bar the long line of men whirled, glasses in hand, to watch the
fight. But it did not last long. Kennedy was drunk, and Lance was not.
So presently Kennedy was crawling on his knees amongst some overturned
chairs, and Lance was facing the crowd, every inch of him itching to
fight.

"Who was it said he was going to fix them damn Lorrigans?" he
demanded, coming at them warily. "I'm not packing a gun, but I'd like
to lick a few of you fellows that tried to rough-house the dance I
gave. Didn't cost you a cent; music, supper, everything furnished for
you folks to have a good time--and the way you had it was to wreck the
place like the rotten-souled hoodlums you are. Now, who is it wants to
fix the damn Lorrigans?"

"Me, for one; what yuh go'n take my girl away from me for?" a flushed
youth cried, and flung the dregs of his whisky glass at Lance. There
was not more than a half teaspoon in the glass, but the intent was
plain enough.

Lance walked up and knocked that young man staggering half across the
room, slapped with the flat of his hand another who leered at him,
whirled to meet some one who struck him a glancing blow on the ear,
and flung him after the first.

"You're all of you drunk--it's a one-sided fight all the way through,"
he cried, parrying a blow from Kennedy, who had gotten to his feet and
came at him again mouthing obscenity. "But I'll lick you, if you
insist."

His coat had hampered him until it obligingly slit up the back. He
wriggled out of the two halves, tore off his cuffs, and went after the
crowd with his bare fists. Some one lifted a chair threateningly, and
Lance seized it and sent it crashing through a window. Some one else
threw a beer mug, but he ducked in time and broke a knuckle on the
front teeth of the thrower. He saw a gap in the teeth, saw the man
edge out of the fray spitting blood while he made for the door, and
felt that the blow was worth a broken knuckle.

It was not a pretty fight. Such fights never are pretty. Lance himself
was not a pretty sight, when he had finished. There had been
shooting--but even in Jumpoff one hesitated to shoot down an unarmed
man, so that the bar fixtures suffered most. Lance came out of it with
a fragment of shirt hanging down his chest like a baby's bib, a cut
lip that bled all over his chin, a cheek skinned and swelling rapidly,
the bad knuckle and the full flavor of victory.

The saloon looked as though cattle had been driven through it. Bill
Ken