Slouching in his chair, in an attitude of complete dejection, Neil Norton was glumly digesting the dregs of defeat.

The Eagle office adjoined the courthouse. Both were one-story frame structures, flimsy, with one thin wall between them; and to Norton’s ears as he sat with his unpleasant thoughts, came the sound of voices, muffled, but resonant. Someone was speaking with force and insistence. Norton attuned his ears to the voice. It was then he discovered there was only one voice, and that Taylor’s.

He sat erect, both hands gripping the arms of his chair. Then he got up, walked to the front door of the Eagle office, and looked out. He was just in time to see Carrington tumble out through the door of the courthouse and land heavily on the sidewalk in front of the building. Immediately afterward he saw Taylor follow.

Norton exclaimed his astonishment, and he saw Taylor turn toward him, a broad, mirthless grin on his face.

“Good Heavens!” breathed Norton, “he’s started a ruckus!”

Taylor had not moved. He was looking at Norton when a man leaped from the door of the courthouse, straight at him. It was Danforth, his face hideous with rage.

Taylor sensed the movement, wheeled, stumbled, and lost his balance just as Danforth crashed against him. The two men went down in a heap into the deep dust of the street, rolling over and over.

Danforth’s impetus had given him the initial advantage, and he was making the most of it. His fists were working into Taylor’s face as they rolled in the dust, his arms swinging like flails. Taylor, caught almost unprepared, could not get into a position to defend himself. He shielded his face somewhat by holding his chin close to his chest and hunching his shoulders up; but Danforth landed some blows.

There came an instant, however, when Taylor’s surprise over the assault changed to resentment over the punishment he was receiving. He had struck Carrington in self-defense, and he had not expected the attack by Danforth.

Norton, also surprised, saw that his friend was at a disadvantage, and he was running forward to help him when he saw Taylor roll on top of Danforth.

To Norton’s astonishment, Taylor did not seem to be in a vicious humor, despite the blows Danforth had landed on him. Taylor came out of the smother with a grin on his face, wide and exultant, and distinctly visible to Norton in spite of the streaks of dust that covered it. Taylor shook his head, his hair erupting a heavy cloud. Then he got up, permitting Danforth to do likewise.

Regaining his feet, Danforth threw himself headlong toward Taylor, cursing, his face working with malignant rage. When Taylor hit him the dust flew from Danforth’s clothes as it rolls from a dirty carpet flayed with a beater. Danforth halted, his knees sagged, his head wabbled. But Taylor gave him a slight respite, and he came on again.

This time Taylor met him with a smother of sharp, deadening uppercuts that threw the man backward, his mouth open, his eyes closed. He fell, sagging backward, his knees unjointed, without a sound.

And now Norton was not the only spectator. Far up the street a man had emerged from a doorway. He saw the erupting volcanoes of dust in the street, and he ran back, shouting, “Fight! Fight!”

Dawes had seen many fights, and had grown accustomed to them. But there is always novelty in another, and long before Danforth had received the blows that had rendered him inactive, nearly all the doors of Dawes’s buildings were vomiting men. They came, seemingly, in endless streams, in groups, in twos and singly, eager, excited, all the streams converging at the street in front of the courthouse.

Mindful of the ethics in an affair of this kind, the crowd kept considerately at a distance, permitting the fighting men to continue at their work without interference, with plenty of room for their energetic movements.

Word ran from lip to lip that Taylor, stung by the knowledge that he had been robbed of the office to which he had been elected, had attacked Carrington and Danforth with the grim purpose of punishing them personally for their misdeeds.

Taylor was aware of the gathering crowd. When he had delivered the blows that had finished his political rival, he saw the dense mass of men in the street around him; and he felt that all Dawes had assembled.

There was still no rancor in Taylor’s heart; the same savage humor which had driven him into the courthouse to acquaint Carrington and the others with his knowledge of their designs, still gripped him. He had not meant to force a fight, but neither had he any intention of permitting Carrington and Danforth to inflict physical punishment upon him.

But a malicious devil had seized him. He knew that what he had done would be magnified and distorted by Carrington, Danforth, and the judge; that they would charge him with the blame for it; that he faced the probability of a jail sentence for defending himself. And he was determined to complete the work he had started.

Therefore, having disposed of Danforth, he grinned at the eager, excited faces that hemmed him about, and wheeled toward Carrington.

He was just in time. For Carrington, not badly hurt by Taylor’s blow, which had catapulted him out of the door of the courthouse, had been standing back a little, awaiting an opportunity. The swiftness of Taylor’s movements had prevented interference by Carrington; but now, with Danforth down, Carrington saw his chance.

Without a word, Carrington lunged forward. They met with a shock that caused the dry dust to splay and spume upward and outward in thin, minute streaks like the leaping, spraying waters of a fountain. They were lost, momentarily, in a haze, as the dust fell and enveloped them.

They emerged from the blot presently, Carrington staggering, his chin on his chest, his eyes glazed—Taylor crowding him closely. For while they had been lost in the smother of dust, Taylor had landed a deadening uppercut on the big man’s chin.

