With a roar like a mad bull Sabota rushed his slight antagonist.  Lunging forward, blind with rage, he aimed a murderous blow at the head of the Ramblin’ Kid.  The cowboy ducked, but not in time to escape the wide swing of the massive, hairy fist.  The Greek’s knuckles raked the side of the Kid’s face and the blood rained down his cheek from a cruel cut under the eye.  The Ramblin’ Kid spun around like a top and for the fraction of a second stood swaying uncertainly.

For a moment they faced each other, crouching, watching for an opening.  Sabota’s great hands worked convulsively, eager to grasp and crush his wiry opponent; the Ramblin’ Kid, with lips curled back from white teeth, like a pure-bred terrier circling a mastiff, bent forward, every muscle tense as drawn copper, his eyes cold as a rattler’s as he searched for a place to strike!

The crowd in the pool-room instinctively kept far back and gave the unequal combatants ample room.

From Sabota’s lips poured a steady torrent of blasphemy.  The Ramblin’ Kid made no sound as, with body swaying slowly from side to side, his shoulders heaved with the full, heavy breaths that reached to the bottom of his lungs.

Suddenly, like some wild beast, Sabota sprang forward.  The Ramblin’ Kid met him—­in mid-air—­right and left jolting, almost at the same instant, into the beefy jaws of the Greek.  At the impact a claw-like hand shot out and the gorilla fingers of the left hand of the brute-man the Ramblin’ Kid fought, closed over the throat of the cowboy.  Sabota threw his right arm around the back of his antagonist, gripping the shoulder on the far side of his body and drew the slender form toward him—­pinning the Ramblin’ Kid’s left arm and hand to his side.

Skinny’s hand dropped to the butt of his gun and rested there.

The Ramblin’ Kid struggled desperately in the strangling grasp of the crazed Greek.  The two reeled back and forth, crashing chairs and tables to the floor, and lunged against the bar.  The Ramblin’ Kid’s gun fell from its scabbard at the side of the brass foot-rail.  Sabota’s eyes glared down into the face of the man he was choking to death—­gleaming with the ferocity of an animal gone mad—­Awhile bloody foam spewed from his bleeding lips.  The cowboy’s face was beginning to flush a terrible purple as the breath was gradually crushed from his body.

As the Greek forced him back, bending him down and over, the Ramblin’ Kid, his eyes burning like fire while a million flashes of light seemed to stab the darkness before them and needles darted through every fiber of his flesh, wrenched his right arm free and gripping the back of Sabota’s shirt with his left hand to give purchase to the blow, with all the strength left in his body, drove the knuckles of his right fist into the left temple of the Greek.

The blow went home.

A film, like a veil drawn across the fiendish glare in them, spread over the eyes of Sabota, his grip on the throat of the cowboy relaxed and as a bull, struck by the hammer of the butcher, he dropped to the floor.