and on
Jim's. He grabbed it, pressed his lips upon it.

"Goo'-night," he said, "Goo'-night. I'll go now." He swaggered out as
though she had given him a rose.

The barmaid put her hand beneath her apron and rubbed it. Cosme laughed a
little at the quaint action.

"Do they give you lots of trouble, Miss Arundel?" he asked her
sympathetically.

She looked at him. But her attitude was not so simple and friendly as it
had been. Evidently her little conflict with Jim had jarred her humor.
She looked distressed, angry. Cosme felt that, unfairly enough, she
lumped him with The Enemy. He wondered pitifully if she had given The
Enemy its name, if her experience had given her the knowledge of such
names. He had a vision of the pretty, delicate little thing standing
there night after night as though divided by the bar from prowling
beasts. And yet she was known over the whole wide, wild country as
"Hudson's Queen." Her crystal, childlike look must be one of those
extraordinary survivals, a piteous sort of accident. Cosme called himself
a sentimentalist. Spurred by this reaction against his more romantic
tendencies, he leaned forward. He too was going to ask the barmaid for a
good-night or a greeting or a good-bye. His hand was out, when he saw her
face stiffen, her lips open to an "Oh!" of warning or of fear. He wheeled
and flung up his arm against a hurricane of blows.

His late opponents had decided to take advantage of Carthy's absence, and
inflict chastisement prompt and merciless upon the "youthful stranger."
If it had not been for that small frightened "Oh" Cosme would have been
down at once.

With that moment's advantage he fought like a tiger, his golden eyes
ablaze. Swift and dangerous anger was one of his gifts. He was against
the wall, he was torn from it. One of his opponents staggered across the
room and fell, another crumpled up against the bar. Hilliard wheeled and
jabbed, plunged, was down, was up, bleeding and laughing. He was whirled
this way and that, the men from whom he had struck himself free recovered
themselves, closed in upon him. A blow between the eyes half stunned him,
another on his mouth silenced his laughter. The room was getting blurred.
He was forced back against the bar, fighting, but not effectively. The
snarling laughter was not his now, but that of the cheat.

Something gave way behind him; it was as if the bar, against which he was
bent backwards, had melted to him and hardened against