The big man’s brain was befogged; and yet he still retained presence of mind enough to shield his chin from another of those terrific blows. He had crossed his arms over the lower part of his face, fending off Taylor’s fists with his elbows.

A Danforth man in the crowd called on Carrington to “wallop” Taylor, and the big man’s answering grin indicated that he was not as badly hurt as he seemed.

Almost instantly he demonstrated that, for when Taylor, still following him, momentarily left an opening, Carrington stepped quickly forward and struck—his big arm flashing out with amazing rapidity.

The heavy fist landed high on Taylor’s head above the ear. It was not a blow that would have finished the fight, even had it landed lower, but it served to warn Taylor that his antagonist was still strong, and he went in more warily.

The advantage of the fight was all with Taylor. For Taylor was cool and deliberate, while Carrington, raging over the blows he had received, and in the clutch of a bitter desire to destroy his enemy, wasted much energy in swinging wildly.

The inaccuracy of Carrington’s hitting amused Taylor; the men in the crowd about him could see his lips writhing in a vicious smile at Carrington’s efforts.

Carrington landed some blows. But he had lived luxuriously during the later years of his life; his muscles had deteriorated, and though he was still strong, his strength was not to be compared with that of the out-of-door man whose clean and simple habits had toughened his muscles until they were equal to any emergency.

And so the battle went slowly but surely against Carrington. Fighting desperately, and showing by the expression of his face that he knew his chances were small, he tried to work at close quarters. He kept coming in stubbornly, blocking some blows, taking others; and finally he succeeded in getting his arms around Taylor.

The crowd had by this time become intensely partisan. At first it had been silent, but now it became clamorous. There were some Danforth men, and knowing Danforth to be aligned with Carrington—because, it seemed to them, Carrington was taking Danforth’s end of the fight—they howled for the big man to “give it to him!” And they grew bitter when they saw that despite Carrington’s best efforts, and their own verbal support of him, Carrington was doomed to defeat.

Taylor’s admirers vastly outnumbered Carrington’s. They did not find it necessary to shout advice to their champion; but they shouted and roared with approval as Taylor, driving forward, the grin still on his face, striking heavily and blocking deftly, kept his enemy retreating before him.

Carrington, locking his arms around Taylor, hugged him desperately for some seconds—until he recovered his breath, and until his head cleared, and he could fix objects firmly in his vision; and then he heaved mightily, swung Taylor from his feet and tried to throw him. Taylor’s feet could get no leverage, but his arms were still free, and with both of them he hammered the big man’s head until Carrington, in insane rage, threw Taylor from him.

Taylor landed a little off balance, and before he could set himself, Carrington threw himself forward. He swung malignantly, the blow landing glancingly on Taylor’s head, staggering him. His feet struck an obstruction and he went to one knee, Carrington striking at him as he tried to rise.

The blow missed, Carrington turning clear around from the force of the blow and tumbling headlong into the dust near Taylor.

They clambered to their feet at the same instant, and in the next they came together with a shock that made them both reel backward. And then, still grinning, Taylor stepped lightly forward. Paying no attention to Carrington’s blows, he shot in several short, terrific, deadening uppercuts that landed fairly on the big man’s chin. Carrington’s hands dropped to his sides, his knees doubled and he fell limply forward into the dust of the street where he lay, huddled and unconscious, while turmoil raged over him.

For the Danforth men in the crowd had yielded to rage over the defeat of their favorites. They had seen Danforth go down under the terrific punishment meted out to him by Taylor; they had seen Carrington suffer the same fate. Several of them drove forward, muttering profane threats.

Norton, pale and watchful, fearing just such a contingency, shoved forward to the center, shouting:

“Hold on, men! None of that! It’s a fair fight! Keep off, there—do you hear?”

A score of Taylor men surged forward to Norton’s side; the crowd split, forming two sections—one group of men massing near Norton, the other congregating around a tall man who seemed to be the leader of their faction. A number of other men—the cautious and faint-hearted element which had no personal animus to spur it to participation in what seemed to threaten to develop into a riot—retreated a short distance up the street and stood watching, morbidly curious.

But though violence, concerted and deadly, was imminent, it was delayed. For Taylor had not yet finished, and the crowd was curiously following his movements.

Taylor was a picturesquely ludicrous figure. He was covered with dust from head to foot; his face was streaked with it; his hair was full of it; it had been ground into his cheeks, and where blood from a cut on his forehead had trickled to his right temple, the dust was matted until it resembled crimson mud.

And yet the man was still smiling. It was not a smile at which most men care to look when its owner’s attention is definitely centered upon them; it was a smile full of grimly humorous malice and determination; the smile of the fighting man who cares nothing for consequences.

The concerted action which had threatened was, by the tacit consent of the prospective belligerents, postponed for the instant. The gaze of every partisan—and of all the non-partisans—was directed at Taylor.

He had not yet finished. For an instant he stood looking down at Carrington and Danforth—both now beginning to recover from their chastisement, and sitting up in the dust gazing dizzily about them—then with a chuckle, grim and malicious, Taylor dove toward the door of the courthouse, where Littlefield was standing.

