from his place.  Some sat with their cards raised in the very act of playing.  Some had stopped midway a laugh.  One man had been tying a bootlace.  His body did not rise.  Only his eyes rolled up to watch.

Dan darted under the outstretched arms of Silent, fairly heaved him up from the floor and drove him backwards.  The big man half stumbled and half fell, knocking aside two chairs.  He rushed back with a shout, but at sight of the white face with the thin trickle of blood falling from the lips, and at the sound of that inhuman laughter, he paused again.

Once more Dan was upon him, his hands darting out with motions too fast for the eye to follow.  Jim Silent stepped back a half pace, shifted his weight, and drove his fist straight at that white face.  How it happened not a man in the room could tell, but the hand did not strike home.  Dan had swerved aside as lightly as a wind-blown feather and his fist rapped against Silent’s ribs with a force that made the giant grunt.

Some of the horror was gone from his face and in its stead was baffled rage.  He knew the scientific points of boxing, and he applied them.  His eye was quick and sure.  His reach was whole inches longer than his opponent’s.  His strength was that of two ordinary men.  What did it avail him?  He was like an agile athlete in the circus playing tag with a black panther.  He was like a child striking futilely at a wavering butterfly.  Sometimes this white-faced, laughing devil ducked under his arms.  Sometimes a sidestep made his blows miss by the slightest fraction of an inch.

And for every blow he struck four rained home against him.  It was impossible!  It could not be!  Silent telling himself that he dreamed, and those dancing fists crashed into his face and body like sledgehammers.  There was no science in the thing which faced him.  Had there been trained skill the second blow would have knocked Silent unconscious, and he knew it, but Dan made no effort to strike a vulnerable spot.  He hit at anything which offered.

Still he laughed as he leaped back and forth.  Perhaps mere weight of rushing would beat the dancing will-o’-the-wisp to the floor.  Silent bored in with lowered head and clutched at his enemy.  Then he roared with triumph.  His outstretched hand caught Dan’s shirt as the latter flicked to one side.  Instantly they were locked in each other’s arms!  The most meaning part of the fight followed.