The opening door let in this much of the heated opinion of a portion of the building. The opening door also admitted the cowboy. Slowly, soberly, almost crawling, he came. He was mournfully changed. That single eye was puffing redly. His straw-colored hair was almost dark with sweat, and inclined to lie down. From either shoulder hung woefully a half of his vest, which had ripped straight down its back! And, yes, there was blood in evidence!--on the knuckles of both hands! This bright decoration was from a nose which dripped scarlet spots upon the front sections of the vest. "Oh, One-Eye!" moaned Cis, yet not without relief. At least he was alive--could stand--could walk! "Goodness!" Johnnie's exclamation had in it a note of pure chagrin. His cowboy had not won! "What did he do t' y'?" the boy wanted to know, almost blamefully. "Do?" repeated the cowboy, wrathfully. "Say! He went and busted my fountain pen!" He began feeling his way toward the stove. When he got as far as the mattress, he first hunted his handkerchief and applied it to the stopping of that nasal stream, then, grunting painfully, he lay down. "Git all y' wanted?" inquired the longshoreman. "My land!" returned the Westerner. "I got a hay-wagonful!" "Man dear!" gasped Father Pat, making for the wash basin. Johnnie felt suddenly heartsick. Would not the tale of One-Eye's defeat scatter in the neighborhood? and if it did, would not his own proud position be threatened along with the cowboy's? Whipped by Tom Barber! That was all right for a kid! But for a man who wore hair on his breeches----! The boy sank back in the morris chair. "I'd sooner Big Tom'd whip _me_ again!" he declared under his breath. Barber was mocking One-Eye. "Yes, man dear!" he said. "Heaven didn't make y'r arm as strong as y' wanted it, eh?" He was very cocky, and pushed out either cheek importantly with his tongue. Father Pat was now washing a rapidly closing eye on a sadly battered countenance. "Shure, Heaven'll deal with ye in its own good time!" he promised, nodding a portentous head. Big Tom snorted. "He's been waitin' and waitin'," he observed; "--ever since he first met me. That's why he give me such a hidin'!" One-Eye, the stains of carnage wiped from lip and chin, peered up through a tiny slit between those puffing lids. "Big as a barn," he asserted, but without temper. "Big as a Poland Chinee pig! All beef! All fat!" And to Johnnie, sunk in his quilt, "Don't y' beller, sonny, _I_ ain't got no grunt comin'. I done my best. But he's stronger'n me, that's all they is _to_ it, and heftier. But it all goes to show that if _I_ ain't no match for him, he's lower'n a sheep-eatin' greaser t' go hit a kid--'r a _girl_!" Before that eye slit closed, he crawled to where his hat, coat and gauntlets were, took them up, and fell to warping them into shape again. "But y'r time'll come, sonny!" he vowed. "Y'r time'll come! Jes' y' wait!"