came louder.

"'Stand them up wan by wan,' says I, 'and give me a leg loose, and a
fist free; and at that--'"

"At that there was thunder and fire in the sky, and because the great
Macavoy blew his breath over them they withered like the leaves," cried
Wonta, laughing; but her laugh had an edge.

Macavoy stopped short, open-mouthed, breathing hard in his great beard.
He was astonished at Wonta's raillery; the more so when she presently
snapped her fingers, and the other maidens, laughing, did the same. Some
of the half-breeds snapped their fingers also in sympathy, and shrugged
their shoulders. Wonta came up to him softly, patted him on the head,
and said: "Like Macavoy there is nobody. He is a great brave. He is not
afraid of a coyote, he has killed prairie-hens in numbers as pebbles by
the lakes. He has a breast like a fat ox,"--here she touched the skin of
his broad chest,--"and he will die if you do not fight him."

Then she drew back, as though in humble dread, and glided away with
the other maidens, Macavoy staring after her, with a blustering kind of
shame in his face. The half-breeds laughed, and, one by one, they got
up, and walked away also. Macavoy looked round: there was no one near
save Pierre, whose eye rested on him lazily. Macavoy got to his feet,
muttering. This was the first time in his experience at Fort O'Angel
that he had been bluffed--and by a girl; one for whom he had a very soft
place in his big heart. Pierre came slowly over to him.

"I'd have it out with her," said he. "She called you a bully and a
brag."

"Out with her?" cried Macavoy. "How can ye have it out wid a woman?"

"Fight her," said Pierre pensively.

"Fight her? fight her? Holy smoke! How can you fight a woman?"

"Why, what--do you--fight?" asked Pierre innocently.

Macavoy grinned in a wild kind of fashion. "Faith, then, y'are a fool.
Bring on the divil an' all his angels, say I, and I'll fight thim where
I stand."

Pierre ran his fingers down Macavoy's arm, and said "There's time enough
for that. I'd begin with the five."

"What five, then?"

"Her half-breed lovers: Big Eye, One Toe, Jo-John, Saucy Boy, and Limber
Legs."

"Her lovers? Her lovers, is it? Is there truth on y'r tongue?"

"Go to her father's tent at sunset, and you'll find one or all of them
there."

"Oh, is that it?" said the Irishman, opening and shutting his fists.
"Then I'll carve their hearts out, an' ate thim wan by wan this night."

"Come d