NFLICT 242
XXII. TWO FRIENDS HAVE IT OUT 258
XXIII. THE BACK-FIRE 270
XXIV. THE UPPER AND THE NETHER MILLSTONES 287
XXV. OF WHAT AVAIL? 304
XXVI. LOVE'S SURRENDER 318

* * * * *

BEN BLAIR

CHAPTER I

IN RUDE BORDER-LAND

Even in a community where unsavory reputations were the rule, Mick
Kennedy's saloon was of evil repute. In a land new and wild, his
establishment was the wildest, partook most of the unsubdued, unevolved
character of its surroundings. There, as irresistibly as gravitation
calls the falling apple, came from afar and near--mainly from afar--the
malcontent, the restless, the reckless, seeking--instinctively
gregarious--the crowd, the excitement of the green-covered table, the
temporary oblivion following the gulping of fiery red liquor.

Great splendid animals were the men who gathered there; hairy, powerful,
strong-voiced from combat with prairie wind and frontier distance;
devoid of a superfluous ounce of flesh, their trousers, uniformly baggy
at the knees, bearing mute testimony to the many hours spent in the
saddle; the bare unprotected skin of their hands and faces speaking
likewise of constant contact with sun and storm.

By the broad glow of daylight the place was anything but inviting. The
heavy bar, made of cottonwood, had no more elegance than the rude sod
shanty of the pioneer. The worn round cloth-topped tables, imported at
extravagant cost from the East, were covered with splashes of grease and
liquor; and the few fly-marked pictures on the walls were coarsely
suggestive. Scattered among them haphazard, in one instance through a
lithographic print, were round holes as large as a spike-head, through
which, by closely applying the eye, one could view the world without.
When the place was new, similar openings had been carefully refilled
with a whittled stick of wood, but the practice had been discontinued;
it was too much trouble, and also useless from the frequency with which
new holes were made. Besides, although accepted with unconcern by
_habitues_ of the place, they were a source of never-ending interest to
the "tenderfeet" who occasionally appeared from nowhere and disappeared
whence they had come.

But at night all was different. Encircling the room with gleaming points
of light were a multitude of blazing candles, home-made from