"Call in all your outfit and tell Billy to send in a basket of wine." With his own hand he filled the glasses and then turned to the waiting throng with uplifted beaker: "To the new owner of the O Bar O!" They drank it vociferously and when the bottles were finally empty Coogan passed around the cigars. Douglass, though fully aware of the man's uncanny past, felt for the now apparently despondent wretch the involuntary pity which the huntsman feels always for the dangerous tiger which he has laid low after a titanic struggle. He tried to think of some service that he could consistently render him; there was so much in this man of gigantic frame and undaunted courage! He had shown himself game to an incredible degree, and somehow the thought of that herculean throat purpling in the noose of a Mexican rope was violently distasteful to him. Impelled by a sudden impulse he went over to him and while ostensibly bidding him good-by, contrived to whisper unperceived: "My horse, a roan, is tied just under this window. Nothing on this range can touch him! I'll hinder them all I can. Good luck to you!" Over the man's face swept a great wonder. He tried to speak but the words stuck in his throat; he dropped his eyes and gripped Ken's hand hard. "If I make it I'll live straight hereafter!" he mumbled, thankfully. There is no man so brave but what chills on the threshold of the Valley of the Shadow! As Douglass turned laughingly to reply to some witticism of Ballard's concerning "bloated cattle kings" and their liquorous obligations to the common community, Coogan put his hands behind his back and with head bowed as in deep meditation paced slowly toward the window. The Mexican sheriff, resolutely interposed between him and the opening, drew his revolver and curtly said: "Pardon! Senor Coogan, I would have speech with you. I have here a warrant--" He got no farther, having committed the fatal error of letting his man get too close. With a leap like that of a charging tiger, the gambler was upon him, one hand catching the wrist below the weapon, the other falling with frightful force upon the olive temple. Under the impact of their combined weight the flimsy window gave way like blotting paper and both men were precipitated on the ground outside. With a pretense of going to the sheriff's aid Douglass managed to trip up the marshall, whose quickly-drawn weapon was harmlessly discharged in the floor, and as the others stumbled and fell over his prostrate body Douglass managed to get himself somehow wedged in the window, thus effectually preventing any use of firearms.