t, John!" cried Luke Bradley.

It was a happy suggestion. Westerfelt struck Wambush in the stomach.
With a gasp and an oath, Wambush doubled up and released Westerfelt's
throat. The two men now clinched breast to breast, and, with arms
round each other's bodies, each began to try to throw the other down.
They swung back and forth and from side to side, but they were well
mated.

Westerfelt suddenly threw his left leg behind Wambush's heels and began
to force him backward. In an instant Wambush would have gone down, but
seeing his danger he wriggled out of Westerfelt's grasp, drew something
from his coat pocket, and sprang towards him.

"Knife! knife! knife!" cried Luke Bradley in alarm. "Part 'em!"

"Yes, part 'em!" echoed the bar-keeper with an oath, as if the edge of
his pleasure had been taken off by the more serious turn of affairs.
Several men ran towards Wambush, but they were not quick enough. He
had stabbed Westerfelt once in the breast and drawn back his arm for
another thrust, when Luke Bradley caught his wrist. Wambush struck at
Bradley with his left hand, but the bar-keeper caught it, and between
him and Bradley, Wambush was overpowered.

"The sheriff's coming!" a voice exclaimed, as a big man rode up quickly
and dismounted.

"Hello!" he cried, "I summon you, Buck Hillhouse, and Luke Bradley, in
the name o' the law to 'rest Wambush. Take that knife from 'im!"

"Arrest the devil!" came from Wambush's bloody lips. He made a violent
effort to free himself, but the two men held him.

"I'll he'p yer, whether you deputize me or not!" grunted Bradley, as he
hung to the hand which still held the knife, "I'll he'p yer cut 'is
d----d throat, the cowardly whelp!"

"I've got nothin' 'gin nuther party," said the bar-keeper, "but I
reckon I'll have to obey the law."

"He's attempted deliberate murder on a unarmed man," Bradley informed
the sheriff; "fust with a gun an' then with a knife. Ef you don't jail
'im, Bale Warlick, you'll never hold office in Cohutta Valley agin."

The sheriff stepped up to Wambush.

"Drap that knife!" he ordered. "Drap it!"

"Go to h----!" Toot ceased his struggling and glared defiantly into the
face of the sheriff.

"Drap that knife!" The sheriff was becoming angered. He grasped
Wambush's hand and tried to take the knife away, but Toot's fingers
were like coils of wire.

"I'll see you damned fust!" grunted Wambush, and, powerless to do
anything else, he spat in t