ic noise to the din, fit music, it seemed, for such obscene
company. Some started to dance lumberingly, with high-lifted legs and
ludicrous turkey struts.

Among these Lambert recognized Tom Hargus, the young man who had made
the ungallant attempt to pass Vesta Philbrook's gate with his father. He
had more whisky under his dark skin than he could take care of. As he
jigged on limber legs he threw his hat down with a whoop, his long black
hair falling around his ears and down to his eyes, bringing out the
Indian that slept in him sharper than the liquor had done it.

His face was flushed, his eyes were heavy, as if he had been under
headway a good while. Lambert watched him as he pranced about, chopping
his steps with feet jerked up straight like a string-halt horse. The
Indian was working, trying to express itself in him through this
exaggerated imitation of his ancestral dances. His companions fell back
in admiration, giving him the floor.

A cowboy was feeding money into the music box to keep it going, giving
it a coin, together with certain grave, drunken advice, whenever it
showed symptom of a pause. Young Hargus circled about in the middle of
the room, barking in little short yelps. Every time he passed his hat he
kicked at it, sometimes hitting, oftener missing it, at last driving it
over against Lambert's foot, where it lodged.

Lambert pushed it away. A man beside him gave it a kick that sent it
spinning back into the trodden circle. Tom was at that moment rounding
his beat at the farther end. He came face about just as the hat skimmed
across the floor, stopped, jerked himself up stiffly, looked at Lambert
with a leap of anger across his drunken face.

Immediately there was silence in the crowd that had been assisting on
the side lines of his performance. They saw that Tom resented this
treatment of his hat by any foot save his own. The man who had kicked it
had fallen back with shoulders to the bar, where he stood presenting the
face of innocence. Tom walked out to the hat, kicked it back within a
few feet of Lambert, his hand on his gun.

He was all Indian now; the streak of smoky white man was engulfed. His
handsome face was black with the surge of his lawless blood as he
stopped a little way in front of Lambert.

"Pick up that hat!" he commanded, smothering his words in an avalanche
of profanity.

Lambert scarcely changed his position, save to draw himself erect and
stand clear of the bar. To those