ee
that his hand was trembling as he stirred the gravy.

"Indeed! How you got that figgered?" asked the man, mockingly.

Wallie replied with dignity:

"This is my homestead; I filed on it this morning."

"Looks like you'd a-found out if it was open to entry before you went to
all that trouble." Boise Bill shuffled his feet so that a cloud of the
light wood-ashes rose and settled in the gravy.

Wallie frowned but picked them out patiently.

"I did," he answered, moving the pan.

"Then somebody's lied to you, fer I filed on this ground and I ain't
abandoned it."

"You've never done any work on it, and Mr. Tucker has my filing fees and
application so I cannot see that there is any argument about it."

Wallie was very polite and conciliatory.

"You'll find that filin' is one thing and holdin' is another in this
man's country." Quite deliberately he scuffled up another cloud of
cinders.

"I will appreciate it," said Wallie, sharply, "if you won't kick ashes
in my gravy!"

"And I will appreciate it," Boise Bill mocked him, "if you'll git your
junk together and move off my land in about twenty minutes."

"I refuse to be intimidated," said Wallie, paling. "I shall begin a
contest suit if necessary."

"I allus fight first and contest afterward." Boise Bill lifted his huge
foot and kicked over first the pan of ham and then the gravy. Wallie
stood for a second staring at the tragedy. Then his nerves jumped and he
shook in a passion which seemed to blind and choke him.

Boise Bill had drawn his six-shooter and Wallie was looking into the
barrel of it. His homestead, his life, was in jeopardy, but this seemed
nothing at all compared to the fact that the ruffian, with deliberate
malice, had kicked over his supper!

"Have I got to try a chunk o' lead on you?" Boise Bill snarled at him.

For answer Wallie stooped swiftly and gripped the long handle of the
frying-pan. He swung it with all his strength as he would have swung a
tennis racket. Knocking the six-shooter from Boise Bill's hand he jumped
across the fire at him. Scarcely conscious of what he was doing in the
frenzy of rage that consumed him, Wallie whipped his little
pearl-handled pistol from his breeches pocket and as Boise Bill opened
his mouth in an exclamation of astonishment, Wallie shoved it down his
throat, yelling shrilly that if he moved an eye-lash he would pull the
trigger!

This was the amazing sight that stopped Pinkey in his tracks as
effec