Lance looked up from examination of his knuckle, caressed his cut lip with the tip of his tongue, pulled the fragment of shirt down as far as possible, gently rubbed his swelling cheek, and turned to the bartender.
“I never licked a man yet and sent him home thirsty,” he said. “Set it out for the boys––and give me another highball. Then if you’ll lend me a coat and a pair of gloves, I’ll go home.”
Peace was ratified in whisky drunk solemnly. Lance paid, and turned to go. One of the vanquished wabbled up to him and held out his hand to shake.
“You damn Lorrigans, you got us comin’ and goin’,” he complained, “but shake, anyway. I’m Irish meself, and I know a rale fight when I see it. What we didn’t git at the dance before we left, by heavins you give us when we got into town––so I’m one that’s game to say it was a fine dance and not a dull momint anywhere!”
“That’s something,” Lance grinned wryly and wriggled into the fur overcoat which the bartender generously lent him. He rejected the gloves when he found that his hands were puffed and painful, and went out to find breakfast.
Over a thick white cup of dubious coffee and a plate of sticky hot-cakes he meditated glumly on the general unappreciativeness of the world in general, and of the Black Rim in particular. What had happened at the schoolhouse he could 179 only surmise, but from certain fragmentary remarks he had overheard he guessed that the schoolhouse probably had suffered as much as the saloon. Black Rim, it would seem, was determined that the Lorrigans should go on living up to their reputations, however peacefully inclined the Lorrigans might be.
Two disquieting thoughts he took with him to the stable when he went after the pinto team: Mary Hope would say that it was not a pleasant surprise which he had given her at Cottonwood Spring. And Belle,––he was not at all sure whether he was too big for Belle’s quirt to find the tender places on his legs, but he was very sure that the Irishman spoke the truth. There would still be no dull moments for Lance when he confronted the owner of that pinto team.