f the good dancers. Oh, I ain't a pincher, an' I know you like
dancin'."

"But I tell you I can't," she reiterated.

He shot a glance of suspicion at her from under the black thatch of
brows that met above his nose and were as one brow.

"Why can't you?"

"A date," she said.

"Who's the bloke?"

"None of your business, Charley Long. I've got a date, that's all."

"I'll make it my business. Remember that lah-de-dah bookkeeper rummy?
Well, just keep on rememberin' him an' what he got."

"I wish you'd leave me alone," she pleaded resentfully. "Can't you be
kind just for once?"

The blacksmith laughed unpleasantly.

"If any rummy thinks he can butt in on you an' me, he'll learn
different, an' I'm the little boy that'll learn 'm.--Friday night, eh?
Where?"

"I won't tell you."

"Where?" he repeated.

Her lips were drawn in tight silence, and in her cheeks were little
angry spots of blood.

"Huh!--As if I couldn't guess! Germania Hall. Well, I'll be there, an'
I'll take you home afterward. D'ye get that? An' you'd better tell the
rummy to beat it unless you want to see'm get his face hurt."

Saxon, hurt as a prideful woman can be hurt by cavalier treatment, was
tempted to cry out the name and prowess of her new-found protector. And
then came fear. This was a big man, and Billy was only a boy. That was
the way he affected her. She remembered her first impression of his
hands and glanced quickly at the hands of the man beside her. They
seemed twice as large as Billy's, and the mats of hair seemed to
advertise a terrible strength. No, Billy could not fight this big brute.
He must not. And then to Saxon came a wicked little hope that by the
mysterious and unthinkable ability that prizefighters possessed, Billy
might be able to whip this bully and rid her of him. With the next
glance doubt came again, for her eye dwelt on the blacksmith's broad
shoulders, the cloth of the coat muscle-wrinkled and the sleeves bulging
above the biceps.

"If you lay a hand on anybody I'm going with again---" she began.

"Why, they'll get hurt, of course," Long grinned. "And they'll deserve
it, too. Any rummy that comes between a fellow an' his girl ought to get
hurt."

"But I'm not your girl, and all your saying so doesn't make it so."

"That's right, get mad," he approved. "I like you for that, too. You've
got spunk an' fight. I like to see it. It's what a man needs in his
wife--and not these fat cows of women. They're the