They went sprawling like tenpins before the ball as Ben jumped in among them and mowed them down with his powerful blows, while Jack, hovering like a torpedo boat around a battleship, sent in several of the telling blows Ted had taught him during the boxing lessons at Moon Valley.
The fight was soon over, and Ben and Jack slipped quietly back into the ballroom, leaving a well-thrashed crowd to stanch bloody noses, and patch up swollen lips and black eyes as best they could.
Meanwhile, a diversion had been created in the hall by the joshing that the Suggs' ranch outfit had directed toward the fiddler, who knew only one tune, and sawed that off for a waltz, quadrilles, and two-steps, without fear or favor.
The musician had been engaged because he was a friend of the beneficiary, and had volunteered his services. As the ball grew more and more hilarious the cow-punchers felt the restraint of the folks from the fort and Moon Valley the less, and began to take it out of the fiddler, who paid no attention to them, but kept on scraping.
Suddenly there was a crack from a revolver and the top of the fiddler's bow was knocked off, and the playing and dancing stopped simultaneously.
There was more or less commotion, but the women did not scream or get panic-stricken. They were used to that sort of thing.
Nobody knew who had fired the shot, but the cowboys and soldiers were mad clear through because there was no more music to dance by.
The shot had come from the part of the hall in which the coatroom was situated, and directly afterward two slender young fellows climbed out a rear window, and a few moments later Billy Sudden and Clay Whipple came calmly through the front door and joined the throng about the musician, who said:
"Honest, folks, I don't blame no hombre fer takin' a shot at thet fiddle bow o' mine, fer I never could make it work right. I know it was bum music, but it was the best I could do."
Ted Strong had observed the quiet entrance of Billy and Clay directly after the shooting, and he put this and that together. He knew that both of them were finished musicians. Clay Whipple was an exceptionally good violin player, and Ted had often heard Billy Sudden make a piano fairly sing. Evidently they had got to the point where they could stand the fiddler's music no longer, and had put a stop to it.