nshot punctuated the command.

"Go on--get on the other side of the schoolhouse. Run! The fools will
all start to shooting now!"

Mary Hope stopped stubbornly. "I will not!" she defied him; and Lance
without more argument lifted her from the ground, stooped and tossed
her under the wagon, much as he would have heaved a bag of oats out of
the rain.

"Don't you move until I tell you to," he commanded her harshly, and
ran back, diving into the thick of the crowd as though he were
charging into a football scrimmage.

"Who was it called me back to fight? Put up your guns,--or keep them
if you like. It's all one to me!"

In the dim light he saw the gleam of a weapon raised before him,
reached out and wrenched it away from the owner, and threw it far over
his shoulder into the weeds. "Who said a Lorrigan run? I want that
man!"

"I said it," bellowed a whisky-flushed man whose face was strange to
him. "I said it, and I say it agin. I say--a Lorrigan!"

He lifted his gun above the pressure of excited men and women. Lance
sprung upward and forward, landed on some one's foot, lunged again and
got a grip on the hand that held the gun. With his left hand he
wrenched the gun away. With his right he pulled the man free of the
crowd and out where there was room. The crowd--men, now, for the women
had fled shrieking--surged that way.

"Stand back there! I'll settle with this fellow alone." He held the
other fast, his arms as merciless as the grip of a grizzly, and called
aloud:

"This is a Lorrigan dance, and the Lorrigans are going to have order.
Those of you who brought chips on your shoulders, and whisky to soak
the chips in, can drink your whisky and do your fighting among
yourselves, off the Lorrigan ranch. We all came here to have fun.
There's music and room to dance, and plenty of chuck and plenty of
coffee, and the dance is going right on without any fuss whatever.

"This poor boob here who thinks he wants to fight me just because I'm
a Lorrigan, I never saw before. It wouldn't be a fair fight, because
he's too drunk to do anything but make a fool of himself. There's
nothing to fight about, anyway. A fellow was carrying two cups of
boiling hot coffee, and he stubbed his toe, and some one got scalded a
little. That's nothing to break up a dance over. The rest of you heard
the noise and jumped at the conclusion there was trouble afoot. There
isn't. I think you all want to go on with the dance and have a good
time, ex