Hunter was on him like a wild cat and down to earth they went, rolling, clawing, fighting, with no words at all to waste. Bud flung the lighter man off, got up again, ran a yard, and was pulled down. Somehow Jim’s fists found their mark. Bud felt his nose ache with resentment. In turn he traded blows and heard them land solidly. There was a burly strength in the storekeeper’s shoulder, a power which once in the older days had made him top hand of the county. Right now he spared none of it to get clear. But it didn’t matter how many times he threw Hunter away, the man was back again, pinning him to earth like a clothes dummy; and each fall hurt the corpulent Bud more than he cared to admit. “I got to quit smokin’,” he said to himself. “Wind ain’t no good.” Toby, nearby, snorted. They rolled beneath his very feet and he moved uneasily. Bud dragged himself and Hunter upward toward the saddle. “No you don’t!” panted Jim. “Come back here.” Bud, falling, had his face turned toward the girl’s house, and he saw a shaft of light spring out of the opening doorway. Somebody stood on the threshold. He wondered if this was actually so or whether the little skyrockets in his head caused the illusion. He was soon enough put to rest about it; for a shrill, terrified scream shattered the air. Hunter’s aggressiveness instantly ebbed, and a gasp broke from his hard-pressed lungs. “What’s that?” Bud’s mind attained an unprecedented nimbleness. Somebody had come across the desert from an opposite direction and gone into the house while they were fighting the silent battle. Bottle-nose Henderson, then! The man was somewhere in the Burnt Creek region. “Huh,” he grunted. “I thought you were tryin’ to put somethin’ over on me. Thought you was Bottle-nose. Been trailin’ him all day. Leggo, you darned scorpion! This dog-goned darkness! I thought I had him pinned down.” Together they ran across the prairie and reached the open door. Hunter was the faster, and he made a single stride to the far corner where the girl, back to the wall, faced a thin, nondescript creature whose crimson, bulbous nose and slack mouth gave him a particularly vicious expression. Hunter flung himself upon the man and threw him against the wall so hard as to make the small place shake from rafter to floor. Bud, near done up, was content to watch them fight. Hunter was a veritable wild cat. He beat down the invader’s defense and, like a boy who has found pleasure in throwing things, swept his man across the room and slammed him against another wall, overturning a chair and table on the way. It was soon over. Bottle-nose collapsed with a sigh of defeat, slid to the floor, and whined for mercy. Jim Hunter strode over to the girl, looking as one just emerged from a mob attack. His shirt hung in ribbons about his gangling arms. There were sundry cuts over his face, and his hair was ground with sand. But nothing could conceal the flare in his eyes.