"You can't bluff me!" roared the older man. "I'm going to have you jugged for false arrest. You'll find you can't go round taking people to jail at your own sweet will." The battle song in the old man's voice aroused the street. His sympathizers pressed close. All their long-felt, half-hidden hatred of the ranger as a Federal officer flamed from their eyes, and Hanscom regretted the absence of his revolver. Though lean and awkward, he was one of those deceptive men whose muscles are folded in broad, firm flakes like steel springs. A sense of danger thrilled his blood, but he did not show it--he could not afford to show it. Therefore he merely backed up against the wall of the building and with clenched hands awaited their onset. Something in his silence and self-control daunted his furious opponents. They hesitated. "If you weren't a government officer," blustered Abe, "I'd waller ye--But I'll get ye! I'll put ye where that Dutchman and his--" Hanscom's fist crashing like a hammer against the rancher's jaw closed his teeth on the vile epithet which filled his mouth, and even as he reeled, stunned by this blow, the ranger's left arm flashed in another savage swing, and Abe, stunned by the swift attack, would have fallen into the gutter had not one of his gang caught and supported him. "Kill him! Kill the dog!" shouted one of the others, and in his voice was the note of the murderer. Eli Kitsong whipped out his revolver, but the hand of a friendly bystander clutched the weapon. "None of that; the man is unarmed," he said. At this moment the door of the saloon opened and five or six men came rushing, eager to see, quick to share in a fight. Believing them to be enemies, Hanscom with instant rush struck the first man a heavy blow, caught and wrenched his weapon from his fist, and so, armed and desperate, faced the circle of inflamed and excited men. "Hands up now!" he called. "Don't shoot, Hans!" shouted the man who had been disarmed. "We're all friends." In the tense silence which followed, the sheriff, attracted by the noise, emerged from the coroner's door with a shout and hurled himself like an enormous ram into the crowd. Pushing men this way and that, he reached the empty space before the ranger's feet. "What's the meaning of all this?" he demanded, with panting intensity. "Put up them guns." The crowd obeyed. "Now, what's it all about?" he said, addressing Abe. "He jumped me," complained Kitsong. "I want him arrested for that and for taking Henry without a warrant." "Where's _your_ warrant?" asked Throop. Abe was confused. "I haven't any yet, but I'll get one."