Dawn seeped in through the windows. Lance, lying flat on his stomach with his face on his folded arms, slept soundly. The unpainted buildings across the street became visible in the gloomy, lifeless gray of a sunless morning. With the breeze that swept a flurry of gray dust and a torn newspaper down the street, came the rattle of a wagon, the sound of voices mingled in raucous, incoherent wrangling. "They're comin'," yawned the bartender, glancing at the sleeper on the pool table. "Better wake up; they're comin' pickled and fighty, judgin' by the sound." Lance sighed, turned his face away from the light and slept on, untroubled by the nearing tumult. Galloping horses came first, _ka-lup, ka-lup, ka-lup_, a sharp staccato on the frosted earth. The rattle of the wagon ceased, resumed, stopped outside the saloon. Other galloping horsemen came up and stopped. The door was flung open violently, letting in men with unfinished sentences hot on their tongues. "Next time a Lorrigan dance comes off--" "What I'd a done, woulda--" "Fix them damn Lorrigans!" Detached phrases, no one man troubling to find a listener, the words came jumbled to the ears of Lance, who fancied himself in the bunk-house at home, with the boys just in from a ride somewhere. He was wriggling into a freshly uncomfortable posture on the table when the fur coat was pulled off him, letting the daylight suddenly into his eyes as his brain emerged from the fog of sleep. "And here's the--guy that run away from me!" Bill Kennedy jerked off his hat and brought it down with a slap on Lance's face. "Run off to town, by jiminy, and hid! Run--" Half asleep as he was--rather, just shocked awake--Lance heaved himself off the table and landed one square blow on Bill Kennedy's purple jaw. Bill staggered, caught himself and came back, arms up and fists guarding his face. Lance disentangled his feet from the fur coat, kicked it out of his way and struck again just as Kennedy was slugging at him. At the bar the long line of men whirled, glasses in hand, to watch the fight. But it did not last long. Kennedy was drunk, and Lance was not. So presently Kennedy was crawling on his knees amongst some overturned chairs, and Lance was facing the crowd, every inch of him itching to fight. "Who was it said he was going to fix them damn Lorrigans?" he demanded, coming at them warily. "I'm not packing a gun, but I'd like to lick a few of you fellows that tried to rough-house the dance I gave. Didn't cost you a cent; music, supper, everything furnished for you folks to have a good time--and the way you had it was to wreck the place like the rotten-souled hoodlums you are. Now, who is it wants to fix the damn Lorrigans?" "Me, for one; what yuh go'n take my girl away from me for?" a flushed youth cried, and flung the dregs of his whisky glass at Lance. There was not more than a half teaspoon in the glass, but the intent was plain enough.