to confer with Dan Hodges and had
commissioned Joe Woods to hold Packard here. And so, though he could
not remember of having ever run away from a fight before, Steve Packard
was strongly of that mind right now.

"Joe Woods, I believe?" he said coolly, his mind busy with the new
problem of a new situation. "Boss of the timber crew on the east side
of Number Ten? I was planning on riding out to-morrow for a word with
you, Woods."

"So?" cried Woods. "What's the matter with havin' that word to-night?"

"Haven't time," was the simple rejoinder. "I'm about due across the
street now; at Whitey Wimble's place."

"Which is where you belong," growled Woods, his under jaw thrust
forward, his whole attitude charged with quarrelsome intent. "Over at
the White Rat's with the rest of the Willies!"

The ever-ready Packard temper was getting into Steve's head, beating in
his temples, pounding along his pulses. He had never had a man bait
him like that before. But he strove to remember Blenham only, to take
stock of the fact that this was a bit of Blenham's game, and that any
trouble with another than Blenham was to be avoided at this juncture.
So, though the color was rising into his face and a little flicker of
fire came into his eyes, he said briefly:

"Then I'd better go across, hadn't I? See you in the morning, Woods."

But there is always the word to whip the hot blood into the coolest
head, to snare a man's caution out of him and inject fury in its stead,
and Joe Woods, a downright man and never a subtle, put his tongue to
it. On the instant Packard gave over thought of such side issues as a
man named Blenham and hidden bank-notes.

He cried out inarticulately and leaped forward and struck. Joe Woods
reeled under the first blow full in the face, staggered under the
second, and was borne back into the tight-jammed crowd of his followers.

The men about him and Packard withdrew this way and that, leaving empty
floor space to accommodate the two pairs of shuffling boots. Joe Woods
wiped his lips with the back of a big, hairy hand, saw traces of blood,
and charged. The sound of blows given and taken and of little grunts
and of scraping feet were for a space the only sounds heard in Hodges's
saloon.

[Illustration: The men about him and Packard withdrew this way and
that, leaving empty floor space.]

Packard's attack had been swift and sure and not without a certain
skill; against it Woods opposed all he had