He did not wait for the retaliation the insult seemed certain to bring, but leaped, with the final bitter word, at the accused man’s throat. Stepping sideways like a flash, Locke caught him as he sprang, whirled him round, slammed him up against the near-by partition, and held him there. The quickness and strength of the pitcher was amazing. Instantly Stark sprang to part them, exclaiming: “Don’t hit him, Tom――don’t hit him!” “I haven’t any intention of hitting him――this time,” answered Locke. “But that was a nasty word he used, and he should be more careful.” Hutchinson took a hand. Two or three other men came quickly from the office and joined in holding the struggling, panting lumber king’s son in check, Locke having released him and permitted himself to be pushed back. “I say he’s a liar!” shouted Benton. “He knows he lies! I’ll prove it for everybody. Take your hands off me, and I’ll fight him here or anywhere else. I dare him to meet me like a man! He hasn’t the courage! He’s a coward!” “You’re plumb anxious to get your face broke, ain’t ye?” snapped Larry Stark. “You wouldn’t last a minute with him. What’s eating you, anyhow?” The hotel proprietor indignantly announced that he did not propose to have a fight in his house. “I’m surprised, Mr. King, that you should start trouble here,” he said. “I ask you, as a gentleman, to quit it.” “All right, Mr. Sawyer,” said Bent. “As you have put it up to me that way, it goes. Take your hands off me, everybody. I won’t touch him again――here.” “I didn’t notice that you touched him at all,” grinned Stark. “But,” declared King, smoothing his rumpled coat and straightening his necktie, “I’m not done with him, as he is due to find out. I’ll get him yet, and get him good.” After giving Locke a parting look of venomous hatred, the young man turned toward the open door and passed out. CHAPTER XXXV THE PHOTOGRAPH Benton King sat in his office at the mill, opening the morning mail, which had just been brought him by a boy. His face wore a heavy frown, and he ripped open the envelopes viciously with the steel paper cutter. The sounds of the mill――the creaking of the windlass drawing the big sticks up the run, the scream of the saws tearing through logs, the pistol-claps of fresh-cut boards tossed flatly upon other boards by the laborers――annoyed him, and he rose and kicked shut the connecting door, which had been left slightly ajar. Resuming his seat at the desk, his eye fell on a square, flat package at the bottom of the letters remaining unopened, and he caught it up eagerly. “Ha!” he breathed, after looking at the address. “Fletcher’s handwriting! He got it! This is what I sent for.”