"or else tell 'em you lied! Wherein have I been disloyal to
my blood?"

"You'll hav yore chancet ter talk when I gits through here," bellowed
Blair. "Meanwhile, don't break in on me."

"Tell 'em what you mean--or take it back--or fight," repeated Boone,
with the same fierce quietness.

It was no longer possible to ignore the peremptory challenge, and the
speaker was forced into the open. But he was also enraged beyond sanity
and he shouted out to the crowd over the shoulders of the figure that
confronted him, "Ef he fo'ces me ter name ther woman I'll do hit.
Hit's--"

But the name was never uttered. With a lashing out that employed every
ounce of his weight and strength, Boone literally mashed the voice to
silence, and sent the speaker bloody-mouthed down the several steps into
the dust of the square.

Despite his middle-aged bulk, Jim Blair had lost none of his catlike
activity, and while the more timid members of the crowd, in anticipation
of gunplay, hastily sought cover or threw themselves prone to the
ground, he came to his feet with a revolver ready-drawn and fired
point-blank. But, just as of two lightning bolts, one may have a shade
more speed than the other, so Boone was quicker than Jim. He struck up
the murderous hand, and the two candidates grappled. An instant later,
Boone stood once more over a prostrate figure, that was this time slower
in recovering its feet. Wellver broke the pistol and emptied it of its
cartridges, then contemptuously he threw it down beside its owner in the
dust of the court house yard.

But as he turned, Tom Carr was standing motionless at arm's length away,
and Boone was looking into Tom's levelled revolver.

"Ye hain't quite done with this matter yet," snarled that partisan, as
his eyes snapped malignantly. "Ye've still got me ter reckon with. Throw
up them hands, afore I kills ye!"

Boone did not throw them up. Instead, he crossed them on his breast and
remained looking steadily into the passionate face of the black-haired
leader of Asa's enemies.

"Shoot when you get ready, Tom; I haven't got a gun on me," he said
calmly. "But if you shoot--you'll be breaking the truce--that you
pledged your men to, when you and Asa shook hands. If the war breaks out
afresh, today, it will be your doing." Other hands now were fondling
weapons out there in front of the two; men who were mixed between
Gregory and Carr sympathies and who were rapidly filtering themselves
out of a conglo