Bloom gave a terrible gasp. His mouth opened wide, and his whole face became a network of strained wrinkles. His hands fluttered to his body and he began to sink down. The breath had been expelled from him. Then as he was sagging Merry knocked him in a heap to the porch floor.

“Where’s that swell motion-picture pard of his?” inquired Merry, of the bystanders.

“Keep clear of me or I’ll throw a gun,” declared Hatfield, threateningly, moving back into the store.

“Say, you handsome Tonto masher, you wouldn’t throw anything but a bluff,” retorted Merry, striding across the porch.

One of the men barred his way. “Stranger, let well enough alone. Bid might throw a gun at thet. An’ seein’ you ain’t packin’ any it’s wiser to hold in. Don’t ever run after any fights in the Tonto. They’ll come to you fast enough.”

Thus admonished, Merry turned away and went back to the car. Meanwhile the bystanders had crowded round the prostrate Bloom, and Wess, with his comrades, had arrived in the big car. Cal sat perfectly still, but inwardly he seemed to be a riot of nerve and pulse. The girl was clinging to him, and still clung even when Wess leaped out of his car and jumped to accost Cal.

“Boy, what’s come off?” he demanded, sharply.

“Wess, it isn’t anythin’ to get riled at, but I’d given a great deal if you’d seen it . . . Bloom made an insultin’ remark about Eastern girls, an’ Merry soaked him. That’s all.”

“Wal, I’ll be gosh-durned!” ejaculated Wess, with the tight coldness of his lean face relaxing. “Thet queerlookin’ Jasper! Could he hit anybody? It ain’t believable. Reckon he throwed a hammer or wrench, huh?”

“Oh, Merry threw somethin’, all right,” laughed Cal, and he sat up to look at the girl. She let go of his arm. Her face was pale now except for the unmistakable signs of paint. Cal saw this red of cheek and carmine of lip with some sensation akin to a pang. But he did not miss the cool, sweet audacity of her smile, nor the darkened purple fire of her eyes. It made him unsteady to look at her. What had come over him?

Just then the circle of bystanders round Bloom opened to show several of them assisting him to his feet. He was unable to stand alone and assuredly presented a ludicrous figure.

“Say—fellars—what’d—I—run ag’in’?” he panted, heavily.

“Wal, Bloom, we calkilate you got hit,” replied one of the men.

“Aw!—I’m damn—near killed . . . What’d he—hit—me with?”

Merry heard this pathetic query, for he raised his long lean figure up to its full height.

“You big fat baboon!” he called out, derisively. “I only slapped you.”

Bloom wrestled with those who held him, but not very effectively, as he evidently was weak.