Clavering shrugged his shoulders. "Of course, it sounds better that way. Have it so. Still, it will scarcely pay you to make yourself unpopular with us, Larry." "Well," said Grant drily, "it seems to me I'm tolerably unpopular already. But that's not quite the point. Take your boys away." Clavering flung his hand up in half-ironical salutation, but as he was about to wheel his horse a young Englishman whose nationality was plainly stamped upon him seized his bridle. "Not quite so fast!" he said. "It would be more fitting if you got down and expressed your regrets to the fraeulein. You haven't heard Muller's story yet, Larry." "Let go," said Clavering, raising the switch he held. "Drop my bridle or take care of yourself!" "Come down," said Breckenridge. The switch went up and descended hissing upon part of an averted face; but the lad sprang as it fell, and the next moment the horse rose almost upright with two men clinging to it; one of them, whose sallow cheeks were livid now, swaying in the saddle. Then Grant grasped the bridle that fell from the rider's hands, and hurled his comrade backwards, while some of the stockriders pushed their horses nearer, and the axe-men closed in about them. Hoarse cries went up. "Horses back! Pull him off! Give the Britisher a show! Leave them to it!" It was evident that a blunder would have unpleasant results, for Clavering, with switch raised, had tightened his left hand on the bridle Grant had loosed again, while a wicked smile crept into his eyes, and the lad stood tense and still, with hands clenched in front of him, and a weal on his young face. Grant, however, stepped in between them. "We've had sufficient fooling, Breckenridge," he said. "Clavering, I'll give you a minute to get your men away, and if you can't do it in that time you'll take the consequences." Clavering wheeled his horse. "The odds are with you, Larry," he said. "You have made a big blunder, but I guess you know your own business best." He nodded, including the fraeulein, with an easy insolence that yet became him, touched the horse with his heel, and in another moment he and his cow-boys were swinging at a gallop across the prairie. Then, as they dipped behind a rise, those who were left glanced at one another. Breckenridge was very pale, and one of his hands was bleeding where Clavering's spur had torn it. "It seems that we have made a beginning," he said hoarsely. "It's first blood to them, but this will take a lot of forgetting, and the rest may be different." Grant made no answer, but turned and looked at Muller, who stood very straight and square, with a curious brightness in his eyes. "Are you going on with the contract? There is the girl to consider," said Grant. [Illustration: "COME DOWN!"--Page 47.] "Ja," said the Teuton. "I was in der Vosges, and der girl is also Fraeulein Muller."