Suddenly there was a roar at the end of the bar and the colonel, crying, "Lemme at him! Lemme see him!" charged down the line, brushing the men along the rail away like flies. The crowd cleared the way instantly, leaving the space open between the wrathful old campaigner and the man quietly sipping his sherry and bitters. Perhaps the suspicion that the colonel was in the habit of "going heeled" made the shrinkage of the men hanging on the bar-rail so unanimous. Colonel Brack, afflicted with an artificial limb, was not possessed of that grace of movement necessary to make a man a personable figure in leading a cotillion; but he was getting over the floor with mighty strides until he suddenly awoke to the fact that none of his friends was restraining him. Not a single man in the group of his adherents laid hold on his coat-tails or tried to soothe and pacify the doughty warrior, while Ryder stood coolly sipping his drink. It was an embarrassing moment. The colonel halted midway in his flight and glanced hastily about; but nobody came tardily to his aid. They all plainly considered that John Ryder deserved all that was coming to him--and they were willing in this case to let the colonel go ahead. Ryder meanwhile watched the colonel curiously, but made no move to guard himself from the threatened attack. For fourteen years Colonel Brack had been a picturesque figure in the café of Pinewood Inn. It was whispered among those whom the colonel had taken into his confidence at odd and various times, that he had in the West a reputation for being "a bad man to stir up, suh!" Usually he played his cards so well that he was "saved by his friends" when upon the verge of doing something rash. In this case everybody was willing to see John Ryder get all that the colonel threatened him with. And it suddenly smote the old fire-eater, and smote him hard, that he had "overplayed his hand." The crowd had rapidly got out of his way, and he had all the room he needed for either fisticuffs or guns. Ryder finished his sherry, and placed the glass softly on the bar. His movements were as deliberate as the colonel's had been impetuous. The latter finally found his voice. "Suh! my contempt for you, and the interference of my friends here, are all that save you from the punishment you deserve, suh! Crippled as I am, honorably and in my country's cause" (it was not generally known that Colonel Brack had lost his leg in a premature explosion in the Leading Sinner Mine, from which still-paying proposition he drew his small income), "and old as I am, nothing less would keep me from laying violent hands upon you, suh!" Ryder turned away from the bar and, as he did so, he snapped his fingers under the colonel's glowing nose. "Cut it short, Colonel, I'm busy," he said. "Haven't you anything else to say to me? No? Then--good-night!" and he walked out of the café.