Jim's face lined grimly. He felt a great distaste for his mission. He was no precisian. He was not above taking a glass on occasion at Murphy's bar. But he had no liking for the vicious. The coarse debauchery of such a place was repulsive to him, as it must be to any decent man. Nevertheless, he went out of the hotel, and strode rapidly toward the corner on which stood the rough frame building of the saloon. As he drew near, the report of a shot came sharply.
"What hell's mess is on now?" he muttered savagely, and broke into a run. In the next instant, he had leaped through the door to the back room. He could not see clearly for a few seconds in the gloomy place, after the glaring sunlight of outdoors. But the evidences of conflict were plain enough from the sounds of stamping boots upon the boarded floor, the soft thudding of fists against flesh, the snarling curses, gaspings and guttural gruntings of the combatants, the shrill screams and whimperings of women. Then his eyes adjusted themselves to the dim light, and he made out the form of Dan McGrew, girt about with the thrashing arms and legs of his assailants. Without any hesitation, Jim plunged into the fray. His fists shot home in sledge-hammer blows, against which the four, taken completely by surprise, were defenseless. As they fell away from their victim, Jim saw the automatic lying where it had fallen on the floor during the scuffle. Before his adversaries could rally to the attack, he had pounced upon it, and had sprung back against the wall of the room, whence he menaced the four, who halted in fear of the weapon.
"There's been enough of this," Jim declared, and his voice was ominous, heavy with authority. "I don't know the rights of the fuss, and I don't care a damn, I guess. But there'll be no murder done here—unless it's been done already."
There came some profane grumblings from the discomfited quartette, but they ventured no other opposition to Jim's will, for they feared this man, and he knew it, and he did not fear them in the least.
"We caught 'im cheatin'—blast 'im!" Fingie affirmed, sullenly.
"I'm not interested in the history of the row," was the contemptuous retort; "only in the end of it." Jim thrust the revolver in his pocket, assured that there would be no further trouble; for now the bartender and Murphy had made a belated appearance on the scene. He stooped over the beaten man, who had already begun to show signs of returning consciousness. Presently, in fact, Dan was able to sit up, and to swallow the brandy Murphy had brought. His injuries, though painful enough, were superficial, and after a little he was able to clamber into the buggy, which Jim had hired from the hotel livery for the return to the ranch.
They had gone a mile from the village, when Dan spoke for the first time:
"It was all a devilish frame-up to rob me," he asserted. His tone was vindictive, but, somehow, not quite convincing.
Jim could not keep the scorn from his own voice as he answered:
"You can't complain—you knew what sort they were."