"I shouldn't think that you HC waddies 'uld be in town nights any more,"--his glittering eyes on them rather jubilantly. The talk stopped, for Webb, unsavory as to reputation, was still a figure in the country and his manner as he spoke was laden with significance. "How's that, Webb?" Hepburn asked. "How's that!" the other mocked. "I've seen her, ain't that enough? There's only two reasons why men want to come to this hole nights; one's booze, an' th' other's women. You can carry your booze out home an'--" He went on with his blackguard inference and when he had ended a laugh went up, a ribald, obscene, barroom laugh. It had reached its height when Tom Beck, whose eyes had been on Hepburn as Webb gave voice to his insult, elbowed the foreman from his way and faced the one who had occasioned that laugh. There was in his manner a quality which caught attention like nippers. He stood, forcing Webb to look into his threatening face a quiet instant. Then he spoke: "That's a lie!" The bantering smile swept from the other's face and his mouth drew down in a slanting snarl. "What's a lie?" "What you said is a lie, Webb, an' you're a liar--" The smaller man's hand whipped to his holster and Beck, breaking short, closed on him, fingers like steel gripping the ready wrist. "Don't try that with me, you rat!" With a steady pull he lifted the resisting hand which gripped the gun away from the man's side while Webb struggled, cursing as he found himself unable to resist that strength. "Give me that gun!" Beck wrenched the weapon free. The group had drawn back and behind him Sam McKee made a quick movement. Two-Bits, beside him, dropped his hand to his hip and muttered: "Keep out of this!" McKee, hate flickering in his face, subsided, without protest, as a craven will. Tom broke the gun and the cartridges scattered on the floor. He closed it with a snap and sent it spinning down the bar, clear to the far end. His eyes had not left Webb's face. "You're a liar," he said again quietly. "You're a liar and you're going to tell all the boys here that you're a liar." "Don't tell me I lie!"--retreating a step as Beck's body swayed toward him. "You lied," Tom said quietly, though his voice was not just steady. His hands were clenched and he held them slightly before his body as though yearning for opportunity to seize upon and injure the other. "What is it to you, anyhow, if--" "It's this to me, Webb: It makes me want to strangle the foul breath in your throat! That's what it is to me an' before these boys I will if you don't swallow your own dirty words just to get their taste. "I don't want to be a killer, even over such as you are, but you've got me mad. We don't know an' nobody else knows how this girl's goin' to make it in this country, but, by God, Webb, she's goin' to have a fair chance. There ain't going to be any rotten talk that ain't called for an' it ain't called for ... yet.