nedy lay sprawled over a card table, whimpering inarticulately
because he had lost his gun at the dance. The flushed youth who had
rashly claimed Mary Hope as his girl was outside with a washbasin
trying to stop his nose from bleeding. Others were ministering to
their hurts as best they might, muttering the thoughts that they dared
not express aloud.

Lance looked up from examination of his knuckle, caressed his cut lip
with the tip of his tongue, pulled the fragment of shirt down as far
as possible, gently rubbed his swelling cheek, and turned to the
bartender.

"I never licked a man yet and sent him home thirsty," he said. "Set it
out for the boys--and give me another highball. Then if you'll lend me
a coat and a pair of gloves, I'll go home."

Peace was ratified in whisky drunk solemnly. Lance paid, and turned to
go. One of the vanquished wabbled up to him and held out his hand to
shake.

"You damn Lorrigans, you got us comin' and goin'," he complained, "but
shake, anyway. I'm Irish meself, and I know a rale fight when I see
it. What we didn't git at the dance before we left, by heavins you
give us when we got into town--so I'm one that's game to say it was a
fine dance and not a dull momint anywhere!"

"That's something," Lance grinned wryly and wriggled into the fur
overcoat which the bartender generously lent him. He rejected the
gloves when he found that his hands were puffed and painful, and went
out to find breakfast.

Over a thick white cup of dubious coffee and a plate of sticky
hot-cakes he meditated glumly on the general unappreciativeness of the
world in general, and of the Black Rim in particular. What had
happened at the schoolhouse he could only surmise, but from certain
fragmentary remarks he had overheard he guessed that the schoolhouse
probably had suffered as much as the saloon. Black Rim, it would seem,
was determined that the Lorrigans should go on living up to their
reputations, however peacefully inclined the Lorrigans might be.

Two disquieting thoughts he took with him to the stable when he went
after the pinto team: Mary Hope would say that it was not a pleasant
surprise which he had given her at Cottonwood Spring. And Belle,--he
was not at all sure whether he was too big for Belle's quirt to find
the tender places on his legs, but he was very sure that the Irishman
spoke the truth. There would still be no dull moments for Lance when
he confronted the owner of that pinto team.