What followed was blurred like the action of a rattler’s head as it strikes. The left hand of Ware’s Kid moved--so rapidly that none there actually saw it move. It caught up the whisky glass from the bar and flipped the stinging liquor squarely into Bull Branch’s face. As the huge figure reeled, hands going to tortured eyes, Ware’s Kid shot forward. He twitched Branch’s Colts from their holsters and hurled them into a corner. He rained blows upon Bull Branch’s face --leaping clear off the floor to reach that height. It was cat-and-mastiff. Blindly, Bull Branch tried to push him off, but those hard fists, landing with force terrifically out of proportion to the small body behind them, cut his face to ribbons, closed his eyes to puffy-lidded slits, drove sickeningly into his mid-section. He staggered about the barroom, grunting, whining, helpless. At last some instinct seemed to show him the door. He broke for it at a staggering run and Ware’s Kid, with a Comanche yell, leaped upon his back and spurred him through it, catching hold of the lintel and swinging down to the floor as Bull Branch lurched through and fell sprawling upon the veranda floor outside. When he came back, the bartender was half-crouched against the back-bar, with eyes bulging. Bos’ Johnson and the other patrons were clinging to the bar, some whooping feebly, others too weak to do more than shed happy tears. Bos’ Johnson waggled a hand at the bartender. “Set ’em up, bartender!” he gasped. “This ’n’s on the house. Ware! Mebbe they won’t neveh hi’st no monument to you-all here, but Bull Branch--he’ll re-membeh you-all plenty!” * * * * * Back in the sheriff’s office, Johnson turned suddenly serious again. He sat staring at the wall, his harsh face rigid as if set in bronze. “I got you-all into that trouble with Bull Branch,” Johnson said suddenly. “Done it a-purpose.” Ware’s Kid merely waited, brown face, gray-green eyes, revealing nothing of his thoughts. “Wondered if you-all really was Ware an’, if you was, how much o’ the talk was so. Because--I shore do need some help!” “Fer what?” “To go out with me tonight an’ stand up to Sam Bass’s gang!” Ware’s Kid studied the grimly earnest face. From the beginning he had sensed something unusual about him. He thought that Johnson was usually a happy-go-lucky cowpuncher and a man efficient with either hands or weapons. He was used to judging men quickly and he began to like this stocky deputy. “A’ right!” he grunted curtly. “You-all willin’?” cried Johnson. “Then here’s the layout. They’re goin’ to stick up the east-bound T & P ag’in at Eagle Ford. Figger folks won’t be expectin’ lightnin’ to hit twict in the same place. Me ’n’ you, we’ll be in the weeds ’long the track.” “How-come just us two?”