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 Mr. O'Sullivan leaned forward on his mule. His right hand moved with amazing swiftness, and the hickory switch that he held in it thrashed across Falcon's cheek.

"You lie, Lance Falcon!" he said distinctly in his high thin voice of a bird.

It was a stinging blow. It left a white welt on the dark tan of Falcon's face. Yet the man did not move an inch, did not even lift his hand.

"Eh, well!" he cried. He turned to his men behind him, and to the pack drivers standing near by.

"You are all witnesses?" he asked. "You saw the blow?"

A dozen heads nodded. Falcon turned again to the little man on the mule.

"Of course, Mr. O'Sullivan," he said, "your design has been entirely plain from the beginning. You wished to make a quarrel. I have understood that you have some reputation with the sword—in fact, that you make a pittance by teaching not only Greek and Latin but rapier-play also. Well, I am not unwilling to have a lesson from so eminent a teacher, and perhaps in my clumsy way I may be able to instruct the pedagogue. 'Twill help pass the time until the Governor's men arrive."

With a tiger's litheness which belied his bulk, he leaped from his horse. In an instant O'Sullivan, too, was on his feet.

"The ground is firm here," Falcon continued coolly, "and the trees do not hedge us in too closely.