egain what he had lost by his concession.

"Sho! You've got all day. This rush notion is the great failing of the
American people. We hadn't ought to go through life on the lope--no,
sir! We need to take the rest cure for that habit," Larrabie mused
aloud, seating himself on a flat boulder between Tom and the ranch.

Dixon let out an oath. "Did you bring me here to tell me that durn
foolishness?"

"Not only to tell you. I figured we would try out the rest cure, you and
me. We'll get close to nature out here in the sunshine, and not do a
thing but rest till the cows come home," Keller explained easily. His
voice was indolent, his manner amiable; but there was a wariness in his
eyes that showed him prepared for any move.

So it happened that when Dixon made the expected dash into the chaparral
Keller nailed him in a dozen strides.

"Let me alone! Let me go!" cried Tom furiously. "You've got no business
to keep me here."

"I'm doing it for pleasure, say."

The other tried to break away, but Larrabie had caught his arm and
twisted it in such a way that he could not move without great pain.
Impotently he writhed and cursed. Meanwhile his captor relieved him of
his revolver, and, with a sudden turn, dropped him to the ground and
stepped back.

"What's eating you, Keller? Have you gone plumb crazy? Gimme back that
gun and let me go," the young fellow screamed.

"You don't need the gun right now. Maybe, if you had it, you might take
a notion to plug me the way you did Buck Weaver."

"What--what's that?" Then, in angry suspicion: "I suppose Phyllis told
you that lie."

He had not finished speaking before he regretted it. The look in the
face of the other told him that he had gone too far and would have to
pay for it.

"Stand up, Tom Dixon! You've got to take a thrashing for that. There's
been one coming to you ever since you ran away and left a girl to stand
the gaff for you. Now it's due."

"I don't want to fight," Tom whined. "I reckon I oughtn't to have said
that, but you drove me to it. I'll apologize----"

"You'll apologize after your thrashing, not before. Stand up and take
it."

Dixon got to his feet very reluctantly. He was a larger man than his
opponent by twenty pounds--a husky, well-built fellow; but he was
entirely without the fighting edge. He knew himself already a beaten
man, and he cowered in spirit before his lithe antagonist, even while he
took off his coat and squared himself for the attack