th flushed.

"Drink with him," said two or three men in an undertone. "Or take a
cigar," said one, in a friendly aside.

"Thank you, I won't drink," said Keith, yet more gravely, his face
paling a little, "and I don't care for a cigar."

"Come on, Mr. Keith," called some one.

The name caught the young bully, and he faced Keith more directly.

"Keith?--Keith!" he repeated, fastening his eyes on him with a cold
glitter in them. "So you're Mr. Keith, are you?"

"That is my name," said Keith, feeling his blood tingling.

"Well, you're the man I'm a-lookin' for. No, you won't drink with me,
'cause I won't let you, you ---- ---- ----! You are the ---- ---- that
comes here insultin' a lady?"

"No; I am not," said Keith, keeping his eyes on him.

"You're a liar!" said Mr. Bluffy, adding his usual expletives. "And
you're the man I've come back here a-huntin' for. I promised to drive
you out of town to-night if I had to go to hell a-doin' it."

His white-handled pistol was out of his waistband with a movement so
quick that he had it cocked and Keith was looking down the barrel before
he took in what had been done. Quickness was Mr. Bluffy's strongest
card, and he had played it often.

Keith's face paled slightly. He looked steadily over the pistol, not
three feet from him, at the drunken creature beyond it. His nerves grew
tense, and every muscle in his frame tightened. He saw the beginning of
the grooves in the barrel of the pistol and the gray cones of the
bullets at the side in the cylinder; he saw the cruel, black, drunken
eyes of the young desperado. It was all in a flash. He had not a chance
for his life. Yes, he had.

"Let up, Bill," said a voice, coaxingly, as one might to soothe a wild
beast. "Don't--"

"Drop that pistol!" said another voice, which Keith recognized as Dave
Dennison's.

The desperado half glanced at the latter as he shot a volley of oaths at
him. That glance saved Keith. He ducked out of the line of aim and
sprang upon his assailant at the same time, seizing the pistol as he
went, and turning it up just as Bluffy pulled the trigger. The ball
went into the remote corner of the ceiling, and the desperado was
carried off his feet by Keith's rush.

The only sounds heard in the room were the shuffling of the feet of the
two wrestlers and the oaths of the enraged Bluffy. Keith had not uttered
a word. He fought like a bulldog, without noise. His effort was, while
he still gripped the pistol,