Page:The Baron of Diamond Tail (1923).pdf/30

 "Down in the Indian Nation, where I used to run wild," he said, "we slice up little fellers like you and fry 'em in grease. Give me that little purty you've got on your head—I want to take it home for my equaw to set a hen in."

He reached out with a swiping movement of his long arm as he spoke, to knock the offending little cap from its easy, but rather challenging, perch. The sailor ducked. The next moment Dan Gustin saw a blue flash like a kingfisher shooting down at a minnow's glint. The sailor's fist sounded as if somebody had struck a stump with an ax. Dan stepped back to let the stranger from the Indian Nation have all the ground that was coming to him when he fell.

The sailor stood where he had delivered his knockdown, crouching a little, alert, hands up for offense or defense as developments might demand, Dan wondered why he didn't follow up the advantage he had won in that first swift blow, according to the code of the range.

"Pile on to him, kid!" he urged, while the troublehunter lay stretched full length for a moment in the dust.

Before the sailor could act on Dan's charitable urging, if he had any mind for doing so, indeed, the man whom he had knocked down gathered himself and sprang nimbly to his feet. The sailor rushed him, only to run against the long pistol which the fellow jerked from the leather as he came to his feet in a cloud of dust.

"Put it up, pardner!" Dan commanded. "That