“Then it is well that I am here to help you understand. Your necessity is my opportunity.” Pape thoroughly dusted another block of cement. “Note, if you please, the interrogation mark burned into the hair of the red’s right rump and the odd angle at which it is placed. That is the shield of the house of Pape.” Whether at his words or the hand on her elbow which was inviting her closer to the hang-head exhibit in the street, Mrs. Sturgis laughed with a nervous note. “But that is absurd! A question-mark a shield?” “Pardon me—no more absurd than any new idea before demonstration.” All whimsicality disappeared in the serious set of the Westerner’s face. He straightened; demanded Jane Lauderdale’s attention with a look; continued: “To take nothing for granted, but to question everything has become my shield. With it before me, the fights I find necessary are forewon. Nobody can take me by surprise or press through my guard. Nothing—positively nothing that I want is impossible to obtain.” This rather extravagant sounding claim Harford contested—Pape had hoped he would, while fearing he wouldn’t. “Dear me,” he exclaimed, “you seem to be a sort of natural-born New Thoughter.” “Not born—_made_.” The ranchman’s look slashed through the space between him and the Gothamite. “Out in Montana, Harfy, that escutcheon means a lot—to stock rustlers and brand-blotters and oil share fakers. Make a note of the fact that Why-Not Pape queer-questions every man that gets in his way. Few—and I don’t think you—can answer straight.” “You don’t think—You take that back, you ill-bred bounder or I’ll—I’ll——” With a spring from step to pavement, Harford squared off to make good his unfinished threat. His face and eyes went as red as his hair. His fingers tightened as if to the curve of a throat. Pape met him with a well-pleased look. Forgetful of the metropolitan scene, of those possible eyes and eyes of behind-shutter neighbors and of the fears of their own fair, the two closed in that desire-to-conquer conflict which, from primordial times through the hazy stretch of days-after-to-morrows-and-morrows, ever has been and ever shall be the lust of love. There was no preliminary feinting. From its start the fight promised to go the limit which, in this case, would be the finish. A suppressed shriek escaped Mrs. Sturgis, then she rushed to her niece and demanded that the two be separated and the scandal of a street brawl before her house averted. Jane did not answer in words, but she threw off the clutch with which her relative was both urging and staying her, and started toward the passion-flaring pair. Denied his throat hold by queer-question tactics, Harford settled back to a slugging match in which his heavier weight might lend him an advantage. Again, as on the park butte-top in a recent electric-lighted mill, Pape adopted grizzly form.