"Confound your belligerent soul!" the doctor growled at dawn. "I believe you're too mean to die."
"We'll make it a finish fight," whispered Daniel.
"I'll go you," the doctor answered, and sent for digitalis and salt solution.
There was one other soul in Port Agnew who did not sleep that night, either. Andrew Daney's soul, shaken by what was to him a cosmic cataclysm, caused that good man to rise at five o'clock and go down to the hospital for another look at Dirty Dan. To his anxious queries the doctor shook a dubious head, but the indomitable O'Leary smiled wanly.
"Go on wit' ye!" he wheezed faintly. "I'll win be a hair-line decision."
At seven o'clock, when the telegraph-station opened, Andrew Daney was waiting at the door. He entered and sent a telegram to The Laird.
Return immediately.
In the late afternoon, Hector McKaye returned to Port Agnew and at once sought Daney, who related to him exactly what had occurred. The shadow of profound worry settled over The Laird's face.
"Dan refuses to disclose anything regarding Donald's movements," Daney continued, "where he followed the boy or where the fight took place. I only know that Donald was not present; Dan, fortunately, overheard the plot, inculcated, by some means, the idea in those scoundrels' heads that he was Donald, and took the fight off the boy's hands. He claimed he fought a winning fight, and he is right. The mulatto died in Darrow this morning. One of the Greeks has a smashed shoulder, and the other a broken arm and four broken ribs. How they ever got home to Darrow is a mystery."
"The third Greek must have waited near the river-mouth with a boat, Andrew. Have you any idea where Donald spent the evening?"