an
artist and his affinity with hot chocolate before they could escape
from the avalanche. Chairs went over like ninepins. Stands collapsed.
Men grunted and shouted advice. Girls screamed. The Sea Siren was
being wrecked by a cyclone from the bad lands.

Against the wall the struggling mob brought up with a crash. The
velveteen poet caught at "The Weeping Lady" to save himself from going
down. She descended from her pedestal into his arms and henceforth
waltzed with him as a part of the subsequent proceedings.

The writhing mass caromed from the wall and revolved toward the
musicians. A colored gentleman jumped up in alarm and brandished his
instrument as a weapon.

"Keep away from this heah niggah!" he warned, and simultaneously he
aimed the drum of the mandolin at the red head which was the core of
the tangle. His aim was deflected and the wood crashed down upon the
crown of "The Weeping Lady." For the rest of the two-step it hung like
a large ruff around her neck.

Arms threshed wildly to and fro. The focal point of their destination
was the figure at the center of the disturbance. Most of the blows
found other marks. Four or five men could have demolished Clay.
Fifteen or twenty found it a tough job because they interfered with
each other at every turn. They were packed too close for hard hitting.
Clay was not fighting but wrestling. He used his arms to push with
rather than to strike blows that counted.

The Arizonan could not afterward remember at exactly what stage of the
proceedings the face of Jerry Durand impinged itself on his
consciousness. Once, when the swirl of the crowd flung him close to
the door, he caught a glimpse of it, tight-lipped and wolf-eyed, turned
to him with relentless malice. The gang leader was taking no part in
the fight.

The crowd parted. Out of the pack a pair of strong arms and lean broad
shoulders ploughed a way for a somewhat damaged face that still carried
a debonair smile. With pantherish litheness the Arizonan ducked a
swinging blow. The rippling muscles of the plunging shoulders tossed
aside a little man in evening dress clawing at him. Yet a moment, and
he was outside taking the three steps that led to the street.

Into his laboring lungs he drew deliciously the soft breath of the
night. It cooled the fever of his hammered face, was like an icy bath
to his hot body. A little dizzy from the blows that had been rained on
him, he stood for a moment