to
toll her off? Yu meet her ag'in right under my nose arter I've warned yu?
Git, yoreself, or I'll stomp on yu like on a louse."

Absolutely, hot tears of mortification, of bitter injury, showed in his
glaring eyes. He was but a big boy, after all.

"Our meeting here was entirely by accident," I answered. "Mrs. Montoyo had
no expectation of seeing me, nor I of seeing her. You're making a fool of
yourself."

He burst, red, quivering, insensate.

"Yu're a liar! Yu're a sneakin', thievin' liar, like all Gentiles. Yu're
both o' yu liars. What's she?" And he spoke it, raving with insult. "But
I'll tame her. She'll be snatched from yu an' yore kind. We'll settle
naow. Yu're a liar, I say. Yu gonna draw on me? Draw, yu Gentile dog; for
if I lay hands on yu once----"

"Look out!" she gasped tensely. But she had spoken late. That cold blood
which had kept me in a tremor and a wonderment, awaiting his pistol
muzzle, exploded into a seethe of heat almost blinding me. I forgot
instructions, I disregarded every movement preliminary to the onset, I
remembered only the criminations and recriminations culminating here at
last. Bullets were too slow and easy. I did not see his revolver, I saw
but the hulk of him and the intolerable sneer of him, and that his flesh
was ready to my fingers. And quicker than his hand I was upon him, into
him, climbing him, clinging to him, arms binding him, legs twining around
his, each ounce of me greedy to crush him down and master him.

The shock drove him backward. Again My Lady screamed shortly; the children
screamed. He proved very strong. Swelling and tugging and cursing he broke
one grip, but I was fast to him, now with guard against his holstered gun.
We swayed and staggered, grappling hither and thither. I had his arms
pinioned once more, to bend him. He spat into my face; and shifting, set
his teeth into my shoulder so that they champed like the teeth of a horse,
through shirt and hide to the flesh. I raised him; his boots hammered at
my shins, his knee struck me in the stomach and for an instant I sickened.
Now I tripped him; we toppled together, came to the ground with a thump.
Here we churned, while he flung me and still I stuck. The acrid dust of
the alkali enveloped us. Again he spat, fetid--I sprawled upon him,
smothering his flailing arms; gave him all my weight and strength; smelled
the sweat of him, snarled into his snarling face, close beneath mine.

Once he partially freed hi