en so simple a recital had not the weapon
been reversed in the superintendent's hand for the hazing of the roan.
The train would have been treated otherwise to a bit of the real West
indeed, for the superintendent was beyond all sane thought or
discretion. Blue Jeans took his gun away from him. As the
superintendent would have thrust it into his face to fire he struck the
out-stretched wrist with the edge of his stiffened hand, and it fell to
the ground.

Then Blue Jeans took the superintendent from the saddle.

And now the train rocked and roared. This was not novelty, but it was
good. This was what they had come West to see, but better--better!
Better fifty times over than the tame affair which the world's
championship heavy-weight bout at Denver had turned out to be. This
was a fight. You said it--a fight!

The superintendent fought with wasteful fury; Blue Jeans with a cold
hatred of his cruelty--a cold and bitter hatred of his opulence. The
superintendent struck him once with a wild, wide swing. Once--only
once. For he hugged to the superintendent after that and those wild
swings went past. And he jabbed! And jabbed! And jabbed!

After a while the foeman would have clinched, but Blue Jeans prevented
that. That would not do; the superintendent was heavy and he was
slight. So from a position always before his own face his fists
battered the other man's features blank. And he tore that new shirt,
and trampled on the thirty dollar hat; and the chaps grew old and dingy
from constant falling and rising.

Later the superintendent rose less readily; later still he did not rise
at all. Then Blue Jeans watered his horse for him and led it where he
lay. With a heave he tossed the once pretty puncher into the
saddle,--he was pretty no longer. He returned his gun. But he broke
that weapon and extracted the shells before he gave it back.

"There it is," he told the beaten man, and instantly a light leaped to
the half-closed eyes.

Blue Jeans read it.

"Oh, it ain't loaded. See!" And he flung afar the handful of
cartridges.

"It ain't loaded, and don't you load it, either. Don't you try to load
it, till you're out of sight. Don't you even think to try to load it.
If you do--if you do--"

He went back to his seat on the timber.

And the train rocked no more. It became instead loquacious.

"Didn't I tell you?" it demanded. "Didn't I say so, the minute I
spotted that moving-picture scenery!