see that?... You
cheated my father. Now you're going to make it good."

Hardman, furious and imperious, never grasped the significance that had
frozen Matthews. He was thick, arrogant. He had long been a power
wherever he went. Yielding to rage he yelled at Pan.

"Bill Smith sicked his cowpuncher on me, hey? Like father, like son!
You're a rustler breed. I'll drive you--"

Pan leaped like a tiger and struck Hardman a terrible blow in the face.
Like something thrown from a catapult he went into the crowd next the
bar, and despite this barrier and the hands grasping at his flying arms
he crashed to the floor. But before he fell Pan had leaped back in the
same position he had held in front of Matthews.

"He lied," cried Pan. "My dad, Bill Smith, was as honest a cattleman
as ever lived.... Mr. Sheriff, do you share that slur cast on him?"

"I don't know Bill Smith," replied Matthews hastily. "Reckon I'm not
talkin' agin men I don't know.... An' as I'm not armed I can't argue
with a gun-packin' cowboy."

Thus he saved his face with the majority of those present. But he did
have a gun. Pan knew that as well as if he had seen it. Matthews was
not the "even break" stripe of sheriff.

"Ah-huh!" ejaculated Pan sardonically. "All right. Then I'll be
looking for you to arrest me next time we meet."

"I'll arrest you, Panhandle Smith, you can gamble on thet," declared
Matthews harshly.

"Arrest nothing," replied Pan with ringing scorn. "You're a four-flush
sheriff. I'll gamble you elected yourself. I know your kind,
Matthews. And I'll gamble some more that you don't last long in Marco."

This was, as Pan deliberately intended, raw talk that any man not a
coward could not swallow. But Matthews was a coward. That appeared
patent to all onlookers, in their whispers and nodding heads. Whatever
prestige he had held there in that rough mining community was gone,
until he came out to face this fiery cowboy with a gun. White and
shaking he turned to the group of men who had gotten Hardman to his
feet. They led him out the open door and Matthews followed.

Pan strode back to the table where Louise sat tense and wide eyed. The
hum of voices began again, the clatter of glasses, the clink of coin.
The incident had passed.

"Well, little girl, I had them figured, didn't I?" asked Pan, calling a
smile to break his tight cold face.

"I don't--know what--ails me," she said, breathlessly. "I see fights
eve