s feet almost to the level of his head, and slammed him
against the hotel wall with a sudden twist. She heard the thump of the
body on the logs. For an instant she thought him about to jump with
his booted feet on the prostrate form, and involuntarily she held her
breath. But he stepped back, and when the other scrambled up, he
side-stepped the first rush, and knocked the man down again with a blow
of his fist. This time he stayed down. Then other men--three or four
of them--came out of the hotel, stood uncertainly a few seconds, and
Hazel heard the young fellow say:

"Better take that fool in and bring him to. If he's still hungry for
trouble, I'll be right handy. I wonder how many more of you fellers
I'll have to lick before you'll get wise enough not to start things you
can't stop?"

They supported the unconscious man through the doorway; the young
fellow resumed his seat on the box, also his pipe filling.

"Roarin' Bill's goin' to get himself killed one uh these days."

Hazel started, but it was only Jim Briggs in the doorway beside her.

"I guess you ain't much used to seein' that sort of exhibition where
you come from, Miss Weir," Briggs' wife put in over his shoulder. "My
land, it's disgustin'--men fightin' in the street where everybody can
see 'em. Thank goodness, it don't happen very often. 'Specially when
Bill Wagstaff ain't around. You ain't shocked, are you, honey?"

"Why, I didn't have time to be shocked," Hazel laughed. "It was done
so quickly."

"If them fellers would leave Bill alone," Briggs remarked, "there
wouldn't be no fight. But he goes off like a hair-trigger gun, and
he'd scrap a dozen quick as one. I'm lookin' to see his finish one uh
these days."

"What a name!" Hazel observed, caught by the appellation Briggs had
first used. "Is that Roaring Bill over there?"

"That's him--Roarin' Bill Wagstaff," Briggs answered. "If he takes a
few drinks, you'll find out to-night how he got the name. Sings--just
like a bull moose--hear him all over town. Probably whip two or three
men before mornin'."

His spouse calling him at that moment, Briggs detailed no more
information about Roaring Bill. And Hazel sat looking across the way
with considerable interest at the specimen of a type which hitherto she
had encountered in the pages of fiction--a fighting man, what the West
called a "bad actor." She had, however, no wish for closer study of
that particular type. The men of her w