from him, while her
beautiful eyes moved about like I've seen a wild animal's caught in a
trap. Then, when she felt her strength wasn't no account against his,
she gave one piercing, terrible scream, so long and unnatural-like in
the tone of it that it curdled my very blood.

I lifted up the window-sash quick, and jumped in; but before I made two
steps Jim sprang past me, and raised his pistol.

'Drop her!' he shouts to Moran; 'you hound! Leave go Miss Falkland, or
by the living God I'll blow your head off, Dan Moran, before you can
lift your hand! How dare you touch her, you cowardly dog!'

Moran was that stunned at seeing us show up so sudden that he was a good
bit took off his guard, cool card as he was in a general way. Besides,
he'd left his revolver on the piano close by the arm-chair, where his
grog was. Burke and Daly were no better off. They found Starlight and
Warrigal covering them with their pistols, so that they'd have been shot
down before they could so much as reach for their tools.

But Jim couldn't wait; and just as Moran was rising on his feet, feeling
for the revolver that wasn't in his belt (and that I never heard of
his being without but that once), he jumps at him like a wallaroo, and,
catching him by the collar and waist-belt, lifts him clean off his feet
as if he'd been a child, and brings him agen the corner of the wall with
all his full strength. I thought his brains was knocked out, dashed if
I didn't. I heard Moran's head sound against the stone wall with a dull
sort of thud; and on the floor he drops like a dead man--never made a
kick. By George! we all thought he had killed him.

'Stash that, now,' says Burke; 'don't touch him again, Jim Marston. He's
got as much as 'll do him for a bit; and I don't say it don't serve him
right. I don't hold with being rough to women. It ain't manly, and we've
got wives and kids of our own.'

'Then why the devil didn't you stop it?' says Starlight. 'You deserve
the same sauce, you and Daly, for sitting there like a couple of
children, and letting that ruffian torment these helpless ladies. If you
fellows go on sticking up on your own account, and I hear a whisper of
your behaving yourselves like brutes, I'll turn policeman myself for the
pleasure of running you in. Now, mind that, you and Daly too. Where's
Wall and Hulbert?'

'They went to yard the horses.'

'That's fair game, and all in the day's work. I don't care what you take
or whom you shoot