"You big crook!" snarled the owner of the gun, "I'll get you——"
He never finished the sentence, for Gavin was on him. He caught him by the clothes above his breast, lifted him clear and slammed him back against the wall. There he held him, pinned with one hand, like a moth in a show-case.
"Get me, will you?" he growled hoarsely. "If I hit you, you cheap tinhorn, you'd never get me or anybody else. Try to get me, and I'll break your back over my knee. Like this!"
He plucked the man away from the wall as if he had been a doll, and threw him, back down, across his knee. For an instant he held him, and then set him on his feet. The man's face was the dead gray of asbestos paper.
"Git!" Gavin commanded. "Don't fool around here or make any more bluffs. Get out of town."
When the two strangers had gone, Gerald laughed gently.
"This breaks up our game, I guess," he said. "By the way—Angus Mackay—Mr. Chetwood."
The two young men shook hands. Chetwood was a long-limbed young fellow with the old-country color fresh in his cheeks, frank blue eyes with a baby stare which would have been a credit to any ingenue, but which held an occasional twinkle quite at variance with their ordinary expression. Angus was inclined to like him. Chetwood, on his part, eyed the lean, hard, sinewy bulk of Angus with admiration.
"I say, what was all the row about?" he asked Gerald. "They accused you of cheating, what?"
"Old game," said Gerald carelessly. "They went up against an unbeatable hand, lost more than they could afford, and tried to run a bluff. They were both crooks, anyway."