The performance, however, terminated quite as suddenly as it had commenced. Stepping deftly aside as the fellow rushed, Grant swung hard and accurately, planting his fist against Simpson’s jaw. Down with a crash went the pugnacious rustic, dazed and wondering at a tremendous display of fireworks, which seemed to be celebrating a belated Fourth, in his upper story. Indeed, for the time being the fellow had not the slightest idea of what had happened to him. It was a good thing for Jim Simpson that all the fight had thus quickly been knocked out of him, for Springer saw the old wild light of ungovernable rage blaze in Grant’s eyes, and beheld on the face of the Texan an expression which seemed to threaten utter annihilation for his antagonist. And, as Rod took a stride in the direction of the chap who was weakly trying to lift himself upon one elbow, Phil cried sharply: “That’s enough, Rod! Dud-don’t hit him again, or you _will_ knock his bub-bub-block off.” The Texan checked himself sharply, and the fighting flare faded from his eyes, while his face resumed its normal expression. “You’ve whipped him a’ready,” asserted Phil, still apprehensive. “You took the fuf-fight out of him with the fuf-first wallop. If he’s got any sense at all, he won’t want any more.” Three times Simpson attempted to lift himself before he was able to sit up, and when he succeeded he was forced to hold his swimming head in his hands. His appearance was so pitiful that neither of the boys felt in the least inclined to laugh. “Why, he can’t fight at all,” said Grant. “I wonder how he ever got the notion that he could?” “Knocking the block off such chaps as Carl Duckelstein, I calculate,” said Phil. “I reckon that’s right. Heaps of these self-judged fighters get false notions of their scrapping abilities through whipping fellows no way their equals; and when that happens they’re pretty sure to go prancing round in search of other worlds to conquer, until somebody hands them what’s coming to them.” Slowly and weakly Simpson lifted his head and stared around like one just beginning to comprehend. There was still a ringing in his brain, but the lights had ceased to flash, and he perceived his own position and observed the fellow he had sought to attack standing near at hand, untouched, steady and now calm as ever. For the first time he began to understand that this calmness did not indicate timidity, and, understanding, he was filled with awe bordering on fear. “I reckon, stranger,” said Grant, “that you’re not hurt much; but I hope you’ve tumbled to the fact that you can’t fight any more than a gopher with the croup. If this brook belongs to your governor, and you’d been half decent about asking us not to fish in it, I reckon we’d found plenty of other places to enjoy the sport. But you chose to come at us with spurs on, and you got bucked a plenty when you tried your broncho busting.”