The judge had been stunned by the ferocity of the action he had witnessed. Whatever judicial dignity had been his had been whelmed by the paralyzing fear that had gripped him, and he stood, holding to the door-jambs, nerveless, motionless.

He saw Taylor start toward him; he saw a certain light leaping in the man’s eyes, and he cringed and cried out in dread.

But he had not the power to retreat from the menace that was approaching him. He threw out his hands impotently as Taylor reached him, as though to protest physically. But Taylor ignored the movement, reaching upward, a dusty finger and thumb closing on the judge’s right ear.

There was a jerk, a shrill cry of pain from the judge, and then he was led into the street, near where Carrington and Danforth had fallen, and twisted ungently around until he faced the crowd.

“Men,” said Taylor, in the silence that greeted him as he stood erect, his finger and thumb still gripping the judge’s ear, “Judge Littlefield is going to say a few words to you. He’s going to tell you who started this ruckus—so there won’t be any nonsense about actions in contempt of court. Deals like this are pulled off better when the court takes the public into its confidence. Who started this thing, judge? Did I?”

“No—o,” was Littlefield’s hesitating reply.

“Who did start it?”

“Mr. Carrington.”

“You saw him?”

“Yes.”

“What did he do?”

“He—er—struck at you.”

“And Danforth?”

“He attacked you while you were in the street.”

“And I’m not to blame?”

“No.”

Taylor grinned and released the judge’s ear. “That’s all, gentlemen,” he said; “court is dismissed!”

The judge said nothing as he walked toward the door of the courthouse. Nor did Carrington and Danforth speak as they followed the judge. Both Carrington and Danforth seemed to have had enough fighting for one day.

The victor looked around at the faces in the crowd that were turned to his, and his grin grew eloquent.

“Looks like we’re going to have a mighty peaceable administration, boys!” he said. His grin included Norton, at whom he deliberately winked. Then he turned, mounted his horse—which had stood docilely near by during the excitement, and which whinnied as he approached it—and rode down the street to the Dawes bank, before which he dismounted. Then he went to his rooms on the floor above, washed and changed his clothes, and attended to the bruises on his face. Later, looking out of the window, he saw the crowd slowly dispersing; and still later he opened the door on Neil Norton, who came in, deep concern on his face.

“You’ve started something, Squint. After you left I went into the Eagle office. The partition is thin, and I could hear Carrington raising hell in there. You look out; he’ll try to play some dog’s trick on you now! There’s going to be the devil to pay in this man’s town!”

Taylor laughed. “How long does it take for a sprained ankle to mend, Norton?”

Norton looked sharply at Taylor’s feet.

“You sprain one of yours?” he asked.

“Lord, no!” denied Taylor. “I was just wondering. How long?” he insisted.

“About two weeks. Say, Squint, your brain wasn’t injured in that ruckus, was it?” he asked solicitously.

“It’s as good as it ever was.”

“I don’t believe it!” declared Norton. “Here you’ve started something serious, and you go to rambling about sprained ankles.”

“Norton,” said Taylor slowly, “a sprained ankle is a mighty serious thing—when you’ve forgotten which one it was!”

“What in——”

“And,” resumed Taylor, “when you don’t know but that she took particular pains to make a mental note of it. If I’d wrap the left one up, now, and she knew it was the right one that had been hurt—or if I’d wrap up the right one, and she knew it was the wrong one, why she’d likely——”

“She?” groaned Norton, looking at his friend with bulging eyes that were haunted by a fear that Taylor’s brain had cracked under the strain of the excitement he had undergone. He remembered now, that Taylor had acted in a peculiar manner during the fight; that he had grinned all through it when he should have been in deadly earnest.

“Plumb loco!” he muttered.

And then he saw Taylor grinning broadly at him; and he was suddenly struck with the conviction that Taylor was not insane; that he was in possession of some secret that he was trying to confide to his friend, and that he had begun obliquely. Norton drew a deep breath of relief.

“Lord!” he sighed, “you sure had me going. And you don’t know which ankle you sprained?”

“I’ve clean forgot. And now she’ll find out that I’ve lied to her.”

“She?” said Norton significantly.

“Marion Harlan,” grinned Taylor.

Norton caught his breath with a gasp. “You mean you’ve fallen in love with her? And that you’ve made her—Oh, Lord! What a situation! Don’t you know her uncle and Carrington are in cahoots in this deal?”

“It’s my recollection that I told you about that the day I got back,” Taylor reminded him. And then Taylor told him the story of the bandaged ankle.

When Taylor concluded, Norton lay back in his chair and regarded his friend blankly.

“And you mean to tell me that all the time you were fighting Carrington and Danforth you were thinking about that ankle?”

“Mostly all the time,” Taylor admitted.

Norton made a gesture of impotence. “Well,” he said, “if a man can keep his mind on a girl while two men are trying to knock hell out of him, he’s sure got a bad case. And all I’ve got to say is that you’re going to have a lovely ruckus!”