alf enough," he growled, from where he stood to the left
of the closed door. "I wish yuh would stay an' give him one almighty good
beating up. He thinks there ain't a man on the range can stand up against
him."

Buck's eyes narrowed. "I'd sure like to try," he said regretfully. "I
don't say I could knock him out, but I'd guarantee to give him something
to think about. Trouble is, there's nothing gained by starting a mess like
that except letting off steam, and there might be a whole lot--"

He broke off abruptly as the door swung open to admit Lynch and McCabe.
The foreman, pausing just inside the room, eyed Stratton's preparations
for departure with curling lips. As a matter of fact, what he had
overheard of the interview between Buck and Mary Thorne had given him the
impression that Stratton was an easy mark, whose courage and ability had
been greatly overestimated. A more sagacious person would have been
content to let well enough alone. But Tex had a disposition which impelled
him to rub things in.

"There's yore dough," he said sneeringly, flinging the little handful of
money on the table with such force that several coins fell to the floor
and rolled into remote corners. "Yuh better put it away safe, 'cause after
this there ain't nobody around these parts'll hire yuh, I'll tell a man!"

His tone was indescribably taunting, and of a sudden Buck saw red.
Dominated by the single-minded impulse of primeval man to use the weapons
nature gave him, he forgot momentarily that he carried a gun. When the two
men entered, he had been bending over, rolling his blankets. Since then,
save to raise his head, he had scarcely altered his position, and yet, as
he poised there motionless, fists clenched, muscles tense, eyes narrowed
to mere slits, Lynch suddenly realized that he had blundered, and reached
swiftly for his Colt.

But another hand was ahead of his. Standing just behind him, Bud Jessup
had sized up the situation a fraction of a second before Tex, and like a
flash he bent forward and snatched the foreman's weapon from its holster.

"Cut that out, Slim!" he shrilled, forestalling a sudden downward jerk of
McCabe's right hand. "No horning in, now. Give it here."

An instant later he had slammed the door and shot the bolt, and stood with
back against it, a Colt in each hand. His freckled face was flushed and
his eyes gleamed with excitement.

"Go to it, Buck!" he yelled jubilantly. "My money's up on yuh, old man.
Gi