e don't want anything more to do with you," Billy said to
him. "An' what she says goes. If I get a whisper any time that you've
been botherin' her, I'll attend to your case. D'ye get that?"

Long glowered and remained silent.

"D'ye get that?" Billy repeated, more imperatively.

A growl of assent came from the blacksmith

"All right, then. See you remember it. An' now get outa the way or I'll
walk over you."

Long slunk back, muttering inarticulate threats, and Saxon moved on as
in a dream. Charley Long had taken water. He had been afraid of this
smooth-skinned, blue-eyed boy. She was quit of him--something no other
man had dared attempt for her. And Billy had liked her better than Lily
Sanderson.

Twice Saxon tried to tell Billy the details of her acquaintance with
Long, but each time was put off.

"I don't care a rap about it," Billy said the second time. "You're here,
ain't you?"

But she insisted, and when, worked up and angry by the recital, she had
finished, he patted her hand soothingly.

"It's all right, Saxon," he said. "He's just a big stiff. I took his
measure as soon as I looked at him. He won't bother you again. I know
his kind. He's a dog. Roughhouse? He couldn't rough-house a milk wagon."

"But how do you do it?" she asked breathlessly. "Why are men so afraid
of you? You're just wonderful."

He smiled in an embarrassed way and changed the subject.

"Say," he said, "I like your teeth. They're so white an' regular, an'
not big, an' not dinky little baby's teeth either. They're ... they're
just right, an' they fit you. I never seen such fine teeth on a girl
yet. D'ye know, honest, they kind of make me hungry when I look at 'em.
They're good enough to eat."

At midnight, leaving the insatiable Bert and Mary still dancing, Billy
and Saxon started for home. It was on his suggestion that they left
early, and he felt called upon to explain.

"It's one thing the fightin' game's taught me," he said. "To take care
of myself. A fellow can't work all day and dance all night and keep in
condition. It's the same way with drinkin'--an' not that I'm a little
tin angel. I know what it is. I've been soused to the guards an' all the
rest of it. I like my beer--big schooners of it; but I don't drink all
I want of it. I've tried, but it don't pay. Take that big stiff to-night
that butted in on us. He ought to had my number. He's a dog anyway, but
besides he had beer bloat. I sized that up the first rattle, an'