Page:Rowland--The Mountain of Fears.djvu/105

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THE MOUNTAIN OF FEARS

lowing him, and I noticed that, although my companion was a tall, well-built man, the other topped him by half a head and the breadth of a hand across the shoulders. I do not think that I have ever seen a more powerful brute—all bone and muscle, and something in the shiftiness of his pale, cunning eye told me that he was not without a corresponding share of guile.

"As we drew near to the stockade I saw that it was quite new, and then Lynch reached behind him and pinched my foot as I lay on the stretcher, and, would you believe it, Doctor, on every sharpened stake that formed the front of the stockade there was a human head! They had been there varying lengths of time, I judged, but the—eh—evidences of the recency of some were quite apparent.

"'I see that you go in for heads a bit yourself, Mr. Cullen,' said Lynch, in his pleasant voice, but hardly was the name between his lips when this hairy giant of ours wheeled on

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