Grinning happily, Pal came at once and Jeff brushed his s.h.a.ggy head with an affectionate hand. He was less tense and, strangely, his anxiety lessened. The great dog wagged an ecstatic tail while Jeff continued to pat his head.

For a short s.p.a.ce, delighted to be near each other once more, neither had paid attention to anything else. Pal licked Jeff's face with a big, sloppy tongue and wagged everything from his muzzle to the tip of his tail. He turned to growl at Barr and Pete, and Barr flicked his rifle.

"I wouldn't leave him try it."

"I won't," Jeff promised.

He slipped two fingers beneath Pal's collar, led him over to the table and sat down. Bending over Pal, as though continuing to caress him, he hoped Barr could not hear his pounding heart, and was glad his eyes were hidden. After a moment, Jeff raised his head.

He looked too casually at the candle that flickered a foot from his hand. Trying to appear disinterested, he gauged Pete's exact distance and Barr's position. He moistened dry lips with his tongue and reviewed his suddenly-formed plan.

Even though he risked a burned hand doing it, he was positive that he could snuff the candle out before Barr could shoot. Then he'd tip the table over and fight his way out. Jeff nibbled his lower lip and looked doubtfully at Pal. Barr was supple as an eel and strong as an ox; Jeff might need help and could he count on Pal?

Barr asked suspiciously, "What ye fl.u.s.tered about?"

Jeff muttered silently at himself. He had a plan. If it was desperate, the situation called for desperate measures. But everything depended on surprise. To give Barr the slightest warning would also give him time to shoot Jeff. It went without saying that he would then be able to shoot Pal, and Jeff hadn't the least doubt that Barr would be happy to do both. He forced a laugh.

"It's just nice to see something around here that's not h.e.l.l-bent to shoot something else."

Barr remained alert. "Whar'd ye get Blazer's dog?"

"Found him over beyond Cressman," Jeff said truthfully. "Do you keep dogs?"

"Houn's," Barr admitted. "Wouldn't pester myself with a no-account dog such as that."

Jeff cast for a way to lull Barr. "Depends on what you want in a dog, wouldn't you say?"

"Could. What do you want?"

Jeff did his best to look like a man who faces a desperate situation, but who was mightily cheered because his dog saw fit to track him down.

If he did everything exactly right, and with split-second precision, his plan had at least an even chance of working.

Escape would not solve everything. Pete would still be unpunished and if the Whitneys should meet him, Jeff, again, they would not bother to take him prisoner. They'd shoot on sight. But he could name Johnny Blazer's killer. That would start things, and maybe he'd be able to finish them.

Regardless of what might happen in the future, this was now. Jeff had to get out of the cabin before he could do anything else, but it was as though Barr could read his mind.

"You're ponderin'," he accused.

"Is that a crime in these hills?"

"If," Barr said deliberately, "you try to make a break, I'll kill ye in your tracks. I have spoke it."

Jeff said irritably, "Don't be a darn fool!"

"Don't you be one, nuther. You're gettin' a chanst."

"Yes," Jeff sighed, "a big chance." He looked again at the candle. "Any of your hounds ever get you out of jail, Barr?"

"_Pah!_ How might a houn' do such?"

"Well, Pal got me out."

"Those words I mistrust."

"He did," Jeff insisted. "It was in Cressman--"

He told of the Cressman jail and of how he was literally thrown out of it because, when he played the mouth organ, Pal howled. He spoke of inquiring the way to Delview as a ruse to throw Pop and Joe Parker from his trail, for he suspected that they had intended to have him rearrested there. Instead of going to Delview, he had come over the hills to Smithville.

Barr chuckled derisively. "Peddlin' teach you sech tall tales?"

"It's true."

"Ha! You toot music an' the dog howls?"

"Let me show you."

Jeff took a mouth organ from his pack, blew a soft note and Pal responded with a moaning wail that trailed out on a soft soprano note.

Barr seemed dumfounded. "Doggone!"

Jeff's eyes strayed to the candle. Barr rose, wrenched it from its drippings and put it down at the far end of the table. He resumed his seat. "I can see best when hit's thar," he announced grimly. "You wa'nt havin' notions 'bout that candle, was you?"

"Why, no, of course not."

Jeff managed to appear innocent, even while he mentally kicked himself.

His chance had come and gone. There'd be another chance and Barr seemed more at ease.

"This night I learn't what I knew not. A dog howls to noise."

"This one does."

"Make him do hit ag'in. 'Tis a mighty curious thing."

Jeff blew another note and Pal howled again. Barr's eyes sparkled. An elemental creature himself, he was interested in the elemental and this fascinated him. He must find the answer, but while seeking it he did not forget to keep his eyes on Jeff and Pete.

"Why's he do hit?" he asked.

"I don't know," Jeff admitted. "Can't figure it myself."

"Have him do hit some more."

At the first note, Pal obliged with a banshee wail that subsided, then gathered force and mounted again. The sound filled the cabin and offered the illusion of being not only real, but all reality. It was as though the door burst open of its own accord, and Jeff rubbed his eyes in disbelief.

Ike Wilson stood framed in the doorway.

He was slim, supple, smiling, but behind the smile there was something hard as stone and there was nothing to provoke humor in the c.o.c.ked, double-barreled shotgun he carried. Half erect in his chair, Barr froze there. Pete's face turned white. Ike grinned happily.

"Hi, peddler!"