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Rh Gunboat Dorgan's face lost a little of its barricaded look. This was a matter which brought him back to earth again. And Teddie saw that nothing was to be gained by beating about the bush.

"And this man threatens to come here to-day and repeat that insult," she went on. "And, to speak quite plainly, I want some one to protect me."

Gunboat's face brightened. He moistened a hard young lip with the point of his tongue as he stood gazing into clouded eyes for which lances would surely have been shattered at Ashley.

"Who's the guy what's been gettin' fresh?" he demanded.

Teddie, looking very lovely in a tailored black suit with an Ophelia rose pinned to its front, did her best to resist all undue surrender to the lethal tides of sympathy.

"It's a beast called Raoul Uhlan," she announced, disturbed for a moment by the slenderness of her would-be champion. But it was only for a moment, for she remembered the flexed right arm Ruby Reamer had tried to caliper with her