So a little while later they waltzed again, while Bud Nixon, who had planted his stockily built body in the corner among some of the bolder girls, still kept close watch of the movements of the graceful couple. The jealous glance that blazed in his dark eyes boded no good for Dick; for Bud was a determined fellow, once he started on a quest. He was reckless too; and this characteristic, backed by his strong body, made him a dangerous enemy.
Dick kept so close to Alta during the dance that Bud gradually grew inwardly furious. He determined to break up the flirting. How to do it was the problem his thick brain finally worked out. When Dick for the third time led Alta out to dance, Bud jumped up, grabbed the arm of Molly Thompson, who sat near him, giggling over his coarse jokes, and said, “Let’s hev a dance, little gal.”
Molly was ready enough, and soon they were swinging rapidly around the room. Suddenly, with malice aforethought on Bud’s part, they bumped into Dick and Alta. Bud laughed leeringly at his rudeness.
“That’s all right for once, pardner,” Dick said, threateningly, as they caught the step again. Instinctively he felt that it was not an accident; but he overlooked the challenging insult till Bud bumped into them again with a suddenness that almost upset both him and Alta.
Dick whirled and slapped him in the face. They jumped back. A second later two revolvers flashed and a shot went crashing through the window just over the old fiddler’s head.
Both had pulled the trigger, but Dick’s hammer snapped on an empty shell; Bud’s bullet, sent by a half drunken hand, just touched Dick’s ear and shattered the window close to Uncle Toby, who was scraping away sleepily on his fiddle.
“Whoopee!” shouted the old man, jumping as if he had been shot, and tumbling off his seat. There was a sudden rush for the doorway.
Before the assailants could pull trigger again, however, some one had knocked Bud’s pistol from his hand, Colonel Morgan had grabbed him, and Jim had jerked Dick’s arm down just as his revolver rang out, sending a bullet through Bud’s big toe. The bully jumped with a yell of pain and tried to break through the crowd for the door, toward which Colonel Morgan’s brawny hand, clutched on his collar, was hustling him. When the way was cleared, the old Colonel gave his crestfallen captive a shove and a kick, saying wrathfully, “Now, get, you damned hoodlum, and don’t you ever darken my door again!”
“If I catch you,” shouted Dick angrily, “I’ll shoot you on sight.”
Bud, terrified now and suffering with pain, ran to the shed, jumped on his horse and sped away. Where he went no one knew, and nobody seemed to care.