er his left arm pit, around his neck,
over his right shoulder. Wayne's left hand leaped to Big Bill's right
wrist. Bill felt that his neck was breaking, that his right arm was
broken. And then he knew that Wayne was upon his knees, that his own
two hundred and fifty pounds of big battling body were lifted high from
the floor, that he was jerked sideways and slammed down. And then the
boys were laughing and Wayne stood over him, laughing too, and he knew
that his two big shoulder blades had struck the floor together.

"It's a damn' Jap trick," he muttered, more than half angry now,
flinging himself to his feet. "White man's fightin' I c'n lick every
inch of you from red hair to toe nails."

But Red Reckless was laughing and shaking hands all round and Big Bill
found no one to listen to the explanations he made. One after another
the owner of the outfit greeted warmly the men who were working for
him. Then he swung about, and went back to Big Bill.

"Shake, Bill," he cried. "It was rather a mean trick to do you up
to-night but I couldn't wait until morning. I'll give you another
chance when you like."

Big Bill grinned and his hard brown hand shut tight about Wayne's.

"There'll be lots of chances," he said shortly, his voice fierce, his
black eyes very gentle. "You've come to stay, ain't you, Red?"

A look of vast disgust stole over Garth Conway's face.

"It's Bill and Red as if they're all dogs in one kennel," he muttered.
"It isn't hard to forecast what's going to happen to a range with a
boss like that!"

He waited a little restlessly for Wayne to finish the conversation into
which he had entered with the crowd of cowboys who seemed to have
forgotten that they had a day's work before them. But Wayne Shandon,
too, seemed to have forgotten. He was half sitting on the table, one
leg swinging, his quick hands rolling a cigarette from the "makings"
proffered by Tony Harris, his laughing eyes filled with the joy of home
coming, his tongue already busied with the answering of many rapid fire
questions. No, he hadn't seen all of the world; it was bigger than
they'd think. But he had played "gentleman's poker" with club dudes in
London, he had hunted with niggers and potted many strange things from
an alligator to a cow elephant, he had seen the pyramids--

While Garth lingered at the door, the other men, crowding closer to the
man at the table, grew into a charmed circle about him, a picturesque
congre