"Give 'im hell! I'll back yeh."
Bettie pushed through the ring of men and women who were looking on in delicious horror—pushed through quickly and yet with dignity. Her head was thrown back, and the strange look on her face was thrilling. Facing the angry men with a gesture of superb scorn and fearlessness, she spoke, and in the deep hush her quiet words were strangely impressive:
"Bill Yohe, what do you think you're doing?"
For a moment the men were abashed, and, starting back, they allowed Blackler, dazed, bleeding and half strangled, to rise to his feet. He would have sprung against them both, for he had not heard or realized who was speaking, but Bettie laid her hand on his arm, and the haughty droop of her eyelids changed as she said in a tender voice:
"Never mind, Ed; they ain't worth mindin'!"
Her usual self came back quickly as she led him away. Friends began to mutter now, and the swagger of the brothers threatened further trouble. Their eyes rolled, their knotted hands swung about like bludgeons. Threats, horrible snarls and oaths poured from their lips. But there were heard at this critical moment rapid footsteps—a round, jovial voice—and bursting through the door came the great form and golden head of Lime Gilman.
"Hold on here! What's all this?" he said, leaping with an ominously good-natured smile into the open space before the two men, whose restless pacing stopped at the sound of his voice. His sunny, laughing blue eyes swept around him, taking in the situation at a glance. He continued to smile, but his teeth came together.
"Git out o' this, you hounds! Git!" he said, in the same jovial tone. "You! You," he said to Bill, slapping him lightly on the breast with the back of his lax fingers. Bill struck at him ferociously, but the slope-shouldered giant sent it by with his left wrist, kicking the feet of the striker from under him with a frightful swing of his right foot—a trick which appalled Joe.
"Clear the track there," ordered Lime. "It's against the law t' fight at a donation; so out y' go."
Bill crawled painfully to his feet.