ngin' or dancin'. Or both."

He flung a shot from the gun into the ground between the young man's
feet.

"Show us a few steps, you powder-faced dood! Mebbe we'll let you stay in
camp if you amuse us."

Sandy and Sam had elbowed their way lightly through the ring and the
former turned to the man beside whom he happened to stand.

"What's the idea?" he asked.

"The young 'un good as told Roarin' Russell he didn't know what he was
talkin' about. Chap asked the kid's opinion on a bit of ore an' he give
it. It didn't suit Russell."

"It didn't, eh? Now, that's too bad," drawled Sandy. The other looked at
him curiously. Sandy's drawl was often provocative. Russell's gun
barked again.

"Dance, damn ye! An' sing at the same time; blast you for a buttin' in
tenderfoot! Won't, eh?"

The victim, game but despairing, flung a look of appeal about him. To
give in meant to become the laughing-stock of the camp, to have its
ribaldry follow him, to be laughed out of the camp, branded as a coward.
Yet to resist was a challenge to death. The bully had been drinking, the
gleam in his eyes was that of the killer, a man half insane from
alcohol.

"Up with yore hands! Up with 'em, or I'll shoot the knuckles off of 'em!
I'll make a jumpin'-jack of you or I'll shoot yore...."

The first syllable of the intended volley of foulness was barely out
when Sandy, stepping forward, touched the bully on the shoulder. Russell
whirled as a bear whirls, gun lifting.

"Lady back here in the crowd," said Sandy quietly.

For a second Russell gasped and stared and, as he stared, the cold hard
look in Sandy's eyes told him the manner of man who had interrupted him.
But this man's guns were in the holsters, Russell's weapon was in hand
though its muzzle was tilted skyward. The crowd, thickening, waited his
next move. He had been stopped in his baiting. He saw no woman back of
the big bulk of Mormon, keeping Miranda well away, not seeing what was
going forward.

"To hell with the lady!" shouted Russell. At his back was only the
unarmed assayer. This lean cold-eyed interferer was a hardy fool who
needed a lesson. He swept down his gun, thumb to hammer. Two guns grew
like magic in Sandy's hands. Russell read a message in Sandy's glance,
he heard the gasp of the crowd. With his own gun first in the open the
stranger had beaten him to the drop and fire. He felt the fan of the
wing of death on his brow. His gun flew out of his fingers, wrenched
away