"Leave the boy alone!" he cried angrily, his face pale as he laboured to stifle his excitement.

He had refrained from interfering as long as he could, well knowing his present physical weakness and what a mix-up might mean to him if the police happened along, but this ill-treatment was a little more than he could stand, despite all possible consequences.

The moment Smiler was released, the boy ran to the door and away.

Meantime, McGregor pulled himself together and began to laugh as if from his stomach.

"I guess that means a sc.r.a.p," he grunted.

"Not that I know of," put in Phil. "But I like to see fair play. The youngster wasn't hurting you."

For answer McGregor unbuckled his belt and handed it to his friend called St.i.tchy, spitting noisily on the saw-dusted floor.

The hotel proprietor jumped over the counter and interfered.

"There's going to be no rough-house here. If you fools want to fight get out on the back lot where there's plenty of room. Come on,--out you go! The whole caboodle of you!"

He and his a.s.sistant--both burly men--cleared the bar.

Phil was among the last to leave, and, in a faint hope of avoiding trouble, he turned aside, but McGregor sprang after him and laid hold.

"Not by a d.a.m.n-sight!" he cried. "Here, stick them up!"

He feinted round Phil, then ran in on him. Phil had no alternative. He put up his arms, jumped aside and dealt the cattleman a stiff blow on the mouth.

The crowd gathered round and made a ring. For a time, Phil more than held his own, getting in blow after blow, while McGregor tried his best to come to grips.

"Don't ever let him get his arms round you," cautioned a friendly voice, the owner of which Phil had no time to note.

The stout-chested cattleman had no science, but he possessed an unlimited amount of vital energy and strength. Phil had science, but nothing else to back it up.

The ultimate issue was beyond all question and Phil knew it, for five minutes had not gone ere he was gasping for breath and had black specks floating in hundreds before his vision. He sprang aside and circled time and again, trying to avoid his antagonist's determination to get to grips, but at last, just after a particularly close escape, someone pushed him suddenly from behind and, before he was aware of it, two great arms were round him crushing the life out of him. He struggled frantically, but felt like a puppy-dog in the paws of a grizzly. He was whirled round and round till he grew dizzy. He was crushed and hugged until he became faint. When his bones were cracking and the very life seemed oozing out of him, he felt himself suddenly catapulted somewhere in glorious release, then his senses gave way and he remembered no more for a time.

When he came to, he was lying on the bar-room floor. Someone, whose face he recollected, was bending over him, holding up his head and mopping his brow with a wet cloth. He looked into the face and remembered it. It was the long-legged man with the mop of wavy, auburn hair, whom he had noticed sitting by the window in abstraction a short time before.

"Getting better, old man?" said the young fellow good-naturedly, grinning and showing his great, strong, prominent teeth.

Phil muttered a few inarticulate words of thanks and tried to rise.

The lanky man helped him up, led him over to a bench, set him down and then sat down beside him.

"Sorry I didn't interfere sooner. Might have saved you that rough handling," said the stranger. "But to tell you the truth, I thought you were going to eat Rob Roy McGregor up. Guess you could, too, for you handle your fists better than any man I have ever seen;--but you're just as weak as a half-drowned kitten. What's the matter; been boozing?"

"No!" replied Phil. "I seldom drink."

"Lucky you!" put in the big fellow. "Sick then?"

"Yes!--I--I'm just recovering from a severe illness," answered Phil, for want of a better excuse.

"Just come into town?"

"I came in off the noon train."

"Any friends?"

"No!"

"Say!--you don't mind me cross-examining you this way, old man? I--I kind of like your looks."

A big smile went over the face of the stranger, wrinkling and puckering it amusingly.

"What's your name? Mine's Jim Langford. They call me Wayward,--because I am. I'm a B. Sc. of Edinburgh University; a barrister, by profession only; lazy; fond of books and booze; no darned good; always in trouble; sent out here for the good of my health and for the peace of mind of the family, after a bit of trouble; had ten thousand dollars to start with; spent it all before I woke up. I get fifty dollars a month to keep away from the Old Land.

"Have you a place to sleep to-night? Got any baggage?"

"No!" said Phil, in answer to the second last question. "I haven't had time to look around yet. My baggage is at the station."

"Come then! Let's get your stuff. My landlady has a spare room. I guess she'll be glad to let you have it. She's a decent sort, too."

Phil hesitated a moment.

"If you haven't got the money, that won't matter."

"I have a little;--a very little,--enough for a few days. I'm up here to find work."

"Well,--come along with me for the time being," said Langford.

"All right!" a.s.sented Phil. And the two walked up Main Street together, up toward the railway tracks, past the barn Phil had hidden in on his first, unofficial visit to Vernock.

"How,--how did you manage to beat off those cowpunchers?" asked Phil.

"Easy as breathing! I once punched the heart out of that rotter McGregor. Beat a man once, good and plenty, and it isn't hard beating him again. And that doesn't only refer to fighting, either. But say!

if I didn't know you were a stranger hereabout, I would have said Rob Roy's picking on you was a put up job."

A pang shot through Phil at the suggestion, and it set him wondering.

"First thing you've got to do, young fellow, is to get up your strength and go back and lick the stuffing out of that sc.u.m. If you don't, your life won't be worth living in Vernock."

Phil laughed.

"That's straight goods!" returned Langford, his Scottish burr turning the Western phrase strangely.

"Well--I don't mind if I do," said Phil.

They called in at the railway depot, and Phil got his two grips.

"Ralston!--what kind of business do you follow? Hope you aren't a pen-pusher, because pen-pushing isn't for you for some time to come.

What you need is something out in the open. You seem to have played merry h.e.l.l with your const.i.tution. I'm skin and bone myself, but I'm not the fattening kind. I'm built for speed. Now your frame's made for muscle and flesh, and you haven't a pick of meat on your entire carca.s.s."