Herbert lost his head at once. "You're a duffer and a bluffer!" he shouted shrilly. "How any decent, refined girl can have anything to do with you I can't imagine. It just shows that Lela Barker is——"
He got no further, for, brushing one of the fellows aside, Grant caught the speaker by the throat and stopped him. His face dark, the Texan shook Rackliff until his teeth rattled.
"Shoot your mouth off about me as much as you please, you miserable sneak," he grated; "but don't you dare ring in the name of any decent girl unless you are thirsting to get the worst walloping of your life!"
Rod's eyes blazed and he was truly terrible. Once before the boys had seen him look like that, and then they had realized for the first time that it was the young Texan's uncontrollable temper that he feared and which had made him, by persistent efforts to avoid personal encounters, appear like a coward. There was not a cowardly drop of blood in Grant's body, but experience and the record of his fighting father had taught him to fear himself.
Even now the fact that he let himself go sufficiently to lay hands on Rackliff seemed to spur him on, and, still shaking the limp and helpless fellow, he maintained his hold on the city youth's neck until Herbert's eyes began to bulge and his face grew purple.
Suddenly another lad pushed his way through the circle and seized Grant by the shoulders:
"Lul-let up on that!" he cried, his voice vibrant with excitement. "What are you trying to do, choke the lul-life out of a fellow that you know isn't any match for you? If you want to ch-choke somebody, let him alone and take me."
It was Phil Springer. His head jerked round toward his shoulder, Rodney Grant looked into the eyes of his friend of a short time past, and suddenly he released his hold on Rackliff, who, gasping and ready to topple over, was supported by one of the other boys.
"If you want to choke somebody, take me!" repeated Phil savagely. "You ought to be ashamed of yourself!"
Grant took a long breath. "That's right, Springer," he admitted, "I reckon I ought. I allow I clean forgot myself."