There entered in a determining thought-flash. Flame of Fire Weed was the whole of it. All of a sudden he realized that he loved the ranch girl. For her, whether he won or lost her, he must save such personal appearance as he had. Thank Heaven that he had a gun—that, although loath to draw it, never had he been beaten in point of time thereto, once his mind was made up. It was now—for Flame!
All in the same flash with his realizations, his gun hand had gone to his hip, his fair warning had been lifted.
"Take care, boozo—I've got you covered!"
The pause gained by his boast was only the length of a breath, of a look. His hand was empty—had failed to find the trusty Colt where it should have been stalled in his hip holster!
A rasped curse from the Swede sounded like the breath of an Arctic winter storm, the sort of storm he had become familiar with on his last long detail in the North.
The boot studded with calks descended, and the end—the unspeakable end—was near.
But in the fraction of the last second a fury of denial moved the seemingly helpless man upon the splintered floor. The vivid remembrance of Flame Gallegher, freckled nose, fiery hair, had something to do with it.
"Not me; not me!" shrieked his primal appetence—his will to live.
With all the power conserved in him by years of trouble service, he threw up the arm that had reached in vain for his gun and took the Swede's tread square, without a whimper, although the pain was beyond experience.
The spikes cut into his forearm, snagging the flesh to the bone. Borrowing strength from the very torture forced upon himself, he gave an upward heave that forced him to a sitting posture and toppled Larsen to a fall.