rra! boys; let's string him up ter ther nearest
sapling!"

"Hal ha!" laughed Harris, coolly, "hear the coward squeal for his
pard's assistance. Dassen't stand on his own leather fer fear of
gettin' salted fer all he's worth."

"You're a liar!" roared the "Cattymount" spreading himself about
promiscuously, but the two words had scarcely left his lips when a
blow from the fist of Ned Harris reached him under the left eye, and
he went sprawling on the ground in a heap.

"Here! here!" roared a stranger, rushing in upon the scene, and
hurling the crowd aside with a dexterity something wonderful. "What is
the meaning of all this? Who knocked Cass Diamond down?"

"I had that honor!" coolly remarked Ned Harris, stepping boldly up and
confronting the Deadwood card-king, for it was the notorious Chet
Diamond who had asked the question. "I smacked him in the gob, Chet
Diamond, for calling me a liar, and am ready to accommodate a few
more, if there are any who wish to prefer the same charge!"

"Bully, Ned! and here's what will back you!" cried Calamity Jane,
leaping to the miner's side, a cocked six in either white, shapely
hand; "so sail in, pilgrims!"

Diamond cowered back, and swore furiously. The wound in his breast was
yet sore and rankling, and he knew he owed it to the cool and
calculating young miner whose name was an omen of terror among toe
"toughs" of Deadwood.

"Come on, you black-hearted ace thief!" shouted Calamity Jane,
thrusting the muzzle of one of her plated revolvers forcibly under the
gambler's prominent nose--"come on! slide in if you are after squar'
up-an'-down fun. We'll greet you, best we know how, an' not charge you
anything, either. See! I've got a couple full hands o' sixes--every
one's a trump! Ain't ye got no aces hid up yer sleeves?"

The card sharp still cursed furiously, and backed away. He dare not
reach for a weapon lest the dare-devil girl or young Harris (who now
held a cocked pill-box in each hand),-"should salt him on a full lay."

"Ha! ha! ha!" and the laugh of Calamity rung wildly through the great
saloon--"Ha! ha! ha! here's a go! Who wants to buy a cupped-winged
sharp?"

"Sold out right cheap!" added Ned, facetiously. "Clear the track and
we'll take him out and boost him to a limb."

At this juncture some half a dozen of the gambler's gang came rushing
up, headed by Catamount Cass, who had recovered from the effects of
the blow from Harris' fist.

"At them! at 'em!" roared