gure before him.

That was enough of a hint to make Marianne look again towards the pair
directly below her; the hat of the gaudy cowpuncher lay in the dust
where it had evidently been knocked by the first poorly aimed blow of
him of the moustaches, and the owner of the hat danced away at a little
distance. Marianne saw what the hat had hitherto concealed, a shock of
flame-red hair, and she removed her fingers from her ears in time to
hear the big man roar: "This ain't a dance, damn you! Stand still and
fight!"

"Nope," laughed the other. "It ain't a dance. It's a pile more fun. Come
on you--"

The big man obscured the last of the insulting description of his
ancestry with the rush of a bull, his head lowered and his fists doing
duty as horns. Plainly the giant had only to get one blow home to end
the conflict, but swift and graceful as a tongue of fire dancing along a
log the red-headed man flashed to one side, and as he whirled Marianne
saw that he was laughing still, drunk with the joy of battle. Goliath
roared past, thrashing the air; David swayed in with darting fists. They
closed. They became obscure forms whirling in a fog of dust until
red-head leaped out of the mist.

Goliath followed with the cloud boiling away from him, a mountain of a
man above his foeman.

"It's unfair!" shrilled Marianne. "That great brute and--"

Red-head darted forward, a blue clad arm flicked out. She almost heard
and felt the jar of that astonishing shock which halted Goliath in his
tracks with one foot raised. He wobbled an instant, then his great knees
bent, and dropping inert on his face the dust spurted like steam under
the impact.

The crowd now washed in from every side to lift him up and revive him
with canteens of water, yet they were quite jovial in the midst of their
work of mercy and Marianne gathered that the fall of Goliath was not
altogether unwelcome to the townsmen. She saw the bulky figure raised to
a sitting posture, saw a dull-eyed face, bloody about the mouth, and
looked away hastily towards the red-headed victor.

He was in the act of picking the torn fragments of his sombrero from the
dust. It had probably come in contact with the giant's spurs as they
wrestled, for the crown was literally ripped to tatters. And when its
owner beat out the dirt and placed the hat on his head, the fiery hair
was still visible through the rents. Yet he was not downhearted, it
seemed. He leaned jauntily against a hitching p