f the pile-driver knocks had
landed, and tried to understand what was happening.

Sergeant Muller ... that was Muller standing over the man on the floor.
And Nye ... Reese Topham ... suddenly the cantina was very well populated.
Drew turned his head cautiously to see on his blind side. Anse was down!
The Kentuckian stood away from the wall, lurched out to fall to his knees.
He rolled the Texan over on his back. Anse's eyes fluttered open, and he
looked up dazedly. There was an angry red mark on his chin just an inch or
so away from the point of his jaw.

"Now, just what devil's business is goin' on here?" The sergeant's voice
was a roar to hurt the ears. Somehow Drew got an arm under Anse's
shoulders and tried to hoist him up. The Kentuckian swallowed blood from
his lip and glared at Muller.

"Suppose you ask those high-binders of yours!" he snapped. And once more
it was Sergeant Rennie who spoke.

Other hands joined his to boost Anse. With Topham's aid Drew regained his
feet and got the staggering Texan, still half unconscious, onto a chair.

"I'm interested, too." The cantina owner's drawl was as slow as ever, but
it held a note of a whiplash.

"Them soldiers...." Fowler appeared, the bar-side shotgun across his
arm--"they jumped th' boys. I saw it, myself."

"Yeah, told yuh these town buzzards're all th' same. Stick together an'
have it in for th' army!"

Drew could not see which of the troopers had burst out with that, but in
his present mood all bluecoats were the enemy.

"Dirty Yanks!" Anse's eyes were fully focused now--right on the sergeant.
Anse struggled to get up, but Topham's hands on his shoulders held him
down. His hand went to his holster, and Drew's fist came down on the
Texan's wrist, hard.

"See that thar, Sarge! Th' stinkin' polecat of a Reb was gonna draw on
you! Told you, they's all alike. Th' war ain't over; we jus' gotta keep on
lickin' 'em. Give us room, an' we'll do it again--now!"

Anse's face was green-white under the weathering, save for the wound on
his jaw. He was watching Muller as if the sergeant, rather than his men,
was the focal point of any future attack.

"You--Stevens--shut your trap!" Muller's roar brought silence. Drew could
actually hear the panting breaths of the men now.

"Mitchell, what happened here?" Muller turned to the man at his far right.

The trooper was younger than the rest, his face still holding something of
a boyish roundness. His eyes shifted under