. For he knew, as
did anybody who looked at him carefully, that Keller was a game man from
the marrow out.

Men who knew him said of Larrabie Keller that he could whip his weight
in wild cats. Get him started, and he was a small cyclone in action. But
now he went at his man deliberately, with hard, straight, punishing
blows.

Dixon fought back wildly, desperately, but could not land. He could see
nothing but that face with the chilled-steel eyes, but when he lashed
out it was never there. Again and again, through the openings he left,
came a right or a left like a pile driver, with the weight of one
hundred and sixty pounds of muscle and bone back of it. He tried to
clinch, and was shaken off by body blows. At last he went down from an
uppercut, and stayed down, breathing heavily, a badly thrashed man.

"For God's sake, let me alone! I've had enough," he groaned.

"Sure of that?"

"You've pretty near killed me."

Larrabie laughed grimly. "You didn't get half enough. I'll listen to
that apology now, my friend."

With many sighs, the prostrate man came through with it haltingly. "I
didn't mean--I hadn't ought to have said----"

Keller interrupted the tearful voice. "That'll be enough. You will know
better, next time, how to speak respectfully of a lady. While we're on
the subject, I don't mind telling you that nobody told me. I'm not a
fool, and I put two and two together. That's all. I'm not her brother.
It wasn't my business to punish you because you played the coyote. But
when you said she lied to me, that's another matter."

For very shame, trampled in the dust as he had been, Tom could not
leave the subject alone. Besides, he had to make sure that the story
would be kept secret.

"The way of it was like this: After I shot Buck Weaver, we saw they
would kill me if I was caught; so we figured I had better hunt cover.
'Course I knew they wouldn't hurt a girl any," he got out sullenly.

"You don't have to explain it to me," answered the other coldly.

"You ain't expecting to tell the boys about me shooting Buck, are you?"
Dixon asked presently, hating himself for it. But he was afraid of Phil
and his father. They had told him plainly what they thought of him for
leaving the girl in the lurch. If they should discover that he had done
the shooting and left her to stand the blame for it, they would do more
than talk.

"I certainly ought to tell them. Likely they may want to see you about
it, and hear the pa