you," was the calm reply.

"Hello! You can talk United States, can't you?"

"Quite as well as you, if necessary," was the cool response.

"You look like a dago."

"What I look like, and what I am, is none of your business--unless you
show some authority for questioning me."

"Ho, ho, ho, ho! Hear him, my coveys! What do you think of that?" And
then to Nick again: "What sort of authority do you expect me to show?"

Nick shrugged his shoulders, knocked out the ashes of his pipe, rose
slowly to his feet, and stood facing the other calmly, as he responded:

"There is only one kind of authority, signor, in a party like this. You
know what that is. I don't know you any more than I know these other
guns around here. It may all be a put-up job, for all I know. I don't
much care if it is. I am quite willing to fight you all, one at a time,
if necessary--and with guns, or knives, or fists, as you please. I come
here, and I get into a tree and wait. Why? Because I have been told of
this place, and that always there is somebody around here. I thought I
would see who the somebody was before somebody saw me. So I get myself
into a tree. Pish! And then not only one, but two, and three arrive on
the scene; and then eight more come. If you want to know who I am, and
are brave enough to fight me, and man enough to lick me--then you'll
know. If not--mind your own affairs, and leave me to attend to mine."

It was a long speech, and the others listened in absolute silence to
the end of it. But the instant Nick ceased speaking, the man to whom he
had addressed his remarks drew back his arm with a sudden motion, and
drove his huge fist forward with the quickness of a cat.

Any other person than Nick Carter might have felt the force of that
treacherous blow. Even he might have done so had he not been expecting
it, and, therefore, been entirely ready for it.

But the bony fist of the man struck only the empty air, for Nick
sidestepped in a manner that would have made Jim Corbett, in his
palmiest days, green with envy; and the battering-ram flew past his ear
harmlessly.

And then the man who had delivered it, before he could recover from the
effect of his own effort, found himself seized in a viselike grip,
raised from his feet, and hurled backward straight over the fire, and
beyond it, so that he sprawled at full length among the bushes.

He leaped to his feet with a curse, and his hand flew to his hip pocket
in search of a weapon;