“The hell you say!”

“Yep, that was before your time around these parts.  But Fitz had a couple of jolts of red-eye under his vest and felt pretty strong.  Mac Strann happened in and first thing you know they was at it.  Well, Fitz was a big man.  I ain’t small, but I had to look up when I talked to Fitz.  Scotch-Irish, and they got fightin’ bred into their bone.  Mac Strann passed him a look and Fitz come back with a word.  Soon as he got started he couldn’t stop.  Wasn’t a pretty thing to watch, either.  You could see in Fitz’s face that he knew he was done for before he started, but he wouldn’t, let up.  The booze had him going and he was too proud to back down.  Pretty soon he started cussing Mac Strann.

“Well, by that time everybody had cleared out of the saloon, because they knowed that them sort of words meant bullets comin’.  But Mac Strann jest stood there watchin’, and grinnin’ in his ugly way—­damn his soul black!—­and never sayin’ a word back.  By God, Fatty, he looked sort of hungry.  When he grinned, his upper lip went up kind of slow and you could see his big teeth.  I expected to see him make a move to sink ’em in the throat of Fitz.  But he didn’t.  Nope, he didn’t make a move, and all the time Fitz ravin’ and gettin’ worse and worse.  Finally Fitz made the move.  Yep, he pulled his gun and had it damned near clean on Mac Strann before that devil would stir.  But when he did, it was jest a flash of light.  Both them guns went off, but Mac’s bullet hit Fitz’s hand and knocked the gun out of it—­so of course his shot went wild.  But Fitz could see his own blood, and you know what that does to the Scotch-Irish?  Makes some people quit cold to see their own blood.  I remember a kid at school that was a whale at fightin’ till his nose got to bleedin’, or something, and then he’d quit cold.  But you take a Scotch-Irishman and it works just the other way.  Show him his own colour and he goes plumb crazy.

“That’s what happened to Fitz.  When he saw the blood on his hand he made a dive at Mac Strann.  After that it wasn’t the sort of thing that makes a good story.  Mac Strann got him around the ribs and I heard the bones crack.  God!  And him still squeezin’, and Fitz beatin’ away at Mac’s face with his bleedin’ hand.

“Will you b’lieve that I stood here and was sort of froze?  Yes, Fatty, I couldn’t make a move.  And I was sort of sick and hollow inside the same way I went one time when I was a kid and seen a big bull horn a yearlin’.

“Then I heard the breath of Fitz comin’ hoarse, with a rattle in it—­and I heard Mac Strann whining like a dog that’s tasted blood and is starvin’ for more.  A thing to make your hair go up on end, like they say in the story-books.

“Then Fitz—­he was plumb mad—­tried to bite Mac Strann.  And then Mac let go of him and set his hands on the throat of Fitz.  It happened like a flash—­I’m here to swear that I could hear the bones crunch.  And then Fitz’s mouth sagged open and his eyes rolled up to the ceiling, and Mac Strann threw him down on the floor.  Just like that!  Damn him!  And then he stood over poor dead Fitz and kicked him in those busted ribs and turned over to the bar and says to me:  ‘Gimme!’