s, and taken care of him. Now I'm goin' to take care of the man
that done it."

The blacksmith banged a heavy hand on the superintendent's shoulder.

"Bully for you! I'm with you. We'll go together!" he exclaimed, and at
once led the way toward the flaming lights of the High Light but a few
doors below.

Dick nerved himself for the inevitable, and grimly walked with them as
they entered the doors. As they stood there, with the big miner in
front, a sudden hush invaded the babel of noise, and men began to look
in their direction. The grim, determined man in the lead, glaring here
and there with cold, terrible eyes, was too noticeable a figure to
escape observation. The set face of his partner, scarcely less
determined, and the smith, with brawny, clenched hands, and bushy,
black brows drawn into a fierce scowl, completed the picture of a
desperate trio come to avenge.

"You're the man I'm after," suddenly declared Bill, pointing a finger
at Thompson, of Denver, who had been the center of an admiring group.
"You're the one that's responsible for old Bells. Let's see if you or
any of your bunch are as brave with a younger man. Come outside, won't
you?"

When first he began to speak, in that silky, soft rumble, Thompson,
who was nearly as large as Mathews, assumed an air of amused disdain;
but before the speech was ended his face went a little white.

"Oh, go on away, you drunken loafers!" he said, half-turning, as if to
resume his conversation.

Instantly Bill sprang at him; and it seemed that he launched his
sinewy bulk with a tiger's directness and deadliness straight through
the ten feet intervening. He drove his fist into the face of the
Denver man, and the latter swept back against those behind him. Again
he lifted the merciless fist, and now began striking with both with
incredible rapidity. The battered Thompson was driven back, to fall
against a faro layout. The miner bent him backward over the table
until he was resting on the wildly scattered gold and silver coins,
and struck again, and this time the blood spurted in a stream, to run
across the green cloth, the staring card symbols, and the case rack.

"Don't kill him, Bill, don't kill him!" Dick's shout arose above the
shouts of men and the screams of dance-hall women. He had barely time
to observe, in a flash, that Bill had picked the limp form of Thompson
up, and heavy as it was, lifted it high above his head and thrown it
violently into a vacant cor