"Oh, stop him!" begged Emma of the young mountaineer with whom she had been dancing. "He's going to shoot. I know he is. Make them fight it out with their fists. Hippy whipped Lum once, and he can do it again.

I'll be Lum's second and you can be the second for Lieutenant Wingate."

"What's er second, Miss?"

"A--a second is one who fans his fighter with a towel, and wipes up the blood. Oh, do stop him!"

"Ah reckon Ah will," drawled the mountaineer.

"Are ye goin'?" demanded Lum Bangs.

"No!"

"Drop that gun or I'll drill ye, Lum Bangs!" commanded the cool voice of Emma Dean's dancing partner, his revolver now levelled at Lum.

The warning came too late.

Lum Bangs, in a sudden impulse of rage, pulled the trigger and fired point blank at Lieutenant Wingate, but the young mountaineer's warning to him, at the critical moment, had drawn Lum's thoughts from his aim, and his bullet missed its mark. Hippy heard it whistle past him close to his head.

_Bang!_

Barely a second had elapsed between Lum Bangs' shot and a second report.

Lum uttered a howl, and his weapon dropped from his relaxed fingers, just as Hippy sprang upon him and dealt the mountaineer a blow that felled him.

"Don't! Don't, Hippy! The man has been shot," begged Anne.

"Jump on him! Stomp on him, why don't ye?" screamed a mountain girl.

The room was in instant uproar, and weapons were drawn and levelled menacingly at the young mountaineer who had ordered Lum to "drop" his gun.

"Stop!" cried Emma Dean excitedly. "This man didn't fire that second shot. He has done nothing, so put away your cannon."

"That's right, folks. Ah didn't shoot, but Ah was goin' t'. Some other duffer fired the shot that hit Lum. You-all kin look at mah gun." He held it out with the muzzle toward him.

The men crowded about him, examining the cylinder to see if a cartridge had been fired from it, and taking a sniff at the muzzle.

"That's right. It ain't been fired," agreed a mountaineer, a puzzled expression appearing on his face. "Did Lum get his'n?"

"No. The bullet went through his wrist," answered Lieutenant Wingate, who, having turned up the sleeve of Bangs' coat, was peering at the wounded wrist. "Men, I'm sorry I struck him, but you see I didn't know some one was going to shoot him. I had to punch him to save my own life, expecting that he would shoot again. As it was I nearly ran into that second shot. Fetch me something--some water."

A gla.s.s of lemonade was brought, and Nora Wingate threw it into the face of the unconscious mountaineer. In the meantime, Elfreda was giving first aid to the injured wrist. Lum began to stir about this time, and, at Elfreda's suggestion, he was carried to a window where he might get more free air.

The mountaineers were puzzled. They had, by then, examined every revolver in the room, including those carried by the Overland Riders, but not one had been fired.

"Ah wants ter know who fired that shot," demanded one of them. "Somebody did, an' we're goin' to find the critter that did it. I ain't sayin'

that this feller with the uniform on didn't do all right in hittin' Lum, but what we wants t' find out is who winged him in the wrist."

"I think, gentlemen, that the second shot was fired through the window.

I am quite certain that it was. I sat near the window and the report of the weapon seemed to be behind me," Anne Nesbit informed them.

There was a concerted rush for the outer air, leaving the Overlanders to attend to Lum Bangs, who was now almost wholly restored to consciousness. Julie Thompson was standing back a little from the group about him, gazing at Lum, a heavy frown on her forehead. Grace nodded and smiled to the girl.

"Don't worry, Julie. He will be all right in a few moments," soothed the Overland girl.

"I ain't worryin' fer the likes o' him," she replied, elevating her chin and turning her back on her escort.

The Overland girls looked at each other inquiringly.

"Ah hearn somethin' 'bout ye to-night, Lum Bangs, that ye don't know as Ah does know," she said, whirling suddenly on him.

"You-all ain't goin' back on me, are yuh, Julie?" begged Lum.

"Naw. Ah ain't goin' back on ye, cause Ah already has. Ah don't want nothin' more t' do with ye. Understand?"

The mountaineer's face reddened.

"Who shot me?" he demanded, sitting up suddenly and feeling for his weapon.

"You needn't look at me that way," objected Hippy. "I didn't shoot you.

I punched you, that's all. Some one on the outside of the building fired the shot that hit you. I--"

A commotion at the door interrupted Hippy. The mountaineers came crowding in dragging Washington Washington with them. Washington's eyes were rolling, and he was trembling from fright.

"Is this heah your n.i.g.g.ah?" demanded one, glaring at Hippy.

"No, he isn't my 'n.i.g.g.ah,' but he belongs to our outfit. Why?" replied Lieutenant Wingate.

"'Cause we found him hidin' in the bushes, an' reckoned as mebby he is the feller that shot Lum."

"What, Wash?" laughed Emma Dean. "Why, Wash couldn't hit the side of a barn with a shotgun. Besides, he has no revolver, and it was a revolver that fired the shot you refer to."

"Let me talk to him," urged Grace. "Washington, were you outside near the building when the shots were fired?" she asked in a soothing tone.

"Yessah--yes'm."

"Did you see any one near the window?"

"Yessah--yes'm. Ah--Ah sawed er man hidin' in de bush dere."

"Did you see him shoot?" asked Elfreda.

"Ah did not, but Ah heard him shoot, den w'en Ah looked, Ah didn't sawed him no moah."

"Who was it?" demanded a mountaineer.

"Ah doan know. Ah didn't sawed him close 'nuf, an' den Ah didn't sawed him at all."

"He oughter be strung up anyway," suggested a voice.